Swears & Prayers

Jen talks about what she’s learned by talking to Catholics for a year, and what that means for her community and for her faith.

Caroline talks about how decisions made on the diocese level can drastically change a parish overnight, and how she distrusts lay leadership, even though she’s a lay leader. Listen to our full conversation.

Caroline talks about how parishioners and lay leaders in the church have no say in changes that affect them.

Eric talks about benefiting from and rejecting patriarchy; how men become “rock stars” of social movements within the church while the women who do the same work remain unknown; and how his experience in Watts for Teach for America led him to Glenstal Abbey in Ireland, where he spent three months. Listen to our full conversation.

Eric holds a PhD in Theology. He talks about walking away from the church and coming back to it with love and skepticism.

Discussing the Franciscan charism and how working for the church both gives her cover to lead a countercultural life and exposes her to criticism, our guest talks about how the rape crisis has affected her relationship with the church and with God. Listen to our full episode.

This guest talks about being a Secular Franciscan and how their humility and simplicity attracted her to the order.

Debbie talks about how a friend’s living faith attracted her to Catholicism, and how the rape scandal, clericalism. and patriarchy makes it difficult for her to remain Catholic. Listen to our full conversation.

Debbie talks about finding and converting to Catholicism while in medical school.

Laura talks about Catholic Social Teaching, her work as a volunteer in the Archdiocese of Hartford, CT in the 1990s, and how the absence of Catholic clergy at the 2017 Unite the Right rally disillusioned her. Listen to our full conversation.

A longtime member of the Catholic Worker community, Laura talks about her current "crisis of belonging" with the institutional church and her loss of confidence in church leaders.

Adrienne talks about teaching religious formation with a female-centric point of view, rewriting the psalms, and hanging out with the Weathermen in 1960s Wisconsin. Listen to our full conversation.

Adrienne talks about how she went from being a Sunday school teacher to publicly withdrawing her support from the church.

Chris talks about the trial and conviction of Paul Rodriguez, the priest who sexually assaulted him when he was 15. Chris discusses the impact it has had on his life, and how he reckons with his faith. Listen to our full conversation. Get in touch: swearsandprayers@gmail.com twitter.com/swearsnprayers

Chris and his seven brothers grew up on a farm in Virginia. When visiting Charlottesville in 1994, Chris saw a newspaper story about a former local priest facing criminal charges for sexually abusing a boy in the 1960s.