A long-form podcast interviewing leaders living their faith.
Earlier this year, a new podcast began to make its way across the Internet focusing on all things Catholic.
Co-hosts Pete Sanchez, reporter for the Catholic Star Herald newspaper, and Mike Walsh, communications director for the Diocese of Camden, interview Catholic leaders about what brought them to where they are now and how they are bringing the faith to their communities, on the Internet-available program.
The weekly long-form interview show began production in February, and has since been releasing episodes weekly. Topics have included youth and young adult ministry, fundraising, vocations, education, prison ministry, and social justice, to name a few.
“I think that for people who want to more fully embrace or understand the Catholic faith beyond Sunday Mass, Talking Catholic will become an invaluable resource, especially for the youth and young adults who are so wired into this medium of communication,” explained Sánchez.
“This is an exciting new frontier for the church to, as Saint John Paul II would say, ‘put out into the deep’ and engage listeners in this new media,” he continued.
Each podcast is person-oriented, usually featuring one or two guests. “We chat with our guests about how they view their faith, what brought them to where they are today in that view, and what they do to make their faith a reality in their daily lives,” explained Walsh.
The goal of this podcast is to go beyond the mass communication brevity that exists in the world today, which often offers a sound bite or a headline and blurb. Instead, the Talking Catholic podcast is a vehicle to get a complete feel for who a person is, what brought them to where they are, what troubles they overcame and the good they’re doing in the world.
“This is where the beauty of podcasts come into play — by listening to an individual’s story in their own voice, people are far more intimately connected to the guest, and by extension, the world of Catholicism,” Walsh said.
Averaging about 50 minutes, each episode is a perfect length for the standard commute or workout.
The podcast can be found on the Diocese of Camden website, iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, and SoundCloud, along with other podcast aggregator websites and apps.
Talking Catholic can also be found on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.