This episode of Just Politics sounds a little different—and that’s the point.

Rather than diving into our usual policy discussion, hosts Colin and Eilis pass the mic to a group of young men wrestling with one of the most pervasive forces shaping our political and cultural moment: toxic masculinity. These college students are all part of NETWORK’s Carroll Coston Fellowship, a leadership program named after Sister Carol Coston, one of NETWORK’s founding sisters and its first executive director.

Together, they explore what it means to be a man in 2025, especially in the wake of the 2024 election, where the “manosphere” made headlines and MAGA bravado showed up in force on college campuses. These young leaders speak candidly about gender norms they’ve inherited, what they’ve had to unlearn, and how they’re trying to show up differently not just for themselves, but for the people around them.

You’ll hear from:

• Steven, a student at Barry University in South Florida, reflecting on faith and masculinity in a culturally complex environment

• JC, a student from Atlanta studying in rural Pennsylvania, who talks about online influence and its impact on young Black men

• Ben, who grew up in Kentucky and shares his evolving understanding of privilege, power, and accountability

• Jack, a social work student and trans man offering a powerful reflection on “collectivist masculinity”

• Jonathan, a business student at Marquette learning to speak up as one of the only students of color in the room

• Aaron, an international student athlete from Canada who reflects on masculinity in immigrant households and team culture

The conversation closes with where they’re finding hope and what examples of healthy, authentic masculinity they’re carrying with them into the future.

Whether you’re a parent, teacher, organizer, or someone thinking about how culture is shaping politics, this is a conversation you won’t want to miss.

LINKS:

https://uscatholic.org/articles/202505/how-a-faulty-vision-of-christian-masculinity-harms-us-all/

https://uscatholic.org/articles/202505/toxic-masculinity-clashes-with-actual-catholic-teaching/

https://www.networkadvocates.org/vote-our-future/yall/

What does it mean to belong to a church—and a country—that doesn’t always welcome you?

In this episode, Colin Martinez Longmore sits down with Yunuen Trujillo for an open conversation about identity, faith, fear, and belonging. Trujillo is an immigration attorney, LGBTQ+ Catholic advocate, and lay minister. As an immigrant and a queer person who is both a practicing immigration lawyer and faithful Catholic, she shares her perspective on the emotional toll our current political moment takes on communities and individuals and what it takes to create spaces of healing and justice when institutions are often part of the harm.

Trujillo speaks to the fear that is often manufactured and weaponized by political leaders and the way that fear can infiltrate even faith communities, turning people against one another rather than toward solidarity. But she also shares her commitment to a hope rooted in community, resistance, and a belief that change is possible, even within institutions that feel resistant to it.

This episode explores her involvement with LGBTQ+ Catholic ministry, including her work in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and her founding of @lgbtcatholics Instagram page, a grassroots effort to build inclusive Catholic communities. She also highlights the essential role of allies, especially parents and grandparents, in shifting the church from within.

Whether you're navigating your own place within religious or political systems or simply seeking to be a better ally and community builder, this episode offers clarity, strength, and the reminder that hope is not naive—it’s necessary.

For more on supporting immigrant communities and LGBTQ+ Catholics:

An immigration attorney on the Los Angeles protests
https://uscatholic.org/articles/202506/immigration-attorney-los-angeles-protests/

Yes, pride is a sin. But it's also a virtue.
https://uscatholic.org/articles/202408/yes-pride-is-a-sin-but-its-also-a-virtue/

All love enriches our church
https://uscatholic.org/articles/202403/all-love-enriches-our-church/

Solidarity with immigrants: How Catholics can stand up
https://uscatholic.org/articles/2023/solidarity-with-immigrants-how-catholics-can-stand-up/

LGBTQ+ Catholics: A Guide to Inclusive Ministry
https://www.paulistpress.com/Products/5577-4/lgbtq-catholics.aspx

@lgbtcatholics on Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/lgbtcatholics/?hl=en

What do you get when 800 billionaires hoard more wealth than half the U.S. population combined? A rigged tax system and a society that leaves millions behind.

In this episode, longtime tax and budget expert Sarah Christopherson joins us to expose the political and moral cost of extreme wealth inequality. She explains how billionaires use loopholes, lobbying, and misleading populist messaging to avoid paying taxes and how those choices fuel poverty, hunger, housing shortages, and underfunded schools.

We also explore why promises like “no tax on tips” often do more harm than good and how slick messaging masks a dangerous reality: Tax cuts for the rich are often paid for by service cuts for the rest of us.

Alongside Sarah, we’re joined by Jarrett Smith, Senior Tax Lobbyist at NETWORK, who adds key context on upcoming legislation, policy threats, and what advocates need to know right now.

If you’ve ever wondered why billionaires pay less in taxes than you—or why it feels like everything is underfunded except for corporations—this conversation is for you.

Learn more and take action at networklobby.org. Follow us @NETWORKLobby on social media and join the movement for tax justice.

To learn more:

Sarah Christopherson’s website: https://www.scgchristopherson.com/

Tax Justice Calculator: https://networklobby.org/taxjusticecalculator/

Patriotic Millionaires: https://patrioticmillionaires.org/

Families over Billionaires: https://www.familiesoverbillionaires.org/

During a time when ICE raids tear families apart, current administration policies criminalize asylum seekers, and cruelty has become policy, how do people of faith respond?

This is the question we ask in this episode of Just Politics. Our guest is Sister of St. Joseph Janet Kinney, the executive director of the Long Island Immigration Clinic, whose ministry with the Sisters of St. Joseph of Brentwood has become a lifeline for immigrants and asylum seekers facing increasingly hostile conditions.

From the rise of authoritarian immigration policies to the alarming normalization of deportations and detention centers, Kinney doesn’t flinch. She shares how the Clinic stands firm, offering accompaniment and legal support even when the political tides are brutal.

Kinney also reflects on the shifting landscape of immigration in the United States—from rising fear in immigrant communities to the moral failures of our current political leadership—and how her team provides legal support, safety planning, and community-building to those who need it most.

What makes this conversation powerful isn’t just Kinney’s honesty about the stakes; it’s her unshakable commitment to hope. We talk about where she finds it, how she sustains it, and why Catholic social teaching demands both prayer and action.

This episode is a reminder that bravery is contagious and that even when the horrors persist, so do we.

Tune in on June 3rd, 2025 for the return of your favorite Catholic social justice podcast: Just Politics, a project of NETWORK Lobby and U.S. Catholic magazine.

“Well, what a summer it's been!” says Joan Neal at the start of this week’s episode. And August only just began!

The past few weeks have been a whirlwind in U.S. politics. A shooting targeting former president Trump left many injured and two people, including the shooter, dead. Coming off a debate performance that raised concerns about his age, President Biden withdrew his bid for reelection and quickly endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, the first Black woman in U.S. history to be the presumptive nominee of a major party. And just this past week, Harris selected Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate—with only 85 days left until the 2024 election.

To make sense of all this, Laura Peralta-Schulte joins Just Politics this week. Peralta-Schulte is the senior director of public policy and government relations at NETWORK.

“While the media likes to focus on the horse races ... what we're really talking about is who is going to represent us that will pass paid leave, make sure kids are not hungry, make sure that everybody has access to affordable healthcare,” Peralta-Schulte says.

Sometimes, hearing from policy wonks can leave us feeling like things are actually worse than we thought. But Peralta-Schulte offers a hopeful read of this election season, pointing to the many people already engaging with energy, inspiration, and solidarity. “It's not Pentecost,” she says, “but it seems like it sometimes when you have folks going to their parishes and doing voter education and voter registration in places like Cleveland.”

Peralta-Schulte points to NETWORK’s online resources and tools that anyone can use to get informed on the issues, find voter registration and polling place information, and take action. And she offers an invitation to NETWORK’s Nuns on the Bus & Friends tour, hitting the road this fall.

Learn more about what’s going on, what you can do, and why we remain hopeful and engaged on this week’s episode of the Just Politics podcast.

NETWORK Advocates is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to advancing the principles of Catholic social justice and does not endorse or oppose any candidate or party in the upcoming election.

Additional Resources:

NETWORK’s 2024 Election Resource Page
http://networkadvocates.org/be-a-voter

NETWORK’s Equally Sacred Checklist
https://networkadvocates.org/equally-sacred-multi-issue-voter-checklist/

Nuns on the Bus & Friends “Vote Our Future” Tour
http://nunsonthebus.org/

In 2023, after receiving a transformational gift from the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration, NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice was finally able to begin working on an issue they’d been feeling called to for a long time: climate justice.

That gift came to fruition a few months ago with the hiring of a full-time climate lobbyist: Drake Starling, a Cuban-American Miami native with a background in international environmental law. Having worked in a global context, Starling is clear on the urgency of transitioning away from fossil fuels. “If your bathtub is overflowing, you're not going to get a mop,” he says. “Transitioning away from fossil fuels is turning off the bathroom spigot.”

Drake joins his colleagues on this episode of Just Politics to share more about his own story and Catholic social justice commitments, the biggest challenges and possibilities he sees in climate advocacy, and what gives him hope in the work to save the planet.

For starters, he says, we should “try to start making everyone aware that climate change legislation equals good jobs.”

NETWORK Advocates is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to advancing the principles of Catholic social justice and does not endorse or oppose any candidate or party in the upcoming election.

Learn more on this week’s episode of Just Politics.

Additional resources:

NETWORK’s Equally Sacred Issues: Freedom to Live on a Healthy Planet
https://www.nunsonthebus.org/equally-sacred/freedom-to-live-on-a-healthy-planet/

Learn more about the Inflation Reduction Act’s climate provisions
https://www.epa.gov/inflation-reduction-act

Read about FSPA’s gift to NETWORK for Climate Justice Work
https://networklobby.org/news/fspa-climate-gift/

Learn more about “Cancer Alley”
https://www.propublica.org/article/welcome-to-cancer-alley-where-toxic-air-is-about-to-get-worse

When it comes to people organizing to stop gun violence, you probably first think of moms (see Moms Demand Action). But there is another growing unified voice against gun violence and the policies that enable it—that of Catholic nuns.

Last year, communities of Catholic sisters and their partners formed Nuns Against Gun Violence to educate about, pray for, and advocate for policies that free us from the threat of gun violence—and to accompany communities ravaged by it.

In this episode, two members of Nuns Against Gun Violence join us on Just Politics. Lisa Cathelyn is the justice and peace coordinator for the U.S. Federation of the Sisters of St. Joseph, and Sister of St. Joseph Annette McDermott is the justice, peace, and integrity of creation coordinator for her community and a member of the Nuns Against Gun Violence steering committee.

“There was a real concern that the issue of gun violence was escalating,” McDermott says. “And I'd have to say, honestly, there was a part where I don't think one of us could hear once again, ‘We're sending you our thoughts and prayers.’ What could we do?”

Since its formation, Nuns Against Gun Violence has led educational webinars, candlelight vigils, billboard ads, legislative advocacy efforts, and more.

“We must care for communities to prevent harm, we must hold people accountable for their actions, and we must also work and have public policy that promotes the common good,” Cathelyn says.

Many people across the country feel like they hear of a new mass shooting each time they turn on the news. “Gun violence is a public health crisis. No one is unaffected by it,” Cathelyn says. But, she says, Nuns Against Gun Violence seeks to offer hope and action for a better reality. “We reject the toxic idols of violence, of weapons, and we announce something different,” she says.

Learn more about protecting our freedom to live in safe communities on this week’s episode of the Just Politics podcast.

Note: NETWORK Advocates is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to advancing the principles of Catholic social justice and does not endorse or oppose any candidate or party in the upcoming election.

Additional resources:

Nuns Against Gun Violence
https://nunsagainstgunviolence.org/

Gun Violence Archive
https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/

NETWORK’s Equally Sacred Resources – Freedom from Harm
https://www.nunsonthebus.org/equally-sacred/freedom-from-harm/

Moms Demand Action
https://momsdemandaction.org/