The State of the Church with Fr. Tom Reese and a Seasonal Survey
A moment to reflect, four months after our relaunch.
This afternoon we released the 16th episode of our podcast, a conversation with Jesuit priest, journalist, and senior analyst for Religion News Service, Fr. Tom Reese. Fr. Tom brought decades of experience covering and commenting on the church to our discussion, sharing with us his impressions of Pope Leo XIV’s first year, his take on the state of Catholic media today, and his thoughts on the perennial question of how the US church engages with the public square. He also made a compelling historical comparison between Pope Leo and Pope Paul VI that’s sent me to Peter Hebblethwaite’s biography of Paul—and, next, to Populorum Progressio, Paul’s 1967 encyclical on human development that Hebblethwaite believes marks the moment when “the Church became truly Catholic, universal and planetary.” You can find the episode on our website, and we’re now available through Apple Podcasts, too.
As we mentioned in our last newsletter, April marked four months since the relaunch of our journal. We’ve since grown by over 150 subscribers, and just this week exceeded 3,000 downloads of our podcast. As we conclude this initial cycle and look to the next season, we thought it might be fruitful to pause and reflect with our readers and listeners on how the process is unfolding, ways our understanding of “tomorrow’s American Catholic” is evolving, and what subjects, themes, events, and movements you’d like to see us cover in order to keep expanding the story.
To this end, we’ve put together a brief, seven-question survey to help us direct our efforts. If you have a moment, we’d love to hear your feedback. Last week, we also released “Aural Iconography,” a “seasonal check-in” with our podcast co-facilitators. We conceived this episode as a companion to the survey, inviting others to develop with us our animating question: Who is tomorrow’s American Catholic, and how is their understanding of themselves, their faith, and their church evolving in time?
We remain grateful for everyone’s interest and support. If you know others who may find meaning in our journal, please feel free to forward our newsletters along, or even consider sending a gift subscription. We also graciously accept donations on a one-time or recurring basis. Every little bit helps us sustain our work.
We have more good things in store for the spring and summer that we look forward to sharing. In the meantime, blessings for tomorrow’s Solemnity of the Ascension,
Michael Centore
Editor, Tomorrow’s American Catholic