Episode 40: The Dorothea Project with Katie Hollar and Krista Varney

Episode 40: The Dorothea Project with Katie Hollar and Krista Varney

Two social media posts started a movement. Less than a year later, the Dorothea Project counts more than 1,100 Catholic women across 75 dioceses. We sit down with founder Katie Holler and project leader Krista Varney to talk about how a grassroots network of Catholic women grew out of one mom's refusal to stay silent. Katie, a social worker in Steubenville, started the Dorothea Project after the second Trump administration's immigration enforcement hit her during her postpartum maternity leave. She made two Facebook posts asking if anyone else felt the same. Dozens of women answered, most of them saying some version of "I thought I was the only one." Named for Dorothy Day and Sister Thea Bowman, the Dorothea Project educates Catholics on Catholic social teaching and moves them to act in defense of vulnerable people. The conversation digs into why CST stays the so-called "best kept secret of the Church", what happens when you start treating your bishop like a constituent who needs to hear from you, and why building a movement means getting comfortable with tension instead of waiting for everyone to agree on everything. We get into the work of organizing at both the national and local level, the new CST-based voter guide the group is building ahead of the midterms, and why the laity coming to know their own power might be the real shift the Church needs.

Episode 39: Permission to be Human with Karen Brtvedt Estrada, Somatic Stress Release Practitioner

Tim joins Maggie in the host seat for a rich conversation with Karen Bortvedt Estrada, a somatic stress release practitioner and founder of Wish You Knew. Karen helps us notice the things we override all day, the clenched jaw, the tensed shoulders, and makes the case for "humaning" instead of performing. The three get honest about the cost of caregiving work, and the scripts (capitalism, perfectionism, "your reward will be great in heaven") that keep ministers, teachers, and nonprofit folks running until they collapse. Karen's reframe is freeing: you are not broken, you're feeling the symptoms of a broken system, and naming that is where healing begins. The episode closes on the church itself, with Karen sharing what she wishes faith communities understood about the body, intuition, and letting their people be human, messy, and rested rather than endlessly productive.

Episode 38: Belonging Before Believing with Rosie Chinea Shawver

Rosie Chinea Shawver didn't embrace faith until college. She grew up in a Puerto Rican and Cuban household where faith was present but not personal, like a piece of furniture. It took a persistent friend, a cute guy in the choir, and a priest who took her out for froyo to change all of that. Now, nearly 20 years into campus ministry and serving as Executive Director of the Catholic Campus Ministry Association (CCMA), Rosie has given her life to making sure young people have the same kind of encounter she did. In this conversation, we talk with Rosie about what it really takes to accompany young adults in faith and why that slow, deeply human work is exactly what the church needs more of right now.

Episode 37: One Year of Pope Leo XIV with Colleen Dulle

One year ago, white smoke rose over the Sistine Chapel and the world met Pope Leo XIV — the first American pontiff in the 2,000-year history of the Catholic Church. A lot has happened since then. To mark the anniversary, we're joined again by Colleen Dulle. Colleen is the Vatican correspondent for America Magazine, co-host of the Inside the Vatican podcast, and author of Struck Down, Not Destroyed: Keeping the Faith as a Vatican Reporter. Colleen reported live from Rome during the Conclave and has been tracking Leo's papacy ever since. She joins us from the middle of an international move with her young family, and we are so grateful for her time. Colleen's Links: Struck Down, Not Destroyed on Bookshop.org [https://bookshop.org/p/books/struck-down-not-destroyed-keeping-the-faith-as-a-vatican-reporter-colleen-dulle/] Inside the Vatican Podcast [https://www.americamagazine.org/inside-the-vatican] Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/colleendulle/] X (Twitter) [https://x.com/colleendulle]

Episode 36: Accompanying Young Latino Catholics with Instituto Fe y Vida

What does it look like to walk alongside young Latino Catholics at this particular moment in the life of the Church — and in the life of the United States? That's the heart of today's conversation with Juan Escarfuller and Elisabeth Roman from Instituto Fe y Vida, a Lasallian ministry founded in 1994 to form young Latinos as servant leaders in the Church and society. From WhatsApp groups that outlast retreats to banner-making retreats that reunite teens with their parents, Juan and Ellie paint a vivid picture of what formation rooted in community, culture, and faith actually looks like on the ground. They also speak candidly about the fear, grief, and resilience spreading through Latino parishes in the current political climate, and what they witnessed firsthand when a delegation of over 90 migrants was received by Pope Leo at the Vatican.