When your son becomes a priest—and you’re not so sure about the Catholic Church

Jesuitical

America Media

News, News Commentary, Spirituality, Religion & Spirituality, Christianity

4.7 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 20 February 2026

⏱️ 68 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week on “Jesuitical,” Ashley and guest host Sebastian sit down with Kristen Gilger, author of My Son, The Priest: A Mother’s Crisis of Faith and her son, Patrick Gilger, S.J., to discuss their interwoven journeys of faith. 0:00 Critiquing our ashes 3:00 Pope Leo's first Ash Wednesday 4:35 Vatican won't join "Board of Peace" 5:50 St. Peter's has a new snack bar! 8:10 Kristin's shock when Paddy joined the Jesuits 16:58 The challenges of poverty, chastity and obedience 22:00 Giving up marriage and a family 34:45 Cafeteria Catholicism 38:35 Reconciliation without agreement 45:10 Being open to change 50:22 Catholicism's lingering appeal 1:04:25 Faith sharing: love your enemies Links for further reading: My son became a priest. I still felt conflicted about God and religion. Buy Kristen’s Book: My Son, The Priest: A Mother’s Crisis of Faith Pope Leo on Ash Wednesday: It’s ‘rare to find adults who repent’ Vatican will not join Trump’s ‘Board of Peace’ for Gaza, Cardinal Parolin says Vatican expands visitor experience at St. Peter’s Basilica to mark 400th anniversary You can follow us on X and on Instagram @jesuiticalshow. You can find us on Facebook at facebook.com/groups/jesuitical. Please consider supporting Jesuitical by becoming a digital subscriber to America magazine at americamagazine.org/subscribe Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to Jesuitical, a podcast from America Media for saints and sinners.
0:14.8	You can join us each week for honest conversations about the Catholic Church in our world today, sometimes over drinks.
0:20.5	I'm Ashlyn McKinless, and I'm joined by Sebastian Gomes.
0:23.4	My ashes are like right square center in the middle of my forehead, right?
0:27.0	They're not like weirdly off to the side.
0:29.1	A little to my left.
0:32.5	I also have terrible vision, and you're very small on the screen.
0:35.6	But as people can see if they're watching
0:37.8	the video, I do not yet have my ashes. We're having masks here at America Media's office at
0:42.6	315 and we're recording around 1 o'clock. So I feel a little, I feel a little embarrassed
0:47.7	and empty without my ashes. Yeah, I'm a little bit holier than you right now because I went first
0:52.6	thing in the morning, but it was a little bit awkward when he put them on. I was like, you are not even trying to get
0:58.4	to the middle of my head. This is just weirdly off to the side. So maybe a good reminder of, you know,
1:04.5	how broken and in need of correction we are interiorly to begin lent. Yes. Well, you might be
1:10.7	holy, but you have some explaining to do for Canada.
1:13.8	Oh, boy.
1:14.1	Because I knew you guys were competitive about ice hockey, but curling, really?
1:19.5	Curling?
1:20.0	You're going to cheat?
1:21.3	Yes.
1:22.2	I've been talking about curling.
1:23.6	I think the last couple of weeks on the show because Canada is a big curling country at the Olympics.
	...

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