The Signs of the Times Podcast

“Don't tell me what you value. Show me your budget, and I'll tell you what you value." That's the working motto of the Catholic Social Teaching and Financial Decision-Making Research Project, a grant-funded research initiative between the University of Salzburg's Center for Ethics and Poverty Research and the Center for Social Concerns. The goal of the project is to understand the current budgeting and financial decision-making processes and procedures in representative Catholic institutions and to translate Catholic Social Teaching into budget-relevant points of reference. Center research associate Kelli Hickey joins us today to talk more about what motivated the research, how it was conducted, and what her team is learning.

"A meaningful life begins with meaningful work. There's something truly transformative about the dignity found in meaningful work. Having a job can give an individual the means and the motivation to overcome past adversities, provide for loved ones, and achieve their dreams," Cincinnati Works. Luke Meyer, a sophomore accounting major at Notre Dame, joins us to talk about his Summer Service Learning Program (SSLP) in his hometown of Cincinnati, OH working for a non-profit called Cincinnati Works. Cincinnati Works assists with unemployment, but unlike a typical employment agency they form lifelong partnerships to not only prepare people for the workforce but to help them succeed and advance in the workforce. Luke shares his experience working with them and how the SSLP prepared him to truly encounter others and get the most out of his experience.

For more than ten years now the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures has partnered with the Center for Social Concerns to develop one of the most robust community-based learning (CBL) programs in language in the country. Today we're joined by Elena Mangione-Lora, teaching professor in Spanish, and Clare Roach, immersion coordinator at Holy Cross School. Together they created a translation class at Holy Cross in South Bend that brought Notre Dame and Holy Cross students together around numerous translation projects that are now being picked up by dual language schools in Chicago and Los Angeles. Community-based learning has a way of developing expansive educational networks, and Elena describes how her CBL work led her to work with a school for men with special needs in Chile recently.

David Silberklang, Ph.D., is a senior historian at the International Institute for Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem and the speaker at the center's annual Rev. Bernie Clark, C.S.C., Lecture. In this episode, Silberklang shares stories from the Holocaust, looking at the importance of Jews' efforts to maintain human dignity and human life in the face of the overwhelming forces and impossible odds arrayed against them. 

What do labor unions and the Church have in common? For Clayton Sinyai, the answer to that question is a countercultural emphasis on solidarity. Sinyai is the executive director of the Catholic Labor Network, an association of Catholic union activists and clergy committed to Catholic Social Teaching on labor and work. In this episode, he discusses his experiences in a non-unionized workplace and the movement to connect churches with unions to promote the cause of workers.

Quinn McKenna is a Notre Dame junior who participated in the center's Global Living Learning Community (GLLC) during the summer of 2021. Following the cancellation of summer travel in 2021, the International Summer Service Learning Program (ISSLP) offered GLLC for students who needed to complete their global service-learning virtually. This program allowed ISSLP participants an opportunity to live in an intentional community in South Bend/Notre Dame, conduct virtual global service-learning projects, and engage in learning about global issues localized in South Bend and the region. In this episode Quinn shares her GLLC experience, which she found to be one of the most surprising and rewarding experiences she's had at Notre Dame

Kevin Cassidy is the director of the International Labor Organization (ILO) Office for the United States and Canada. The ILO brings the government, workers, and employers to the table to discuss the issues that surround the world of work and was founded with social justice at the core of its mission. That core of social justice manifests itself in decent work, or the security of one's job, being treated fairly, and having a voice in the workplace. We discuss the importance of a human centered approach to work which looks after the individual, the institutions, and how we push forward on making decent work available to all women and men around the world. Kevin shares how COVID-19 has impacted international employment and what recovery must entail if it's to be successful.

Madeline Owen is the newly selected Valedictorian of the University of Notre Dame's class of 2021 and is graduating with a neuroscience and behavior major and a poverty studies interdisciplinary minor. Madeline reflects on her experiences at the Center for Social Concerns over the past four years and how they've shaped her. During her undergraduate career she participated in an Urban Plunge in Washington D.C., the Spirituality of Justice Seminar at the Texas-Mexico border, and took numerous courses through the poverty studies interdisciplinary minor. Upon graduating Madeline plans to attend medical school and shares, "The opportunity to not just learn within the walls of the classroom but  beyond the walls of a classroom; to physically travel to places, talk to people, look them in the eyes, hear their stories was something that I was incredibly surprised by and an opportunity I just couldn't pass up. I couldn't see my academic journey being without that human element."

Kevin Hayes is the President of Catholics for Change in our Church and the founding principle of an architecture firm, the Hayes Design Group. In 2018 when the Pennsylvania grand jury report detailing sex abuse in the Catholic Church was released, as a Pittsburgh native and lifelong Catholic, he was shaken. In reaction to that report a group of laity came together for a listening session and from that initial gathering came the framework for Catholics for Change in our Church. They coalesced around focus groups: support for abuse survivors and their families, financial transparency, addressing clericalism, strengthening and diversifying the clergy, pathways to lay leadership, and engaging and empowering youth. Their mission has now spread to 40+ groups around the United States and Canada who follow this model. In our conversation Kevin addresses the issue of clericalism in the Church and stresses the importance of listening to the marginalized voices in our community.

Rabbi Yonatan Neril is the Founder and Executive Director of the Interfaith Center for Sustainable Development (ICSD). The ICSD reveals the connection between religion and ecology and mobilizes faith communities to act. They believe the ecological crisis is about how we live as spiritual beings in a physical reality and that the world's religions need to be fully on board in order to curb the impact of climate change. The scale of the ecological crisis becomes more severe each year, and with over 6 billion people in the world identifying with a religion there's a huge under-leveraged ability for humanity to turn the collective shift. Rabbi Yonatan shares that we can't just think about ourselves, we need to raise our spiritual level of awareness so that we care for other people and for other species.

Heidi Beidinger-Burnett is president of the St. Joseph County Board of Health, director of the Master of Science in Global Health Program at the University of Notre Dame and co-director of the ND Lead Innovation Team. In 2017 it was discovered that neighborhoods in South Bend had a higher rate of lead poisoning than in Flint, MI, for families that were affected there was despair and loss of hope. Heidi mobilized a team of experts and community partners and received a Community Impact Grant from the CSC to launch the Lead Innovation Team. Their mission is rooted in prevention, finding lead in homes before children are poisoned, to this end they have developed test kits for families to use to screen for lead in their homes. What started as a $7,000 seed grant from the CSC has led to over $6 million to tackle this issue in St. Joseph County. Visit  https://leadinfo.nd.edu/ for more information.

Pivoting from a pre-med major to a potential career as a social worker or psychologist, and discovering the importance of intersectionality and how environmental sciences relates to environmental justice and health are just two of the takeaways that Matthew Auborg and Killeen McCans gained from participating in Social Concerns Seminars. Matty and Killeen join us to share the impact that the Center, and particularly the Seminars program, has had on the trajectory of their undergrad and future careers. They share the insight and experiences they have gained from participating in Seminars leadership, and in particular the impact the pandemic has had on their learning.

When Dr. Cara Ocobock, Assistant Professor in Anthropology at Notre Dame, began looking for science kits for her niece she was disappointed in the lack of scientific rigor in the options on the market. She created her own and named it "Ruby's Laboratory Manual" after her niece, along with each experiment she included a profile of a woman scientist. When the science kit went viral on Twitter she teamed up with Morgan Munsen, a fourth year graduate student in Psychology at Notre Dame, and the Science Policy Initiative for a project called "Making at-home science and representation accessible to low-income students during COVID-19." A project supported by the Center, it sought to address the educational backslide students experience due to COVID-19 with no-cost science kits for at-home enrichment and entertainment.

In 2020 as the world shifted to online and virtual, the CSC was not immune. In lieu of the traditional Summer Service Learning Program (SSLP), an 8-week immersion where students partner with community organizations across the country, the Virtual Summer Service Corp was born. Aysha Gibson and Jonathan Hauke participated in the virtual program and shared their surprise at how intensive, immersive, and meaningful the virtual program turned out to be. They gained new and tangible skills, found mentors within the community partner organizations, were still able to build meaningful relationships with the clients they served, and were shaped in terms of their career discernment.

Heidi Witte is a 2009 grad of Notre Dame and held a CST Minor, she now hosts the Children's Liturgy of the Word on Catholic TV. Heidi shares how the CST minor and Center programming such as Seminars and SSLP impacted her faith and opened her eyes to various perspectives of the world. Her passion for working with children led her to develop a children's Liturgy of the Word for her home parish in South Bend. When COVID began Heidi and her husband blended her teaching background with his video production expertise to transfer their program online. The weekly sessions have reached over 2,000 viewers from across the country and recognize the dignity of children by making the teachings of the faith developmentally appropriate and accessible to them.

Black@ND is a YouTube show and podcast that discusses the experiences of Notre Dame's African American students, current and alumni, and the steps taken to survive in a community that lacks representation of color. Episodes cover topics such as stereotyping Black men as athletes, campus policing, how whites can become allies, and interviews with the Black pioneers that paved the way for current ND students. Emorja Roberson, creator and co-host of the show, is the first African-American to graduate with a Master of Sacred Music in Vocal Performance from Notre Dame and is currently pursuing his Doctorate in Musical Arts to study Choral Conducting with a focus in African-American repertoire. The Center for Social Concerns now serves as the academic home for the Black@ND podcast.

Poverty is a complex issue encompassing a wide range of experiences. Encampments of people experiencing homelessness can be found throughout the U.S. and in countries around the world. Our guest today is Connie Snyder Mick, the Director of academic affairs at the CSC, Director of the Poverty Studies Interdisciplinary Minor, and Editor of the Journal of Poverty and Public Policy. In 2016-17 an encampment of people formed who lived unsheltered under the viaduct on Main Street in South Bend, IN. Connie led a case study that looked at this encampment through the eyes of several different stakeholders to better understand some of the causes, consequences, and responses that might reflect encampments in other places. By listening closely to these stories, they uncovered the barriers to finding and keeping stable housing and better understand why encampments form, persist, and even thrive.

It's one thing to study themes such as empathy, barriers to work, identity, and mindset in the classroom, but it's a whole other to take this knowledge and partner with action-oriented organizations in the field to find local solutions that create jobs and set the economic conditions for growth. Developed by Associate Professor of Management at Notre Dame's Mendoza College of Business, Viva Bartkus, The Meyer Business on the Frontlines Program examines the impact of business in rebuilding war-torn societies and was chosen by Forbes as one of the top 10 most innovative MBA courses in the country. Since 2008, Business on the Frontlines teams have collaborated on nearly 50 business- and peace-related projects in over twenty countries with humanitarian agencies and multi-national corporations. By some estimates, perhaps 10,000 people now have the dignity of work because of businesses and markets BOTFL initiatives have developed.

One of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people for 2020, and 2018 Laetare Medal winner, Sr. Norma Pimentel, M.J. is a sister with the Missionaries of Jesus and Executive Director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley. She provides oversight of the different ministries in the areas of emergency assistance, housing assistance, counseling, and pregnancy care to all four counties in the Rio Grande Valley. Sr. Norma shares the reality at the border, especially in light of COVID-19 restrictions and recent hurricanes that have devastated the area. She expresses the call at the core of our faith to care for the dignity of all human life.

"The cry of the Earth, is the cry of the poor," taken from Pope Francis' encyclical Laudato Si, demonstrates the need to care for our common home, the Earth. Emmanuel Katongole is a Catholic priest of the Archdiocese of Kampala in Uganda and a professor of theology and peace studies at Notre Dame. He has written and spoken extensively on politics and violence in Sub-Saharan Africa and on the political theology of peace and reconciliation. Along with two other priests, he began discussing the problems of deforestation, poverty, and land depletion in rural Uganda. After researching successful agricultural training models and consulting with ecological and farming leaders, they bought a 95-acre plot of land in Luweero, Uganda, using their own funds to plant a forest and set up a model sustainable farm called the Bethany Land Institute. He shares their aim "to enact some of these principles of Laudato Si in a context like Africa, in a place like Uganda, and see how we can address the cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor in a way that address the challenges of ecology, food insecurity, and poverty in the rural communities."

Joining us today are Dave Lassen, the Community Engaged Learning Program Director, and Lulu Moyo, the Community Engaged Learning Assistant Program Director at the Center for Social Concerns. Together they work with community partners and organizations in the South Bend area and beyond to help match them with faculty, staff, and students at Notre Dame. They think through projects they can work on together especially in an academic setting such as community-based learning courses. Dave and Lulu share the challenges that community partners are facing during this time, as well as the creative ways they have bridged the gap between the University and local partners in order to come together and continue to foster community.

Abolish Private Prisons is a non-profit organization founded for one purpose: using the United States court system to end the practice of locking people up for profit. Executive director of Abolish Private Prisons, John Dacey, and Associate Director, Robby Craig, join us to discuss the issue of the privatization of prisons, racism, mass incarceration, and criminal justice reform. They share that when you privatize prisons each prisoner becomes a unit of profit to the corporation and to the shareholders. The prisoner becomes inventory on corporate balance sheets and is reduced from a human being to a commodity. Learn how we can help eradicate this modern day form of slavery by visiting www.abolishprivateprisons.org.

CST helps you to look at things through an evaluative lens, taking into account not only concepts and empirical data but also lived experiences and stories. Reynold Hamar, a junior finance major with CST and Education minors at Notre Dame, joins us on the podcast to discuss how the CST Minor led him to an internship working with the Special Olympics and the insights he's gleaned from that. He describes how from a young age he enjoyed working and living in community with people with disabilities through the experience of training service dogs. Through experiences at the center working with people with disabilities he has learned the importance of rhetoric and the ways in which language can be demeaning for a lot of marginalized groups. We discuss how policies and structure are important, but individual and community conviction is what matters when we talk about disabilities and other important social issues and how CST offers the combination of looking at things through both the heart and the mind.

The high mortality rates of black and brown people from COVID-19, stories emerging from these communities reporting stricter policing in regards to social distancing, and the concerning case of Ahmaud Arbery's death remind us that racial injustice persists, if not worsens, during these trying times. This year the Center for Social Concerns explored the theme of racial justice through the Act Justly course, a Social Concerns Seminar that took place this past spring semester. The course is an examination of the American Civil Rights movement with an eye to our mutual responsibility to pursue racial justice today. It brought together students, faculty, and staff to reflect deeply on the historical struggle for racial justice in the United States, and to enact a deeper personal and social justice. Participants read  from writers across the span of American history, engaged in weekly class sessions, and journeyed together on a Spring Break immersion tracing key moments of the Civil Rights movement throughout the American South. Three students share their stories, reflections, and insights from the experience.

How has the pandemic impacted workers around the country? Who is most responsible for a healthy economy? What does a robust version of the common good look like? And what does a return to "normal" look like? We explore these questions and more in today's episode with Dan Graff, Ph.D., Director of the Higgins Labor Program and faculty joint appointment with the History Department and the Center for Social Concerns. The current pandemic has impacted everyone's work, but that work has been impacted in many different and distinct ways. A greater appreciation has been realized for the indispensable and often undervalued work that people perform. Dan shares that he is hopeful that the heightened visibility that comes with classifying ordinary workers as essential and realizing how essential they are could lead to the potential for policy changes that create a more robust safety net and security system for ordinary people. He also shares his views on how this pandemic could influence the workforce for years to come.

How do we protect and serve those who are most vulnerable in our society right now? Who are the most vulnerable members? What does it look like to practice physical distancing instead of social distancing? Our panel of experts ranging from the fields of medicine, labor, global health, and theology tackle these questions and more as they relate to the common good in light of the current global pandemic. The common good relates to the flourishing of each and every person in society and if even one person is left without their basic necessities to flourish, the good of everyone is diminished. The good news is there can be a hopeful opportunity in this era to learn where the systemic vulnerabilities in our society exist and transform structures and institutions accordingly.

Many of us are struggling or feel out of place given the restrictions required to combat a global pandemic. We are living in an uncertain, if not radical, time in history. The idea of resilience however, begs the question can you not only cope in adverse circumstances but can you also flourish? Resilience is what enables us to not simply get by but rather have a moment of growth during difficult times. Our guest, Clemens Sedmak, Ph.D., has written extensively about this notion of resilience in his book, "The Capacity to be Displaced: Resilience, Mission, and Inner Strength." Clemens examines the lives of incarcerated persons, victims of hostage, and cancer survivors in order to describe what it takes to flourish under adverse circumstances and teaches us how to apply these principles during COVID-19.

Hope is a topic of added relevance in today's climate as we navigate the despair that accompanies a global pandemic. Annie Maguire, a senior at St. Mary's College majoring in global justice and human rights, joins us today to share her capstone thesis on hope and the insights she has gained from her community-based research. In her thesis Annie coined the term "hopework" as the sustaining meaningful engagement that draws upon hope as both the cause and effect of the action. She shares that when we're involved in something that engages our mind, body, and spirit in a positive way hope is both the product but also the thing that sparks the action in the first place. She also describes the critical nature that relationships play in framing hope, that hope is not something that takes place in isolation, it's something that you share and can serve as a counter virus to despair during challenging times.

We're joined on the podcast today by Ruben Garcia, Director of Annunciation House in El Paso, Texas whose mission is to accompany the migrant, homeless, and economically vulnerable peoples of the border. When Annunciation House came into existence in 1978 there were only two other shelters in El Paso and neither one of the two shelters would let undocumented people spend the night. Ruben describes the ever-evolving situation at the border and the reality that migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers face as they flee their home country from poverty and political turmoil. He shares that we have a tendency to look at hospitality as a work of charity, yet it is also a fundamental work of justice because when you offer the true work of hospitality you offer it even when it might be at risk to oneself. Ultimately hospitality is at the core of the Gospel.

"Any talk of incarceration, any talk of any social issue really, is woefully incomplete unless we talk about race." Nick Ottone, a senior at Notre Dame, has been involved in many Center courses and programs during his four years all of which revolve around the study of race relations, incarceration, and the intersection of two. In this episode we dive into racial injustice and Nick shares how Center programming such as the Realities of Race seminar, the Inside-Out course, and the Act Justly seminar have shaped his understanding of this. Nick shares how studying historical and current events led to feelings of anger and fueled his passion for working towards racial justice. He has collaborated with other students to develop the Let's Talk About Race series in which students gather to talk about racial justice issues and racial identity through the lens of personal experience. Nick hopes to pursue a Ph.D. in political science focusing on the political psychology of racial prejudice and how that manifests in non-white Americans.

“The cumulative effects of personal sins of racism have led to social structures of injustice and violence that makes us all accomplices in racism," (Open Wide Our Hearts, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops). Jemar Tisby, Notre Dame alum and author of the book The Color of Compromise: The Truth About the American Church's Complicity in Racism, joins us on the podcast to discuss how the American church has helped create and maintain racist ideas and practices. In our conversation he details the difference between complicit Christianity and courageous Christianity and focuses on racism as systemic injustice. Jemar also offers concrete solutions for improved race relations and a racially inclusive church. His book is a call from a place of love and desire to fight for a more racially unified church that no longer compromises what the Bible teaches about human dignity and equality. Order his book today wherever books are sold!

What are the causes and costs of criminal behavior? How are people and communities affected by incarceration? How can we make our criminal justice system as good as it can be for all stakeholders? Susan Sharpe, Restorative Justice Advisor at the Center for Social Concerns, teaches a course called Rethinking Crime and Justice that explores questions such as these and more within the realm of our criminal justice system. The course uses the Inside-Out pedagogical model in which students from a college campus take a course with incarcerated people inside a prison. In her work Susan discussed how the focus on incarceration as a solution to the problem of crime is in some ways not only inadequate, but also destructive and profoundly harmful. In her work she explores the need to step back from the policies, laws, and systems we've developed and examine what real justice actually calls for.

"It's about people and at the end of the day whether you're trying to bring the Catholic Church to people or just trying to treat everybody and everything on this earth with dignity and respect, it's people that matter, people are the basis of community, of neighborhood, of society, of Church and state… God shows himself through people." Our guest today, Terese Schomogyi shares the reflections she gained from participating in the Urban Plunge seminar her freshmen year at Notre Dame. From there she engaged deeper in a pedagogy of service-learning and participated in six subsequent Social Concerns Seminars. She shares her passion for nature, environmental justice, and the insights she gleaned from accompanying people at the margins of society.

How do you educate students and young journalists to actively listen to people, try to understand them, accompany them, and be with them in difficult situations? Richard Jones and Victoria St. Martin are teaching Notre Dame students that being a professional journalist and someone who is compassionate do not need to be mutually exclusive. Richard Jones is the Walter H. Annenberg-Edmund P. Joyce Director of the John W. Gallivan Program in Journalism, Ethics, and Democracy and Victoria St. Martin is a distinguished visiting journalist with the Gallivan Program and the print publications coordinator with Notre Dame Student Media. Together they teach the course Covering America, a conceptual and skills-based immersion into the world of national reporting, one of the most complex and challenging forms of journalism. Students learn the principles of reporting, writing, and the journalistic applications of digital media. The capstone assignment in the course is a six-day reporting trip during spring break to the site of an ongoing national story.

Where am I supposed to be and where will I be most transformed? Jonathan "Pastah J" Brooks  challenges us with this question in today's episode. Jonathan currently serves as Senior Pastor at Canaan Community Church in the West Englewood neighborhood of Chicago, IL and as an educator, speaker, writer, artist, and community activist. As a firm believer in investing in your local community, Jonathan has a deep desire to impress this virtue on the students and young people in his congregation, classroom, and community. His ministry focuses on youth development, holistic health, college scholarships, art and music training as well as restorative justice practices and care for the incarcerated and their families. We discuss his recent book, "Church Forsaken: Practicing Presence in Neglected Neighborhoods," and he even shares a sample of his hip-hop with us.

Listening to those closest to both the challenges and the beauty of the Appalachian region is critical to the success of a more diversified and stable local economy. Brandon Dennison, CEO and Founder of Coalfield Development, understands this better than most. Born and raised in Southern West Virginia coal country he founded Coalfield Development to be a non-profit that incubates social enterprises like a sustainable construction company, a furniture shop that uses reclaimed wood, a solar installation company, a sustainable agriculture company, and a sustainable clothing company. Using these innovative businesses Coalfield Development is able to put unemployed people back to work. Coalfield Development is creating jobs for people that are more than just a job but rather a career, a vocation, an identity, and an opportunity to expand what work has perhaps meant to them.

What does neuroscience and behavior have to do with community-engaged work? According to our guest, Nancy Michael, everything. Neuroscience and the understanding of how the environment impacts brain development and behavior is a missing link that makes many of the social issues we see in our community make sense. Nancy is the Assistant Teaching Professor in the Department of Biology and Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Neuroscience and Behavior major at Notre Dame. In her courses she has partnered with the Robinson Community Learning Center, the Juvenile Justice Center, and the South Bend Center for the Homeless. Her recent work has been with Beacon Health System and creating trauma informed communities. Nancy shared that persistence in communication, the demonstration of trustworthiness, and being invested in community outcomes are crucial to this type of university-community partnership.

In order to solve the most significant complex problems of the world it requires that universities recognize that the answers do not reside in institutions but rather in working in a community of experts and listening to the voices of the people in the community. Ira Harkavy, Ph.D., Associate Vice President at the Netter Center for Community Partnerships at the University of Pennsylvania, has helped to develop academic community-based courses and research projects that involve creating university and community partnerships as well as university assisted community schools in Penn's local community of West Philadelphia. The most effective kind of community and university relationship is one where there is a deep and genuine partnership, one built on mutual benefit, even mutual transformation, and it needs to be long-term.

Finding community in college can be difficult, but it can be especially difficult when you feel like you don't belong. Shelene shares the struggles she faced her first few years at Notre Dame finding a sense of belonging, especially in the Black community as a first generation American and the daughter of immigrant parents from St. Croix and Cameroon. Shelene shares how she unpacked these experiences in her McNeill Fellows capstone and how she has since been convicted to recognize the human dignity of every person and authentically care for others. She has done this throughout her college career participating in the SSLP, ISSLP, and McNeill Leadership Fellows Program.

Preserving hope in the face of racism has been both challenging and elusive for Native Americans due to historical trauma from government policies of genocide, annihilation, termination, and relocation -- yet this is precisely the message that Fr. Maurice Henry Sands brings to Native American communities across the country. Fr. Sands is the Executive Director of the Black and Indian Mission Office in Washington, D.C., a priest of the Archdiocese of Detroit, and a member of the Ojibway, Ottawa and Potawatomi tribes, who are known together as Anishnaabe. He delivered this year's annual Rev. Bernie Clark, C.S.C. Lecture on Catholic Social Tradition, titled "Act Justly: Healing Racism through Faith." He joined us on the podcast to discuss racism against Native Americans from historical, personal, and theological perspectives.

Justice often gets characterized as a project, something we go out in the world to do and check a box--but justice needs to first be about the kind of people we are rather than the actions that we do in the world. Adam Gustine, Assistant Director of Social Concerns Seminars, joins us on the podcast to discuss his book, "Becoming a Just Church, Cultivating Communities of God's Shalom." Adam shares how he defines the Hebrew word of shalom as "wholeness, when nothing is missing and nothing is broken," and that the work of the Church is be an extension of wholeness to the world. As Adam says, Jesus didn't spend his time with the movers and the shakers of society, he spent his time with people vulnerable to the storms of life. If the Church is to be the Body of Christ, then it ought to reflect Jesus' priorities. Subscribe to the Signs of the Times Podcast in your podcast app and tune in to hear the whole story!

What do medical clinics in Haiti, payday loans, and an after school dance program have in common? The Catholic social tradition (CST) Minor through the Center for Social Concerns. Each of our three guests today participated in the CST Minor during their time at Notre Dame and share with us the focus of their capstone project, how they integrated their work into their major, and the impact of viewing the world and their studies through a CST lens has had on them. This is the last episode of season 1, make sure to subscribe so that you don't miss our season 2 launch!

Roslyn Joseph is a senior at Notre Dame, a science-business major and poverty studies minor, and has taken many of the Center for Social Concerns courses throughout her undergraduate career. Roslyn shares her desire to take the things she was learning in an academic setting through her poverty studies minor and see how they applied in the real world. During an Urban Plunge she encountered a man who shared his experience of trying to get dental care and how his decaying teeth affected both his confidence and ability to speak to people. From there she started looking for community-based solutions to problems like these. She shares her experience working in a volunteer pop-up dental clinic in her hometown of Augusta, Georgia as well as with a local dental health exchange that offers services for free in exchange for community service performed by the patients.

We're joined today by Prathm Juneja, a senior at Notre Dame studying political science and computer science, and recent recipient of a Truman scholarship. Prathm realized he had an interest in empowering young voices in politics and got involved with ND Votes his freshmen year. Prathm discusses the many barriers to voting, especially for marginalized groups, and shares that low voter turnout among these groups is largely due to systems of inequality. He also shares how technology and politics can intersect to create positive change and empower more marginalized voices. He has since worked on Pete Buttigieg's second mayoral campaign and interned with his administration in their Office of Innovation developing a 311 bot to increase minority voice in local government. He currently works on Buttigieg's presidential campaign working on the intersection of digital, organizing, and finance.

Sarah is a liberal studies major at the University of Notre Dame and hails from nearby Mishawaka, IN. Throughout her four years at Notre Dame she took part in much of the Center's programming, including the SSLP, ISSLP, Appalachia Seminar, and ND Votes. Sarah shares the impactful experience she had working at the border in El Paso, Texas at Annunciation House, a house of hospitality for migrants and refugees. She shares both the challenging and transformative growth experience she had that summer, handling the day-to-day operations of Annunciation House which included the intake of around 500 migrants a day. She also discusses the hardship migrants face when in holding facilities and the lack of recourse in the face of glaring injustices. "It showed me that the systems that I take for granted that will work for me, just don't work for a lot of people."

Charley Clark is a professor of economics and finance from St. John's University who joined us at the recent Catholic Social Tradition Conference hosted by the Center for Social Concerns here at Notre Dame. We sat down to discuss what CST can bring to economics and poverty research and how it's important to look at Catholic social thought not as a replacement for the social sciences but rather as an aspect of moral theology that can guide our thinking in this area. Charley shares how humans thrive living in communion with others and that this isn't just linked to individual fulfillment but that it's also the key to a prosperous economy. He also shares that he's optimistic about the efforts in the 21st century towards eradicating poverty and that the Catholic Church has been a leader in this by demanding that the poor in developing countries have a seat at the table.

Cardinal Charles Maung Bo, S.D.B. is the Archbishop of Yangon, Myanmar and joined us at the recent Catholic Social Tradition Conference hosted by the Center for Social Concerns here at Notre Dame. He sat down with us to expand on his keynote talk. We discussed what it was like for him to grow up under a military regime in a poor village in Myanmar and how this has influenced his special regard for the poor. He shared how he has been outspoken about a controversial China-funded dam project in Myanmar stating that superpowers like China are exploiting the poor for their own profit. We discussed the growth of the Catholic population in Myanmar and how the nation was influenced by the visit of Pope Francis in 2017. He strongly emphasizes the idea that justice is at the heart of the gospel, stating that justice is not an option for believers, it's a mandate.

Lisa Sowle Cahill is a theological ethicist from Boston College who joined us at the recent Catholic Social Tradition Conference hosted by the Center for Social Concerns here at Notre Dame. We sat down with her to discuss her wide-ranging work in the field of ethics covering sex and gender, war and peace, and most recently bioethics and the effects of climate change. She shared that the ethical and social problems related to climate change are important for testing the framework of Catholic social teaching and offered a critique of the Pope's use of feminine terms in Laudato Sí. We also discussed Flint, Michigan's water contamination, structural sin, and how themes of race and poverty played into that crisis.

Dr. James Gingerich is a family medicine doctor in Goshen, Indiana. James says he didn't go to medical school to become a doctor, he went because he is passionate about community development and wanted to open an affordable health care center in Goshen that would build bridges across cultures. The Maple City Health Care Center fulfills the triple aim in health care of being high quality, low cost, and having high patient satisfaction, they are leading the state and in some cases the nation on all of these measures. But James says they're not after the triple aim, he says the vision is to create a space where people engage with each other, come out of isolation and fragmentation and into shared space as a community and the result is they become healthier. The key ingredients to their success are eliminating a mentality of scarcity for patients and staff, fostering imagination, and bringing people together around story and food.

Dan Graff, Ph.D., the Director of the Higgins Labor Program at the Center, joins us today to discuss the question, on what grounds can a wage be just or unjust? It's a question he's been exploring through his work with the Just Wage Working Group which brings together scholars and students to pursue the fundamental question of “the just wage” from a variety of disciplinary and practitioner perspectives. The working group is inspired by Catholic social tradition which they use as a framework to ask questions such as: is everyone in the economy participating? does everyone have minimum decent standards of living? and does everyone have economic opportunities to advance and participate in the decisions that affect their lives? They are currently working on developing an online Just Wage Tool to further these questions and foster dialogue in an extremely polarizing environment. At the start of the episode Dan also shares the work of the Higgins Labor Program as a whole and we discuss the recent nation wide teacher strikes.

Anna Blackman joins us on the podcast to share how we can use Catholic social tradition (CST) to address political issues, strengthen civil society, and hold government accountable. Anna is a research associate in the area of Catholic Social Thought and Practice at the Center. Through her doctoral work she engaged with the Catholic Worker Movement in the UK and studied their political activism efforts. She discusses ways in which Brexit was influenced by CST but how it ultimately demonstrated a failure of subsidiarity and solidarity and serves as an example of when politics do not serve the common good. Her current research is focused on the Humanizing Institutions Project which aims to look at the ethics of institutions in light of Catholic social tradition.