Effects of the government shutdown, Pope Leo's first apostolic exhortation, and an interview with Fr. David Inczauskis, SJ
Heidi, Dan, and David look at the ongoing government shutdown from the perspective of Catholic Social Teaching, and the notion that the government should exist to promote the common good. Then they look at Dilexi Te, the Holy Father's first apostolic exhortation to the faithful. Finally, Heidi interviews Fr. David Inczauskis, SJ, who was involved in the recent efforts to bring the Eucharist to imprisoned migrants at an ICE facility near Chicago.
SHOW NOTES
https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/leo-francis-poor-exhortation-pope-poor-dilexi-te
https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/apost_exhortations/documents/20251004-dilexi-te.html
TRANSCRIPT
INTRO
DAULT: Hello and welcome to the Francis Effect Podcast. My name is David Dalt. I host a radio show called Things Not Seen about Culture and Faith, and I'm an assistant professor of Christian Spirituality at the Institute of Pastoral Studies at Loyola University Chicago. I'm here with my dear friends Heidi Schlump and Dan Harran.
Heidi is an award-winning journalist and a part-time faculty member at Loyola University Chicago. Dan is professor of philosophy, religious studies and Theology at St. Mary's College in Notre Dame, Indiana. He's also a regular columnist at National Catholic Reporter. Every couple of weeks we get together to discuss news and events through a lens of our shared Catholic faith.
Dan and Heidi, welcome to you both. Heidi. How have you been?
SCHLUMPF: I've been great. I just submitted my midterm grades this morning, so it is officially the middle of the semester which feels good and it finally feels like fall to me. I just got back from a trip last week to the East Coast. So the main reason I was traveling was to go to Fairfield University in Connecticut.
To give a talk that was part of a smaller conference about women in the church, and it was a lovely conference. I heard some really great papers and got to meet some young women theologians who I had not met before. And gave my talk, which was well received. And then I connected with a few folks from the Connecticut area who saw I was in town as well.
But then I got to have like a little mini vacation. I hung out with one of my best friends who lives in the New York area, but who has a house in the Berkshires. And it was like le, it wasn't peak, but it was leaves changing. We went to some pumpkin thing. We had a lovely dinner. We went to the farmer's market.
I really needed it. I needed like a little vacation. My only regret is my husband couldn't come with me, but it was good to get out, enjoy fall, and now I have the fall spirit now, so I'm officially practically, you know, middle of October and I'm finally feeling like it's fall. So how about you, Dan?
How are you doing?
HORAN: I believe the kids used to call that pumpkin spice season. You know, you got your pumpkin spice latte, your pumpkin spice candles, your pumpkin spice, everything. So, I'm doing well. Like you, we are at midterm here in the tri-campus community in South Bend. And so, as of this recording, our fall break is beginning.
The nice thing about Notre Dame and St. Mary's and Holy Cross is that to keep all the calendars on the same. Schedule, we get a whole week off in each semester. So, just for our listener's sake, we're recording this extra early. Normally we record on the Monday before our Thursday release, but we're thanks to the generosity of David and Heidi recording a few days earlier, the Friday before because I am leaving tomorrow to have a little vacation and traveling internationally during this fall break.
So that's exciting. I'm looking forward to that. I don't know if I'm in pumpkin spice mode quite as much as you are Heidi. Because this fall at least on the calendar, if not kind of climate wise, has been so up and down that my allergies have just been kind of all over the place. I think my sinuses don't know what to do.
Is it expecting kind of fall leave? Annoyance or is it the kind of pollen that was appearing because some trees thought it was spring when it was 80 degrees in October. So, kind of all over the place, but I can't complain. It could be worse other than that kind of plugging along and working on a number of projects that will be approaching deadline when I get back from from my trip.
So. Hoping to stay the course on that. But by and large doing all right and cannot believe actually that we're halfway through the semester. So time does fly when you're having fun and when you're on an academic calendar. Speaking of academic calendars, David, you are also on, Juan, how are you doing?
DAULT: Yeah, so I am part pumpkin, I think. So I have been in the Halloween mode for several weeks now. Now my family and I think I mentioned the last time that we gathered sort of went. Late September to a Halloween popup here in Chicago and just had a delightful time. And we have been doing some other fall themed activities.
My kids who are in high school now, but still very excited to put together Halloween costumes and go out trick or treating. And so we're gearing up for that this year. Personally, I am a little fried this week. Had a lot of things happen here in the house. We had some electrical surges in our block about a month and a half ago that kind of cooked several of the appliances that we have.
And so we've had electricians in to upgrade our electrical work and we've had to replace some, some appliances and so I've been managing a lot of that. Not all of it, but a good deal of it has sort of fallen into my lap and I find that kind of detail work exhausting. And that coupled with just some other stuff, including being at the middle of the semester.
I got to the middle of this week and I just basically went offline for a couple of days and so I'm better rested now than I was, but I'm still kind of catching up on emails and other things that just haven't been able to be dealt with Sometimes. That's just what the brain does and it we weather it as best we can, but.
I feel good
HORAN: That's the most important thing.
DAULT: de, despite dropping the balls, I feel, you know, like, I feel basically, you know, in a good mood. And I, I've been I've been having good conversations with friends and I am looking forward to our conversations today. And so, you know, I certainly welcome. Prayers from our listeners and prayers from the two of you, but also I'm not in a dire state, just in an exhausted one, and so sometimes that happens.
Speaking of conversations, here's what's coming up on the show today. In our first segment, we're gonna be talking about the effects of the government shutdown. Although let us say that we hope that by the time that you hear this next week, the government shutdown will be ended, but we are gonna talk about how it is affecting us.
Now more than two weeks in in our second segment, we're gonna be looking at the first sort of communication on an official level from Pope Leo the 14th. Del Te has just been released and we're gonna be talking about that. And then in our third segment, Heidi's gonna be interviewing Father David Inky.
And he was one of the priests that was helping with the masses at the Great Lakes Naval Base and others sort of trying to take Eucharist. To those that have been imprisoned by ICE recently here in the Chicago area, so all that is coming up on the Francis Effect. We do hope that you'll stay with us.
Thank you.
SEGMENT 1
HORAN: Welcome back to The Francis Effect. I'm Dan Harran and I'm here with David Dolt and Heidi Schlump. Every couple of weeks we get together to discuss a variety of topics from a perspective informed by our Catholic faith. On October 1st, 2025, when the we hours of the early morning at 12:01 AM Congress failed to pass yet again the necessary appropriations to keep federal government activities going for fiscal year 2026.
This impasse was largely driven by disagreements. Between the political parties, over spending levels, including issues related to healthcare, subsidies that would be expired, leading certain people to have increases of double or even quadruple their usual expenses out of pocket. Subsequently, about 900,000.
Just shy of a million federal employees have been furloughed during this time. Which for those who may not be familiar, is when federal employees are placed on leave without pay, and at the same time, another, about three quarters of a million employees are working currently without pay. So these are the kinds of folks who are running air traffic control are US military service members and the like essential services such as.
Things requiring protection of lives or property continue to operate. But non-essential services have been suspended or curtailed, and several agencies have been deeply affected by this situation, including the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Education and the Treasury Department to name just a few, many National parks, national museums and federal facilities are closed or have limited access and the economic.
Damage of this is mounting. The Treasury Department estimates losses of up to $15 billion per week in economic output. Some of us here on the podcast have friends, family, and acquaintances who work for the federal government, either in the greater Washington DC area or around the country. And so we know on a personal level how, in how much this has impacted folks.
And we want to express from the outset that you are all in our prayers and in our thoughts. But David, maybe you can get us started in thinking about where. We should begin discussing this. What has happened in the last couple weeks and where you think this might be going?
DAULT: Several theorists and commentators have talked about what happens when we encounter what is known as the state of exception. I'm thinking in particular Giorgio ban's notions on the state of exception. And that is when those. Who are in authority can create a moment where the rules no longer apply.
They can begin to exert extra judicial power. Now, already the Trump administration from its. From its return in January has been seeking to exert extra judicial power to not pay attention to the rule of law, to not pay attention to due process, to not pay attention to the courts. And so part of what we're experiencing here, unfortunately, is that the most recent government shutdown allows for yet another state of exception, yet another kind of turbocharge to the.
The chaos that has been going on. And so what we're seeing right now is in a weird way, business as usual by interrupting the business of government. And so how do we respond to this when what is needed is. Attention to the rule of law where what is needed is care for the normal levers of power the checks and balances.
All of that has largely been thrown out the window. And so we are in this state of exception right now, and it's not clear what we as citizens, what we as sort of. People who are being affected by this can or should do about it. And what's important for everyone to recognize is that not all of the government has shut down the parts of government that we like.
You know, the employment of people that we love access to various government services. All of that is being slowed down or stopped. But things like. Oppressive law enforcement, the military those sorts of things, they are already, they're still going and they are being, in fact, turbocharged at this particular moment.
And so I, and I think that the other piece to look at is that the legislative branch is really also using this as an opportunity to, engage in malfeasance. I don't know a better way to describe it, and I apologize. I don't have the representative from the southern border of Arizona's name ready to hand right now, but she is waiting to be sworn in, and right now people from her district are not being represented in Congress because Mike Johnson has basically sort of rolled his eyes to the ceiling and said, well, there's nothing that we can do While Congress isn't in session, even though he has.
Once again, made exceptions in the past and has sworn people in expeditiously, even under, you know, circumstances where there was some question about their appropriateness. So we're in a very bad state, I guess is my initial comment to all of this.
SCHLUMPF: Well, yes we are. And I definitely feel for the employees, at least one of whom I know personally, who have been furloughed and whose work. I mean, these are people who are already stick. With government employment, when things are so, when things are so crazy with with the layoffs and that were already happening under Doge and that continued.
When I was flying last week, I was sure to say to the TSA folks who were checking my ID and ushering my suitcase past, you know, to, to thank them for working during the shutdown because of course they're working without pay with the hope. That they will get paid after the fact, although it's unclear if that's even gonna happen for them this time.
But what I will say is that I. I know part of the reason this has happened is because the Democrats heard from some of their constituents that they needed to do something that this big, terrible bill passed that gave tons of you know, perks and tax breaks to billionaires, but does nothing to help working people and middle class people who might be struggling and, you know, they.
They're trying to hold the line here and say and point specifically to healthcare premiums. How this could be a real. Painful experience financially for a lot of people who may not be able to afford healthcare in the future. If they don't hold the line here. And I've been, you know, pleased to see that they, you know, every couple days they re-vote on it and the Democrats are not budging because this is.
I think the key to exercising the little bit of power that Democrats have right now is to turn the attention back to the things that Trump apparently, you know, supposedly got elected to do, which was help people with the price of eggs and the everyday financial struggles that they're having. So I was pleased to see.
The network lobby for Catholic Social Justice was out there yesterday at a prayer service talking, saying This is about healthcare and we need to, you know, let our elected officials know that this is what we care about. So, Catholic social teaching applies there. I think. Go ahead, Dan.
HORAN: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's a really important point I wanna pick up on something you'd mentioned too, which is these furloughed employees and those deemed essential workers by the federal government who are not allowed to take time off or be furloughed because of essential services, like you mentioned, the TSA agents as well as, you know, the military.
David, you had recalled, in fact, I'm thinking about. This situation where I heard on a radio program a person call in who is a spouse. Both spouses, this husband and wife, both are in the military. They are required to continue working, but have children and expenses and things like that, where because of military service, there are certain rules and regulations about taking on other employment.
So it's not like they can do a. What the kids call a side gig or something to bring income in to pay these essential bills. They depend on, you know, the guarantee of their just compensation for their service to their country, right. And to their fellow citizens. And so I heard this on the radio and I was just kind of really overwhelmed by the injustice.
Because as you said Heidi, you know, according to the 2019 law, the government Employee Fair Treatment Act, folks who are furloughed or who are working as essential employees but are not able to be paid because of a government shutdown, should and ought to be given retroactive pay. But President Trump has been using this as a cudgel has weaponized this even further to say, to threaten, withholding that pay to make this situation even more painful, even more dehumanizing, I would say. And as you say, this is exactly related to Catholic social teaching on a number of fronts, dignity and value of human life. We can think about the dignity of labor and of work, the right to a living wage and so forth.
It goes all the way down. But one thing that's worth thinking about too, is the way that this has become, you know. For those in Congress and you know, for the executive branch under President Trump and others, this becomes a kind of blame game. It becomes a political stunt instead of a recognition of a couple things.
One being a common refrain back to Catholic social teaching that we often reiterate here on this podcast is that the church teaches the role of government is simply right. It has a main purpose, and that is to protect and promote the common good. And that means that the collective good, the good for all, especially the option for the poor and vulnerable supersedes, is meant to take first precedence over the individual goods that we may have.
And what we see here in this political kind of gamemanship is individual interests, political point scoring and the like, particularly coming, I would say, from the Republican party. And you know. That superseding that sort of overcoming the dignity and value and livelihoods of really millions of people.
And then these are just the kind of basic points, not even to think about what follows from that. And so one thing that came up in this conversation with this military service person on, on this radio call was, you know, it starts to impact people if they can't pay. The the childcare providers and there's a childcare business that is near a military base and the primary source of income to support that person's work is the payments of from service members who cannot pay them. Now, then that person is crunched and goes all the way down. So all of this is to say that one of the things that troubles me is the very quick move from.
Looking at the rights and the dignity and the value and the livelihoods of real people and moving to this kind of abstraction, gamesmanship, sort of political act.
DAULT: What I wanna resist in this conversation is to try and say, well, the Republicans are being hypocritical. The Republicans are being sort of not consistent with their own values of saying that they're the party of life and all that. The inconsistency doesn't seem to matter.
The hypocrisy doesn't seem to matter unfortunately. But we've seen this again and again. We can go back into, you know, the civil rights movement in the South when they began to integrate the swimming pools. And the swimming pools were a common good that everyone could share in the community, but they were a common good only for the white citizens of the community.
And as soon as the law said that. That people of color could use the pools too. They shut down the pools and they privatize the pools, and so we see again and again that there is a kind of. I hate to use this word, but a kind of pathology about the work of shared resources and anytime that there's the notion that people of color could get access to shared resources, the white power structure has not looked to the common good, but instead has said, we're just gonna shut all this down and we're gonna destroy it, instead of letting it actually be a common.
A common wheel for everyone. And we're seeing this now on a national scale. We're seeing the entire government simply being turned towards violence and terror. And I'm saying this from occupied Chicago, where, you know, my kids are going to school here in Hyde Park and we're getting. Emails from the principal of the school to be on the lookout because ice is frog marching up and down in front of the school at lunchtime and at dismissal time, and who of my children's friends are going to be kidnapped are my children.
It's gonna be kidnapped. And why is this the work of government and why is this in any way, thought of as in some way furthering the common good? It doesn't, it isn't, but it is a continued example of the government sort of smashing the things that are actually good and useful in government. The care for the least of these that you've rightly talked about, Dan.
But as soon as the wrong least of these get on that list, suddenly government has to grind to an immediate halt and everyone needs to suffer. And this is no way, this is no way for us to think about our shared lives together. I'm, yeah I really don't know what more to say.
SCHLUMPF: Well, I think just to respond to what you're saying, David, is that if you have, as part of your political ideology that government is the enemy or that the government doesn't do any good, or that government is just an interference in your. Business or your life, then you elect people who go into government with the idea of like eliminating it or making it smaller or diminishing the role that government can have.
And so for those people, this idea that government is not. Working right now that a lot of these offices, they've already been decimated by the layoffs through the do through Doge, and now they're you know, at least temporarily shut down some of them. And they may not notice in their day-to-day lives yet how that's affecting them because maybe they or a loved one don't work for one of those offices.
But, you know, eventually. The re, there is a reason for most, you know, I'm not gonna defend every government agency, but there's a reason for most of these agencies and offices, they do important work that keep us safe, that keep us protected. And you know, I just think. You know, if you're anti-government, you're probably not that sad about this, but the bigger issue to me is that the reason the government is closed down is because there are disagreements about the budget and the bud.
The government budget will affect people in their everyday lives, and I know for I thought for now that they. Paid the military that first paycheck anyway, because they stole the funds from a different, you know, pot of money. But now there's some debate about whether they're gonna get paid again at the end of October.
But that's a lot of people who will notice. But if your healthcare premium goes up by 200% or 300%, and that's something that's gonna happen. In January. So I mean, you're gonna, you're gonna feel that right away. And my sense is that the Republicans are not so dumb as to let that happen because there's a midterm coming.
But you know, I think if there's tens of millions of dollars to have Operation Midway Blitz in Chicago and do the terror that you were talking about, David we could find the money for those subsidies for healthcare, which is an important part of the common good.
DAULT: Well, and we're seeing this across the board. I'm thinking of the recent debate between Cuomo and Mandani in New York City. And Ani basically saying, we have found money to pay for Cuomo's legal defense, and we could find that same money to pay for healthcare. We could find that same money to pay for childcare and for other sorts of public goods Listeners, we know that you are probably feeling the squeeze of this in some fashion, and we are in prayerful solidarity with you as we move forward.
Again, we hope that by the time that you hear this, the government shutdown will have ended and we will have some answers to the questions about whether that back pay will be made available. But we encourage you to speak up to your representatives, even though they currently, many of them are shirking their responsibilities as well.
The one kind of avenue that we have is to make our voices heard. And so let us start there. Either in individual communications with our lawmakers or in collective action in the streets in peaceful protest. Let us be making our voices heard. We're gonna take a pause for just a moment and come back after this brief break.
You're listening to The Francis Effect. Please stay with us.
SEGMENT 2
DAULT: Welcome back to The Francis Effect. I'm David Dalt and I'm here with Heidi Schlump and Dan Haran. Every couple of weeks we get together to discuss a variety of topics from a perspective informed by our Catholic faith. On October 4th, the Feast of St.
Francis of Assisi, Pope Leo the 14th, signed his first official teaching document, an apostolic exhortation titled Dxe Te on the Love of the Poor, which was released publicly on Thursday, October the ninth. The exhortation
had been started by Pope Francis before his death earlier this year, and Pope Leo dedicates an early portion of the document to his late predecessor's vision and legacy, acknowledging that Francis had initiated the work.
Leo writes quote, I am happy to make this document my own. Adding some reflections and to issue it at the beginning of my own pontificate, since I share the desire of my beloved predecessor that all Christians come to appreciate the close connection between Christ's love and his summons to care for the poor unquote.
The teaching document provides robust reflection on the state of poverty in the world today. Noting that attention to and care for the poor is a central and consistent theme in scripture and tradition. Situating this ex within the broader tradition of Catholic social thought. Pope Leo the 14th highlighted that care for the poor requires more than mere charity or alms giving and demands, structural and systemic change.
The global reception of the document has appeared to be largely positive. While they remain, perhaps unsurprisingly, some critics of Leo and the text in the United States, Ross da it, the New York Times columnist wrote a piece in which he pushed back against Leo, criticizing the Pope for what he characterized as a lack of specificity.
Meanwhile, the Progressive Magazine, the New Republic, ran a story about the exhortation with the headline Pope Leo declares whose side he's on, and it's not JD Vance's. Although Leo did not explicitly name the United States in the ex, its public release came a day after he told a group of US bishops that were visiting him at the Vatican to firmly address how immigrants are being treated by President Trump's hard line policies according to reports.
Dan, many people are just learning about this document and its contents. What were your initial reactions and how do you think listeners ought to approach this text?
HORAN: Well, the first thing I would say is that for those who haven't read it yet, I'd encourage you to do that. It is probably one of the shortest papal documents to be promulgated in the last. 30, 40 years. It's only about 150, 160 paragraphs. And for listeners who aren't aware, the way that Vatican documents are kind of ordered are by paragraph number because they're translated into lots of different editions and published by publishers around the world.
So to keep kind of consistency you cite by paragraph. So that is a really kind of logistical, practical observation. But then there were three sort of initial takeaways that, that I had that maybe can get us going in our conversation here. 'cause I'm curious about your initial takes as well. The first is the timeliness of this.
You know, one of the things Pope Francis as Pope Leo acknowledges in the exhortation Pope Francis was very concerned about. Global poverty, right, and growing inequality. Famously, he took the name Francis of Assisi because of St. Francis' historic appreciation for ministry too in solidarity with the materially poor.
And then Pope Francis famously said in those early weeks of his pontificate that he desired a poor church for the poor. Echoing, of course the great theological wisdom of Latin American liberation theologians among others. And so, you know, I think this also aligns well with Pope Leo's own early expressed interests immigration, poverty.
These are things that he's very concerned about, as well as something that may be a little bit more removed, maybe a degree or two that might not come as naturally in thinking about this. And that is Pope Leo's interest in concerns around artificial intelligence. You know, he's sort of seeing AI as the new threat.
Analogous to his namesake polio, the Thirteenth's Industrial Revolution at the end of the 19th century. So if we think about the dehumanization of the workforce, the denigration of, you know, labor of the right to organize, these are all signs of things that are happening now in the first quarter of our own century.
And with AI making, you know, such a significant. Kind of foray into the workforce, into education, into all facets of life. I think Pope Leo the 14th has made it quite clear that he's concerned about what impact that's gonna have on people's livelihood and dignity of work. The second thing is something that has ruffled the feathers of right wing critics, and that is this, as Pope Leo makes very clear in his own writing, it demonstrates a clear continuity between Francis and Leo that there is not much daylight between them when it comes to these important issues of social justice, these important issues of faith in action. Which leads me to the third point, which I thought was really excellent, particularly as somebody who teaches, you know, a Catholic social teaching course.
And have and students have been looking at some of these themes. Going back to Rum Navarro with Leo the 13th. They were able to trace some of these really important. You know, notes of continuity and Pope Leo goes to great extent to situate this contribution to all of which comes before going back to again his namesake, going back to Francis and Benedict and JP two and so on.
And so the fact that care for the poor. The identification as Pop Leo makes between love of Christ and love of the poor. These are all things that are deeply evangelical, and I mean that in the literal sense. They're gospel oriented. And so another point of continuity is this historic appreciation for the deepening and development of church teaching on social issues but also bringing it back to the roots as Pope Francis often advocated.
And Pope Leo says at one point. Advocating that people, if they don't see this, I'm paraphrasing here, they need to go back and quote, reread the gospel that he does say, reread the gospel. So, those are some initial takes. Heidi and David? Yeah. What were your thoughts?
DAULT: Well, one thing that I know that listeners have heard me say again and again is that I am drawn back to comments that Pope Francis made when he was speaking to the United Nations in 2015 and. Listeners have heard me say this again and again, where he says, the job of those of us with resources is to support the poor in becoming dignified agents of their own destiny.
And I have spent the decade since he has uttered those words, trying to figure out what that phrase meant. And so I have paid close attention when Dignitas and Phta came out, because that was an attempt to begin to define what. That phrase dignity means in the dignified agency of their own destiny.
And now we have an exhortation that helps us to understand what is meant by the poor and something that I have sensed. In the decades since Pope Francis uttered those words is that we can't simply be meaning the economically poor, which is oftentimes how this gets kind of dismissed. Like those that just don't have financial opportunity.
And so I want to direct everyone to paragraph nine of Deluxe te, where, pope Leo IV writes, the condition of the poor is a cry that throughout human history constantly challenges our lives, societies, political and economic systems, and not least the church on the wounded faces of the poor. We see the suffering of the innocent and therefore the suffering of Christ himself.
At the same time, we should perhaps speak more correctly of the many faces of the poor and of poverty, since it is a multifaceted phenomenon. In fact, there are many forms of poverty. The poverty of those who lack material means of subsistence, the poverty of those who are socially marginalized and lack the means to give voice to their dignity and abilities, moral and spiritual poverty.
Cultural poverty. The poverty of those who find themselves in a condition of personal or social weakness or fragility. The poverty of those who have no rights, no space, no freedom. Okay, here's why this is so exciting to me. And that is if we are really trying to pay attention to this phrase to support the poor in becoming dignified agents of their own destiny, then we now have the notion that the poor is anyone who interrupts us to tell us that they have been the recipients of an organized abandonment.
An abandonment that directs them towards premature death. So what I really like about this phrasing is it really connects us up to this idea of a broad culture of life where the culture of life that we're talking about is not simply the issue of abortion, but rather is the issue of who has access to the abundance that Christ promised us.
In the promise of abundant life. And so I'm gonna be digging into this document in the same way that I have dug into Dignitas and Phta to try and read backwards to that statement from Pope Francis from 2015 to really understand how can I be supporting the dignified agency, not just of my neighbor who has financial poverty, but also the dignified agency of my neighbor who has been excluded because they're transgender.
The dignified agency of my neighbor who has been excluded because they are an immigrant, the dignified agency of my neighbor who has been excluded because they have a poverty of access to culture, a poverty of access to resources. All of these are people who are justifiably interrupting my comfort and interrupting the comfort of the church and the church dams itself when it refuses to listen to that interruption.
And so I, I actually find this paragraph in deluxe te to be incredibly powerful and one that is worth a great deal of a attention. It's not simply providing an expanded definition, but there is a politics that goes with this expanded definition that is worth our attention and our time. So those are my initial thoughts.
SCHLUMPF: Well, I'm gonna confess here that I haven't read it yet. It came out while I was traveling and as I mentioned at the beginning of the show, I was on vacation. But I have been reading some good articles about it and I'll share one. To link in the show notes that was in Common wheel, I think today that talks a lot about the connection between the theology that's talked about in this document with what's coming out of Latin America.
And we have to remember that, you know, I like to think of Pope Leo as Chicago's own, and I still love hearing him speak in English, but he's as equally as formed by his experience. In Latin America, south America. So, and there's a lot of similarities I think people are noticing between the kind of theology that's come out of Latin America, liberation theology the kinds of statements that have come out of Salem, the Bishops organization of Latin and South America and what's going on in this document.
I do think it's easy for people to. You know, kind of just, oh, well that's nice, you know, we should care for the poor. And I was reading somewhere, I think a recent Pew survey shows that about half of us Catholics say that caring for the poor is an important part of being a Christian or being a Catholic and.
I think it should be higher than that, than half. But this article was noting that was substantial. 'Cause it was up there with other things that were noted very highly. But on the other hand, what does that mean and what does that mean for us in a country that despite the growing.
Discrepancy between the ultra rich and the working class and poor. For the most part, a lot of the US church is middle class and caring for the poor is like thrown a 20 in the second collection or something like that. And I think what Pope Leo is trying to say here and definitely very reflective of Pope Francis is that we are a church of the poor.
And you know, I think that's pretty challenging to those of us that don't feel materially. Poor in our everyday lives. And we have this, like you said, David, this comfort. And I know we can broaden the definition of what it means to be poor as well. I also just wanna be careful about people who dismiss this document because it was started under Francis and so this was a similar thing that happened with Francis, right?
His first document that came out was started under Pope Benedict. I think from what I'm reading and what I've heard from some people, there were, there was quite a bit of addition from from Leo himself and from people that Leo enlisted to help him with this. So, I think we can be pretty sure that this is a topic that he cares about deeply and not just some throwaway, let me finish up this Francis thing so I can move to my own interests and like you said, Dan, a connection between these interests.
We know he has, like, for example, with ai.
HORAN: Well, and I think it's, you know, it's striking that he made it so explicit, the continuity and the connection, right? He didn't shy away from the fact that this had begun you know, and was an interest to Pope Francis' and that he took it up, you know, he also had the right to not take it up just because the previous.
Pope starts something and then dies. Or in the case of Benedict 16th, started something and retired didn't mean that his successor had to do it. So that is, you know, I agree with you wholeheartedly, Heidi, that this should not be dismissed. And people who are trying to do that are trying to do all kinds of things that, that do not conform to logic or recent necessarily.
You know, one of the things too that I think is important you rightly connected some of these themes back to what's arising in the context of the church in South America and Central America, which is absolutely right. I think it's reflective of. How a lot of people around the world think about the intersection of faith and live in life, you know, faith in society, we in the US live in a very weird sort of context.
It's something that a number of people highlight on a regular basis, particularly those who have had some experience in the United States and abroad. I'm thinking of one of our previous guests you know, Dr. Masimo Foli, who's Italian and now is on faculty at a university in Ireland, but for many years.
Taught and lived here in the United States. He's one on social media and in his writing to make this observation, like this is a very my word here, not his necessarily, but I think his reflections align with this. We have a kind of weird Catholicism certainly at the national level. And I think depending on what region and who your local ordinary is, it can get weirder than even the collective.
But it's important to remember that what Francis started and Leo continues, is a very simple call. It is a radical call, meaning going back. To the roots, and it's a call to live the gospel. I mean, it can't be any clearer than that, you know, for all of the concern and the hand ringing and the political jockeying that goes on, especially in the us.
And some of these critics, Heidi, that you were referring to, there is a, a, a. Terrible amnesia when it comes to what Jesus actually said and did. So when you think about his pastoral actions, his ministry during his earthly life the gospels recount that he spends most of his time with the poor, that he identifies explicitly with the poor, you know, birds of the air.
Half nests, foxes have dens, but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head. That is not an exaggeration. It's a description we see in the beatitudes. Blessed are the poor, right? And blessed are the poor in spirit in Matthew's accounting. We see obviously at the end of my. Matthew's gospel, the great parable of the last judgment of sheeps and of goats and what is expected of us.
Well, it's not about political party affiliation or having owning the opposition or you know, turning Christianity or Christian faith into a partisan club where people are in and people are out. It's about how we treat one another, especially the least of these to quote somebody. Named Jesus. I don't know if either of you are fans of the the television show, the cartoon South Park, which I know is gonna have, you know, maybe ruffle some feathers because they tend to be at times rather direct, rather crude in their commentary and jokes.
But I did. This season, they've gotten a lot of attention, especially as a sort of social protest, a kind of artistic protest to the current administration. Especially in the wake of the cancellation of Stephen Colbert's late night program at CBS and now with Barry Weiss's ascendancy as the director of news at CBS.
They are, part of this conglomerate, this media conglomerate and the proprietors the creators and writers of South Park are not shying away from going after the absurdity and the cruelty of, of, of what's happening in our society and community today, but in the most recent episode this week.
So as this episode drops, it'll be last week. There is a really interesting and really kind of disturbing articulation of what Christianity is and is not such. It ends basically with Jesus struggling with what does it mean to be Christian when he himself is Jesus. Other people telling him, you're not being Christian enough.
This is what Christianity looks like, and it is this sort of bro space. You know, kind of maga culture, sort of, dis kind of, what would I call, distortion of anything resembling Christianity such that the actual Jesus is there in being told that he doesn't fit, doesn't align, doesn't conform.
So, for those who, who appreciate that kind of humor or satire, you know, you might wanna check it out. For those who don't, I respect that the language and some of the imagery is. Pretty pretty crass. So, I want to, I wanna respect that, you know, as they say in Latin, they gusted boost non despues and taste.
There is no dispute. So to each their own.
DAULT: Well listeners, we hope that this recent exhortation, dxe te is to your taste and even if you take it in small bites that you do engage it and try and work through it, and we will certainly be bringing you commentary whenever. The Pope releases some exhortation or some instruction in this fashion because we, like, you want to understand its meaning not only for the church, but for the way that we live our lives in community with each other, especially in community, with the least of these among us.
So with that, we're gonna leave this discussion for now. I'm sure that we'll come back to these topics in the near future. But f at the moment, we're gonna take a quick break. When we come back Heidi will be interviewing Father David Inky from here in the Chicago area, talking about the Eucharistic response to terror from ice.
This is the Francis Effect. Please stay with us.
SEGMENT 3
SCHLUMPF: Welcome back to The Francis Effect. I'm Heidi Schlump with today's guest, father David Ssus, a newly ordained Jesuit priest who's involved as a community organizer for the Coalition for Spiritual and Public Leadership. They're the folks who processed with the Eucharist to the detention processing facility outside of Chicago recently to try to bring communion to the folks in prison There.
They were turned away. The Coalition is a Chicago based nonprofit that brings together Catholics and other Christians to advocate for systems that advance racial, economic, social, and environmental justice. The group is rooted in liberation theology and the principles of community organizing. And a full disclosure here, my Parish Sinker Truths is a member of the coalition.
Father David is a doctoral student in philosophy at Loyola University Chicago, where he focuses on critical phenomenology and Latin American liberation philosophy and theology. He also serves as chaplain to the men's volleyball team and to the Spanglish Christian life community at the Univers. David also hosts a podcast on liberation theology.
He joined the Jesuits in 2014 after graduating from Wake Forest University and studying Liberation theology at Oxford University in England, David has published two books in Spanish, one on Honduran theater and one on Honduran cinema. So welcome to the podcast, David.
GUEST: Thank you so much for having me, Heidi.
SCHLUMPF: Well, we're grateful you were able to talk to us. I've been reading so much about the action of the coalition for Spiritual and Public Leadership two weeks ago. And it got a lot of good press coverage. So tell us what it was like to participate in that Eucharistic procession and then to that detention processing facility.
GUEST: For sure. So I served as the mc for the procession as well as for the Eucharistic prayer and. There were so many emotions that came up on that day, Heidi, because I think the first one that I felt was a deep sadness. In fact, because we were turned away and we had planned and we knew that likely ICE was going to not allow us into the facility to share communion with our.
Migrant sisters and brothers, but nonetheless we had done so much preparation. We arrive, there's a large crowd coming from all over Chicago land, and we were rejected. And that sting of rejection in this moment of intended solidarity for me, shook me. And I think that we saw in that moment a new level of the face of evil.
Of what's happening in Chicago and around our country, because as sister Jeremy said giving the update after the rejection, she said, now not only are our sisters and brothers in our communities being torn away from their. Living room tables, their dining room tables from their tables where they work with their colleagues, but also they're being torn away from the eucharistic table.
And that hurts. And I think a characteristic moment that captures that too is I was not part of the delegation that attempted to go in. There were only about eight people who were in that delegation. And as the mc I was, you know, with the crowd and not with the delegation. And so, but I was able to be just a few meters away, right?
And I was watching all that was happening and one of the members of the delegation was my Jesuit brother, father Dan Hartnett a great Jesuit and a role model for me and community. And he was one of those negotiating with the Illinois State police, who then was relaying the information to ice.
And they received the rejection from ice. But when it had been communicated to him that we would not be allowed in, I just saw his head drop, you know, and to me that was a moment of of humiliation, you know, and also humility. Also the nonviolent spirit with which we approached that event.
And so, so there, there's a sadness associated with that. Now, the other side of it would be, I think there is also some rejoicing to be done in that the Catholic church and other collaborators, we came out so strong in, in a support. For the migrant community at large. And I think in the following days, what we've seen from many people of color and those who are migrants, is that they felt the love and the solidarity of Jesus Christ and of the church and that moment.
And I think they also saw. The church is on the side of the oppressed in imitation of Jesus Christ who's in solidarity with the oppressed. So I think in that sense we. Can be proud of the fact that as a church, we took this prophetic move to witness to our love as we are one body in Christ.
And we showed that we were one body in Christ despite the fact that. Is trying to tear apart the body of Christ. We remain one connected by the spirit and by our following of Jesus.
SCHLUMPF: Yeah, so I really felt that too at the People's Mass. That happened a few weeks earlier at the Great Lakes Naval Base, where you were also the mc, I believe. And I felt like it was such a prayerful witness. So I'm wondering, but then we also processed over to the, to one of the entries to the Naval base.
But what, tell me a little bit, what do you think the coalition's goals. With these public events, like you said, it, it's putting a face of the church as being with the oppressed. That's one accomplishment, I think, but are there other goals that, that are trying to be accomplished through these events?
GUEST: Absolutely. So two things come to mind. The first one would be, I think we need grace and we need to call upon our loving God to share that grace with the church at this time. The grace in order to give us hope. The grace to be able to engage in prophetic actions because we know that there are many movements that are resisting what's happening in our country.
But we as a Catholic community and as Christians, we believe that God is our help and God is our fortress and our strength. For me, I know that I am so weak and and I can't do it all. And we see that this is going to be a very long struggle. We're just in the first months of the Trump administration.
And we know that the issues with deportation and detention. Expand well beyond the Trump administration as there were deportations happening during Biden and Obama. It's kind of a bipartisan problem in many ways that we have in our country, so it's a long struggle and we need God's help in this struggle to fortify us.
So I think that's one side of it. The other side of it would be to unite the sacramental and the social dimensions of the church, because I would say sometimes these two are not always united. I would say on one hand there may be those who be more inclined to social justice. But less inclined to the sacramental life of the church and vice versa.
But we want to show the unity of these dimensions, right? And I think this is where the Eucharist, it has been a powerful symbol and reality at both of these events. At the naval base, we had a mass, and then here we had a eucharistic procession in the attempt to share communion. And it shows. That. In fact, the sacraments that we celebrate are missionary in nature.
And when we say missionary here, what I mean is that fullness of the gospel, you know, the mission of the proclamation, of the reign of God, of an alternative, radically new, radically solidarity minded community. Which comes into existence, you know, in Jesus Christ and in the foundation of the church and the church's mission to promote the reign of God.
And so there is no separating these two dimensions of our faith. And I think these actions and the strength of CSPL is to bring them together. We do have such beautiful and powerful symbols and realities in our Catholic faith. And I think that here at these events that is what has given such power and force and also uniqueness to the testimony and to the resistance that we're offering.
SCHLUMPF: Well, I would agree, and it kind of reminds me of yesterday I saw someone online complaining about people who had attended the no one of the No Kings rallies over the weekend and saying like, oh, those people aren't gonna go to church on Sunday. 'cause that was their. Quote unquote liturgy to go to the protest on Saturday.
And I was like, wait a minute. Pretty much everybody I knew who was at that protest, including myself, was going to church on Sunday. I also know that some, so, so like you said, the unity of our faith and our social justice activism. So I know some conservative Catholics I saw online who. Initially when they saw the Eucharistic procession and were unhappy to see that the religious liberty, shall we say, of the people who are detained there was de denied.
They later kind of flipped and then were criticizing the action, calling it a misuse of the Eucharist and maybe a political stunt. So, it seems to me they. Once they figured out who was doing it, maybe they had a change of heart. I'm not sure. But what is your response to some of those criticisms?
Have you seen them?
GUEST: Oh, I've seen them and what I would say is this is, I feel sometimes like these people have had a drone flying over my head my entire life, and they also have the power. To read into my heart because it seems as if they know exactly what our intentions were and that they know exactly what our thoughts were, and they know exactly what went into the preparation of this event.
SCHLUMPF: Which, of course they don't, right? Yeah.
GUEST: don't, they have no idea. You know, and here's what I would say, as someone who had been involved in the organizing of this event, is the goal was not to use the sacrament as a political football. The goal was to respond to a need. Which is solidarity with our sisters and brothers who were in that detention facility and doing what the church.
Has done throughout history, which is to bring the sacrament of the Eucharist to those who are detained and those who are in prison. And we made every effort to contact ICE ahead of time. We would have willingly followed any procedures or paperwork that they wanted us to fill out. But the fact is that we received.
Nothing from ice. It was like a stone wall, and they were not communicative. The only time that they were communicative with us was in telling us no in the moment, and then later. Publishing a tweet on DHS talking about how we didn't follow the proper procedures and also how it's a site of great danger.
And so we would be putting ourselves and the detainees at risk by going into the facility to offer communion. And so the sad thing here is you see just there's lies. There's lies that have been propagated, trying to craft a certain narrative about the intentions and about the preparation that went into this when, here's what I would say.
What I felt that we did was an imitation of Jesus Christ and the people who were chosen to be in the delegation. That attempted entry are some of the most loving. Caring, humble people I have met and their goal has not been to do a political stunt. In fact, I would say throughout the event, we actually we're trying to be as clear in our messaging as possible that this is not really about.
The Trump administration at the end of the day the issue of immigration and our nation's response goes beyond Trump. It's about a structural sin that has been plaguing our country for a long time, and it's about our desire to be won as a body of Christ in our worship. And it's also about the fundamental human right.
That allegedly we have guaranteed by our Constitution and then guaranteed also by the United Nations declaration on human rights, which is that all people have the right to practice their faith. And in this moment. We saw very clearly that right has been denied this God-given right. That that we are supposed to have, that allegedly our country is in a way so foundational to the Declaration of Independence and the constitution and this right being denied.
So I would say there are many narratives that are out there. What I would go to is go to the source, CSPL, the Coalition for Spiritual and Public Leadership. And there the story will be told. And I just saw today a beautiful video that will come out shortly. I'm sure by the time that this podcast episode comes out for listeners, it'll be available.
I would watch that video because there, you'll hear from the source, from people who organized the event, from people who attended the event, what that event meant to them, what it meant to us, and what we were really going about doing, which I believe was simply practicing our Catholic faith.
SCHLUMPF: Yeah. Well, thank you for clarifying that because I had. I had seen that sort of narrative being pushed, that you guys had not followed the rules or had specifically, you know, tried to come at a time when ICE wasn't there and it sounds like that's another. Part of the misinformation we're offering, getting from around this issue from our government.
You know, this operation Midway Blitz that's been happening in Chicago has really been frightening. I know I've talked just personally, what it's meant for some of my students, my neighbors my kids their friends in their schools. What do you think? We as Catholics and Christians are called to do in response to these really violent mass deportation raid, which you rightfully note is not just a Trump thing, that this has been happening for several administrations, but in a particularly sort of violent way in the last couple weeks here in Chicago.
What are we called to do?
GUEST: Yeah, that's absolutely right. It is being carried out in a particularly inhumane, brutal, violent way under the Trump administration, and so. We need to acknowledge that as well, and we need to respond to this moment as a church. What I would say is the Coalition for Spiritual and Public Leadership has really been, well, a spiritual leader as it is in the title for this issue.
Because the coalition has been organizing these trainings, which are called Know Your Faith, know Your Rights, and we know about these different Know Your Rights trainings that have been taking place all around the country about how to respond. If ice, for example, comes to your door or greet or comes up to you in a park or public space, you know, how do you respond?
And these know your rights trainings are really influential in getting people organized and prepared for that eventuality. But we as Catholics, we have a deep spiritual reason. For engaging in this work, and this is what the coalition wanted to do in organizing these trainings. Know Your faith, know your rights, is to put these two together by couching the Know Your Rights Training in the political theology of John Sabrina, especially in this idea of political holiness.
And I truly believe that the liberation and salvation that comes from Jesus Christ is total, it's total in the sense that it applies to all dimensions of human existence. There's no area of our life that is not touched and transformed by the grace of Jesus. And one of those areas is precisely the political.
Sphere. And this is not to say that Catholics, you know, must engage in a certain kind of partisan politics. I don't believe that. But what I do believe is that all Catholics are encouraged to be involved politically. That part of our faith calls us. To express the doctrine of Jesus Christ in the public sphere and to organize and to show that the solidarity that Jesus Christ lived.
In particular, caring for those at the margins has a dimension and an expression in our political life. And I remember attending one of these trainings and there were people on the call. Who said, I have never heard this theology before, this idea of political holiness. And it, it makes sense. It clicks for me.
And when that happens, I think it gives people a deep motivation for carrying out what they're doing when they're doing the Know Your Rights training, when they're sharing information with their community, they're not doing it for some abstract principle. They're doing it because it. Flows out from the heart of their faith, their relationship with Jesus Christ, and the social doctrine of the church.
So I would encourage people to do one of the Know your faith, know your rights trainings, but then also maybe for those around the country who are interested in doing this at their own parish, maybe having one of these trainings, you know, to get in touch with CSPL. And see if that can be arranged.
We have a number of people who have been trained in this. It can be done online, it can be done in person. And it's so powerful to bring these two things together 'cause that's what we need. We need a church that is living up to the height of this moment and confronting this moment from the heart of the faith you know, which is Jesus Christ's solidarity with the poor.
So, yeah, that would be my recommendation.
SCHLUMPF: So we'll provide some links to. Of the, their website and specifically to where they, they can sign up for those trainings. For people who maybe aren't familiar with him, could you just say briefly who John Sabrina is?
GUEST: Oh yes. So
SCHLUMPF: I know you could probably talk for a long time about him, but just share briefly.
GUEST: No, so this is a great Jesuit theologian who I've had the honor to meet a on a few occasions in El Salvador. And you know, so he is certainly part of the liberation theology movement and wrote a beautiful. Two volume series on Liberation Christology that I would recommend for folks if they've never read it read it before.
Jesus Christ, the liberator series is so good because it provides. Reading the history of the church, showing how the history of the church is consistent with a liberationist understanding of who the person of Jesus Christ is. And John Sabrina was giving a theology talk, you know, at the moment.
When his brother Jesuits and their housekeeper and daughter were assassinated in El Salvador in 1989, so it's by some act of grace or coincidence or whatever you wanna call it, that he was spared from being killed at that moment. He has gone on to prophetically continue living and preaching and teaching liberation theology.
And so for me as a Jesuit, I feel like part of my mission, you know, is to be part of a new generation in the society of Jesus. That passes on the torch of Liberation Theology as being something that is so key for Jesuit spirituality and the way that Jesuits in the 20th century have done theology and so essential for the church to get out the message that liberation theology is alive.
And that it's motivating so many Catholics in the church. When Catholics in the church find out about liberation theology that has been suppressed in many ways in recent decades. Many just fall in love with it. It clicks for them. It seems so natural. They said, I've been reading the gospels for years.
And I see this Jesus, who is so radical in the message of solidarity with the poor and preaching woe to the rich, you know, in, in dying on a cross by the Roman Empire, you know, and by local national collaborators. And for standing up, you know, and speaking out against religious injustice, political injustice, economic injustice.
And so when they hear about liberation theology, they say, ah, that's the Jesus I know from the gospels. They're motivated and I think a way to get involved is to get involved with organizations like CSPL that show that liberation Theology is, you know, not just a mentality, you know, in the clouds.
It's not just in books. It's something to be lived out in actions like the ones that we've been doing.
SCHLUMPF: Well, I'll just pivot from Jesuits to Augustinians and just ask you your thoughts about Pope Leo. I know he recently made some comments telling some US bishops that he'd like to see them be more unified and forceful. On the issue of immigration especially the deportations here, do you have any thoughts on Pope Leo and liberation theology or how he inspires your work as a Jesuit and a as a priest?
GUEST: For sure. I'll just say a few things. I happened to be in Rome for his first Sunday address back in May. And this was a powerful moment for me where he spoke about. Just peace. And for me, that is exactly the message that our world and our country, you know, need to hear this full notion of peace that comes from a holistic wellbeing, not only for the individual and for the community that is built on social justice.
And so to hear that message coming from him, you know, where there's war. Where there's these raids, many different difficulties all throughout the world was so key. I also had the chance to go to Peru over the summer and my first few months as a priest was lived out in Peru working in the Augustino, which is a Jesuit parish kind of on the margins of Lima.
But I did get to go to his cathedral in Chileo, where he served as a bishop. On a little visit, I made a pilgrimage to the cathedral, and you see this long line of former parishioners who were going to sign a book to Pope Leo that the diocese was gonna then send to Rome of stories, of people's encounters with Pope Leo.
So you see that this man. Was a beloved pastor. To the people of Peru and had such a natural organic and living connection. This is their shepherd who accompanied them through the time of COVID. And you see these beautiful images of Pope Leo blessing vaccines, blessing testing facilities. So this is a great person, and I am, it's early on.
We don't really know what's gonna happen and there are many twists and turns in any papacy, but for me, I just, I have such a great hope and I think that it comes out in this document, deluxe te, which I had the chance to read that came out last week and there's so much of Pope Francis in there. And didn't we hear that in his first message as Pope.
When I'm watching on the tv, he comes out and we see him speaking about ality, continuing the work of Francis. So my hope, and I think this is the case, is that Pope Francis was someone who had a spectacular and beautiful command of gesture and symbolic action. And he was just such a personable guy and I feel like.
Started many and continued many reforms in the church, right? But Leo comes with great pastoral and administrative experience and I think his task is to see some of those reforms through right to their completion. And I hope and pray, you know, it seems like he'll have a long pontificate ahead of him. He is seems like he's a young and I God, feeling, you know, fit guy.
I feel like, my, my prayer is just that he will advance very concretely many of the reforms that Francis initiated and that our church so desperately needs as it reshapes itself in this vision of a Synod church where we walk together.
SCHLUMPF: Well, thank you so much for sharing all of those thoughts. David, is there anything else that you wanna add briefly for our listeners before we. O
GUEST: I'll just give you a big thanks, you know, for this invitation and hello to all the listeners and really appreciate what y'all do on this podcast. So thank you for the invitation and what a pleasure to share these experiences with you.
SCHLUMPF: well thank you, and it's very nice to talk with you. Congratulations on your very recent ordination and continuing on the Jesuit pathway and with your studies. I'm sure our paths will cross again, but thank you so much for joining us here at the Francis Effect.
GUEST: You're welcome. My pleasure.