Posts Tagged ‘Podcast’

More than one million people live in Nairobi’s squatter community of Kibera, including 30,000 orphans of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Recently, Chicago Public Media spoke with Jesuit Father Global Terry Charlton, co-founder of St. Aloysius Gonzaga, a unique Catholic high school designed specifically for young people affected by HIV and AIDS in the Kibera slums.

In 2001, as Charlton visited people suffering from AIDS, he kept hearing a repeated concerns for the children of those suffering, primarily about the child’s ongoing education.

“There is free universal primary education in Kenya, but all secondary education, including at the government schools is for a cost, and a cost that would be far beyond the means of these people mired in poverty because of their illness, not able to hold jobs and that sort of thing. So in 2003 our school decided to sponsor 12 of their children for freshman year of high school,” said Father Charlton.

Working to help more children in the same situation, Charlton opened a school for 25 students in 2004. Through the support of many people from around the World, plus a $600,000 grant from the U.S. Government, they have been able to build a school that now accommodates 280 students.

Jesuit Father Peter Klink is currently the school parish chaplain at the Red Cloud Indian School in Pine Ridge, South Dakota. The Pine Ridge reservation of the Lakota Tribe covers a large, 5,000 square foot swath of land in the southwestern corner of South Dakota.

Here, Fr. Klink ministers to the Lakota’s communities three schools and in its parishes. He’s held many responsibilities during his 26 years of native ministry on the Pine Ridge, including 18 years as the school’s president.

Today, staggering poverty and an unemployment rate that hovers around 80% leave the children of the Pine Ridge facing an uphill struggle as they learn and grown up on the reservation. But, Klink endeavors to make sure the two elementary schools and the high school that make up the school system on the Pine Ridge are a beacon of hope for the possibility of a bright future for the Lakota and their families.

Recently, Klink took the time to speak with National Jesuit News by phone from the Red Cloud School for our monthly podcast series. You can listen to our interview with him below:

Jesuit Father Don Doll’s photographic works have been celebrated and awarded numerous times for their ability to capture and highlight the experiences of people across the globe. From remote villages in Sub-Saharan Africa to the dances of Native Americans in their traditional garb, Fr. Doll has spent decades capturing his subjects in their element since he was first introduced to photography when assigned to the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota as a young Jesuit in the late 1960s.

He’s photographed Jesuits assisting Tsunami victims in India and Sri Lanka in 2005; refugees in Burundi, Rwanda and the Congo in 2007; and Sudanese refugees in eastern Chad along the Darfur border in 2008. Most recently, one of Doll’s photos was selected by 1001 Stories of Common Ground‘s Positive Change in Action competition showcasing pieces which highlight the positive changes in the Arab world.

Currently, Doll is a professor of photojournalism at Creighton University in Omaha, Neb. where he holds the Charles and Mary Heider Endowed Jesuit Chair. Recently, he took time out from his busy schedule to speak with National Jesuit News by phone for our monthly podcast series. You can listen to the interview with Doll below:

In 1551, Saint Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus, established established a “School of Grammar, Humanity and Christian Doctrine” in Rome. Initially called the “Roman College”, it soon became the Gregorian University and was the first university founded by the Jesuits. Containing faculties and institutes of various disciplines of the humanities, the Gregorian, also known as “The Greg” has one of the largest theology departments in the world, with over 1,600 students from over 130 countries. St. Ignatius envisioned a “university of all nations, for the defense and propagation of the faith and for the training of wise and qualified leaders of the Church and society.”

Today, the Gregorian is part of a larger consortium consisting of three schools serving more than 3,800 students: The Pontifical Gregorian University, The Pontifical Biblical Institute and The Pontifical Oriental Institute for Eastern Christian Studies.

In the United States, the Gregorian University Foundation was established in 1972 to raise the needed funds for scholarships, academic chairs, libraries and capital improvements for the Pontifical Gregorian University Consortium.

In this month’s National Jesuit News podcast, we talk with the foundation’s vice president, Geoff Loftus, on what the Gregorian University provides to the Church and the legacy and impact of its scholars and students.

Jesuit Father James Kubicki recently spoke with National Jesuit News about his work with the Apostleship of Prayer, where he currently serves as it’s national director.

Fr. Kubicki’s involvement with the Apostleship of Prayer goes back to his high school days when he first encountered the monthly leaflets with the Holy Father’s intentions.

“I entered the Jesuits to be a high school teacher in an urban Jesuit high school, just like the one I went to. And, in those 40 years I’ve been a Jesuit, I’ve never done that…Am I disappointed? Not at all. The Lord’s plan was much better than my own. And now I’m on the radio throughout the country…and I look on that, and say, that’s all God’s grace that came to me through following that initial call, that vocation that was given to me when I was a high school student,” said Kubicki.

In this month’s podcast with National Jesuit News, Kubicki shared the goals of the Apostleship of Prayer, its service to the Church, and its growing outreach to young people.

The goal of the Apostleship of Prayer is to help people pray with for each other and for the needs of the Church through the intentions of the Pope. It also hopes to help people learn to live a Eucharistic life and to return the love God gives us by loving others.

To learn more about the Apostleship of Prayer, please visit their website.