AMDG: A Jesuit Podcast

Meet the Lieutenant Governor Who Quit Politics to Become a Jesuit with Cyrus Habib, SJ

It’s October, which means the presidential election here in the US is next month. So here on AMDG we are going to take old that rule about never discussing religion or politics in polite company and throw it in the Potomac River. Our four episodes this month will all cover faith and politics in a variety of ways. We know you don’t come here for political news and analysis, so we won’t be talking about the ins and outs of the election or really all that much about the election itself. Instead, we’re hoping to go deeper into why politics might matter to people of faith in the first place. Our series of guests all come at questions about this stuff from different angles. We’re getting started on today’s episode with the only American Jesuit who served as a state’s lieutenant governor before entering the Society of Jesus. (We didn’t actually look that fact up, but we’re sure it’s true.) Cyrus Habib, SJ, is a Jesuit in the stage of formation called regency. When he entered the Jesuits in 2020, Cyrus had been serving as the State of Washington’s Lieutenant Governor for three years. An extremely successful and popular politician, it was quite possible Cyrus would’ve eventually become the governor of the state. But he gave up his political career for a Jesuit vocation. And these are just two chapters of Cyrus’ incredible life story: the son of Iranian immigrants to the United States, Cyrus lost his eyesight to cancer as an eight-year-old kid. After graduating from Columbia University in 2003, he studied English literature as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University then earned a law degree at Yale. He practiced law in Washington State from 2009 until 2017, and during that time was elected to the Washington House of Representatives. It’s safe to say he surprised a lot of people when he walked away from politics to enter the Society. Host Mike Jordan Laskey asked Cyrus about his story and his vocation. They also talked about the value of politics and what from the Church’s tradition we might be able to offer the country to help heal our partisan divides. Cyrus Habib, SJ, on his decision to join the Jesuits in America Magazine: https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2020/03/19/lieutenant-governor-cyrus-habib-why-i-am-giving-elected-office-and-joining-jesuits AMDG is a production of the Jesuit Media Lab, which is a project of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States. www.jesuits.org/ www.beajesuit.org/ twitter.com/jesuitnews facebook.com/Jesuits instagram.com/wearethejesuits youtube.com/societyofjesus www.jesuitmedialab.org/

Broadcast on:: 02 Oct 2024
Audio Format:: other

(upbeat music) From the Jesuit Media Lab, this is AMDG. I'm Mike Jordan-Lasky. It's October, which means the presidential election here in the U.S. is next month. So here on AMDG, we're going to take that old rule about never discussing religion or politics and polite company, and we're going to throw it into the Potomac River. Our four episodes this month will all cover faith and politics in a variety of ways. We know you don't come here for political news and analysis. Maybe you come here to avoid political news and analysis. So we won't be talking about the ins and outs of the election, or really that much about the election itself. Instead, we're hoping to go deeper into why politics might matter to people of faith in the first place. Our series of guests all come at questions about this stuff from different angles. We're getting started on today's episode with the only American Jesuit who served as a state's lieutenant governor before entering the Society of Jesus. I didn't actually look that fact up, but I'm sure it's true. Cyrus Habib SJ is a Jesuit in the stage of formation called Regency. When he entered the Jesuits in 2020, Cyrus had been serving as the state of Washington's lieutenant governor for three years. An extremely successful and popular politician, it was quite possible Cyrus would have eventually become the governor of the state. But he gave up his political career for a Jesuit vocation. And these are just two chapters of Cyrus's incredible life story. He's the son of Iranian immigrants who came to the United States. Cyrus lost his eyesight to cancer as an eight-year-old. And after graduating from Columbia University in 2003, he studied English literature as a Rhodes scholar at Oxford University. Then he earned a law degree at Yale. He practiced law in Washington State. And during that time, he was elected to the Washington House of Representatives in 2012. It's safe to say he surprised a lot of people and he walked away from politics to enter the Society of Jesus. I asked Cyrus about his story and his vocation. We also talked about the value of politics and what the church's tradition might be able to offer the country to help heal our partisan divides. It was a fascinating and wide-ranging conversation. And I think you'll enjoy getting to meet and get to know Cyrus too just a little bit. You can subscribe to AMDG wherever you get podcasts. And thanks for joining us. (upbeat music) - Well, Cyrus Abib, welcome to AMDG. Thank you so much for taking the time. How are you? - Thank you. It's great to be with you. Thank you so much. - And we're talking the day before you're flying off to Kenya where you'll be for the next stage of your Jesuit formation. So I hope you're all packed and I appreciate your fitting us into this compressed, and you know, timely out here. - Absolutely. I'm glad we can do it and no comment on how packed I am. (laughs) - And I'll ask you a little bit at the end maybe about what you'll be doing over there in Nairobi. But first, I think you might be the only Jesuit in the Jesuit conference who used to be a lieutenant governor of a state, maybe ever. That is a very specific. - That's a very niche distinction. Yeah. I actually don't know how many former politicians there are in the society of Jesus. It's when it's happened, it tends to go the other way, right? We've had former Jesuits who have become politicians. - Right. You even had the current, like the guy who, you know, the Jesuit who was a congressman for a while until the Pope told him to stop. - That's right. We had, well, yeah. We had, you know, and we have, we have a current member of Congress who is a former Jesuit, you know, Governor Jerry Brown, who was a Jesuit, the late John Spellman, governor of Washington State in the '80s was a Jesuit novice. So it does, yeah, it does. We have a John McLachlan, you know, for those who are AMDG listeners, possibly, you know, former listeners of the McLachlan group, John McLachlan was a Jesuit who left to run an unsuccessful campaign for the US Senate and then, you know, became a journalist. - Yeah, so, but you're going upstream or whatever direction that is. So, but just for folks though, who don't know you, maybe you could start by telling us a little bit about your background and how you got to be where you are today. - Yeah, so my parents came to the US from Iran. I was born in Maryland in 1981 and grew up in a, as I describe it, generically monotheistic family. My parents both came from secular Muslim families. And, but, you know, we didn't practice a, you know, any particular religion at home, but we, you know, I was taught, you know, to believe in God, to pray, you know, in, you know, in very kind of general ways. We didn't have a community of faith. We were exposed to Catholicism. I was exposed to Catholicism as a kid growing up in Maryland where most of our friends were Catholic and my mom had gone to Catholic schools in Iran. So, she had an affinity to, you know, to the Catholic church, but it wasn't until I went to graduate school at Oxford and a fellow Rhodes Scholar, a Notre Dame alum like yourself, invited me to go to Mass with him. It was 20 years ago this November. And that was about as crazy an idea as you could imagine. If you knew me at that time, you know, I was anything but religious. And, but I went and, you know, there was, there was no kind of, you know, demising conversion, but it began a process where, you know, I kind of found that I liked being at Mass and I went back and went back and went back and studied and learned and eventually was received into the church a few years later in 2007. By this point, I was in law school. I finished law school, came back to Washington State where my family was living and began practicing law, ran for a seat in the State House of Representatives in 2012, which I won and then won a seat in the State Senate in 2014 and then ran for Lieutenant Governor in 2016, which in our state is the race for Lieutenant Governor independent from the race for governance, separately elected position. So was elected LG and then discerned, it's a much longer conversation, but during my first and what would turn out to be my only term in office, discerned a vocation to the Jesuits and to the priesthood and decided not to run for re-election in 2020, but instead entered the Jesuit novisciate in Culver City. - Did that surprise people? - It surprised me. It did, I was not expecting at all. I mean, I'm not somebody who, well, first of all, as I said, I'm a convert, but even so, it was nowhere in my thinking that I would become a priest one day and I don't think it was on anyone's mind. What did happen in 2013 when my father was diagnosed with stage four cancer and I was a newly elected state representative is that I was recommended by Father Mike Ryan of St. James Cathedral in Seattle, my pastor. I was recommended James Martin's a Jesuit guide to almost everything. And I didn't know anything about Jim. I had never read any of his stuff, was not following him on Twitter yet. But I read that book and then a number of other books by him. And as you know, he kind of peppers his books with stories from his Jesuit life, particularly from his formation years. And the seed was kind of planted somewhere very, very, very deep underground. Like that sounds like a cool life, you know, traveling to different places, living in all different circumstances, helping people in moments of travail. You know, all of that, like direct service in a way that was quite different from, you know, from law and politics. You know, that attraction was there, but the way I describe it to people is it's kind of like if you visit somewhere on vacation and you think like how it'd be amazing to live there, people seem so happy. Like I'd love to live in, you know, wherever Italy, Argentina, wherever it might be, Kenya. But you don't actually make a plan to do that. You know, you have a whole life, you know, you're on a different trajectory. So it's just kind of a thought, almost a daydream. And that's how it was kind of deep in my unconscious until my father passed away. And then I was diagnosed with cancer in 2018 and, you know, faced, well, it sounds tripe, but faced my own mortality. Or in Ignatian terms, we would say, you know, I had my cannonball moment and was in a position to kind of actually think in a much more imaginative way about, you know, why am I here? It was, that kind of then finally allowed me to start thinking about a vocation. - Sure. So when you were getting into politics before that, that had, I'm sure that had been, if you were like lawyer, Rhodes Scott, it's a pretty standard path for politicians. And, but then you had this kind of faith conversion in the middle there, but five years after entering the church, it sounds like then it was when you were running. How did like the kind of big, like, not the vocation, like priesthood vocation, but the conversion to Catholicism and then your, you know, political aspirations, how did that, those affect each other? I imagine like, had you thought you might, you know, pursue public service before becoming Catholic and then it affected how you discerned that at all. Like I'm just curious about how those things affected each other since they were happening kind of generally around the same season of your life. - Yeah, I would say that it, you know, might be coming Catholic, both did and didn't change my view of my future and my prospects. It did in the sense, I mean, I, you know, as I was getting to know the church and before, you know, before doing RCIA and receiving the sacraments, I could feel that I was becoming a, I mean, it's a little bit reductive to say becoming a bed reperson, but like that I was, you know, I was becoming a gentler kinder person, which was really something that needed to happen. You know, I should back up here and mention for, in case it was not mentioned in, you know, in the intro, but, you know, that I became blind as a child at age eight years old, due to childhood eye cancer. And, you know, I know that as I, you know, as I grew up and went to college and kind of confronted, you know, what it means to be a person who's blind. I didn't always do that in the healthiest way, in the sense that I very much had something to prove. You know, I very much needed to show that I'm not weak, you know, and that, you know, as I felt, you know, that I was smarter than other people and this kind of thing. And so, so, you know, I had room to grow for sure. And, you know, going to mass, reading the, you know, the scriptures through a lens of faith, led to a desire for, and then ultimately real conversion in who I am, you know, to this day, obviously like everybody else. I have a lot of room for growth that remains, but I could definitely feel myself evolving. I also could feel that the social justice concerns that I had, you know, and I've been interested in politics and advocacy since high school. But I now had a kind of moral vocabulary in which to think about and discuss my commitments. And that continued into my life in politics. But the way in which it didn't have, you know, the effect that looking back, I kind of wished that it had, was that as I'm, you know, as I kind of gained, like as I was successful in politics, kept winning higher office, you know, setting records and, you know, getting noticed, I found it harder to remember what Jesus teaches about the importance of, you know, gathering treasure for the hereafter, or, you know, for the building of God's kingdom, God's reign, you know, and was more and more focused on self advancement. And, you know, it's like I go to Mass every Sunday and say that I, you know, that I believe certain things about what's important in the world, but then the rest of the week I felt trapped in a life and drove myself deeper into a life that really valued other priorities, prestige and status, power, honor, these kinds of things. And it felt deeply inauthentic. It felt deeply inauthentic. And so while I still love politics as a spectator and while I love public policy, the way I felt in my most successful moments as a politician was ultimately, you know, a feeling of kind of holiness and emptiness which, you know, we in Ignatian terms would call desolation. I didn't feel close to God. I didn't feel that I was answering that invitation. - Hmm, sometimes you do wonder that. It's like, is it possible to be a successful politician and a good person or the best person you can be? I imagine that answer is different for different people. But just like when you're, that is having some impact, you know, on your soul being in those positions. But there certainly are, you know, you see, I'd say, oh, this person really seems to be motivated by a real sense of the common good and doesn't seem to be in it with their ego, but there's got to be some ego involved. Even with someone like Sergeant Shriver, right? I think it was like this great American Catholic statesman who was in public service for the right reasons. But even then it's just like, it's, I imagine that's very hard to like keep a healthy sense of yourself when you're again in that place where people want a lot from you and giving you different accolades. - Yeah, I think there's always, you know, I don't believe there's any politician who is either purely motivated by ambition, even, you know, even some who might come to mind, you know, but, and I also don't think there are any politicians who are purely altruistic. I think, you know, I know politicians are just like everybody else and there is a mix. However, I will say that our system has as a feature, the reality that you need to win reelection to keep your job. And so, you know, you need to be appealing to people in order to keep your job. And that's both personally appealing and professionally appealing, you know, to all of these bosses that you have who will make an up or down decision on whether you get to keep your job. And that is a dynamic that is, you know, you know, again, there's a reason we have it. And that is that we want our elected officials to be responsible to the people. So again, it's a feature. People sometimes say to me like, well, you know, politicians just do anything, you know, to get elected or, you know, to get reelected. And it's like, in some ways, that is part of the idea, you know, of a representative democracy is that, you know, we're sending you out there to take these votes that we're too busy to take, you know, whether it's in city hall or Congress or state legislature. But, you know, and if we like what you did, we'll let you keep doing it. If we like the way you represent us, we'll let you keep doing it. And if you don't, we won't. And so politicians are pretty simple creatures, you know, they're gonna respond to that incentive structure. And so that can be spiritually corrosive, you know, because it's not a system that's meant to be focused primarily on conscience. Conscience is a part of it. A term I remember hearing when I was first in politics is that for legislators, there are the three Cs, constituents, caucus and conscience. And you kind of balance those three sets of responsibilities. But that only gives, you know, you know, kind of at best a one-third state to your conscience. And that can be challenging. - Sure. So you go from, you know, a political life in terms of our political institutions, which are not really all that popular in the US, not all that trusted, at least, you know, federal ones, you know, people would say they don't really have high levels of trust in government. And also then into the church, where also levels of trust are not all of that high. - And I am curious for you as you were balancing that and in that world, looking back now. I'm sure there are things that you learned kind of entering into public service that you wouldn't have guessed ahead of time, or some of those we'd have, whether it's caricatures of our political system or stereotypes, or I'm just curious, like what are some of the myths that are out there? What are some of the things you think are true? What did you learn? People are, again, fed up with the system, they think, hey, nothing's happening, we're too polarized, or there's too much corruption, or politicians just respond, mostly to special interests, and the whole thing about your constituents mattering is it doesn't end up being as important. So, yeah, I'm just curious about, like, bring us behind the scenes a little bit, and what did you learn from your time about how politics work in the US? - Yeah, well, I think something that's more or less unique about politics right now is that, in most facets of our society, people can be, sometimes people can be jerks behind closed doors, but then they are warm and friendly in public. The irony is that in politics, it's like often the other way around. People are, you know, people are like polemical and polarizing in public, and then you meet most of those people when you meet them behind closed doors, one-on-one, they're not that way at all, you know, and you see this with partisanship, and I put myself in, you know, I implicate myself in this, like, I would go out and give floor speeches in the Senate, or, you know, speak at some huge rally or something like that, and my rhetoric would be much sharper than it would be if I were in a closed-door meeting with somebody, because, you know, politicians are people, and so, you know, when you're face-to-face with somebody, you know, unless you're a real sociopath, like, you know, you're, you know, we, you know, we wanna be liked, people, you know, wanna be like, I think politicians more than most, and so, you know, that was really surprising to me. I made some really good friends in the Republican Party, you know, and some of the people whom I enjoyed spending time with in the Senate, in the state Senate, were Republicans, just deeply kind people, you know, not that, I mean, I say that as though it's, you know, I mean, maybe your listeners might say, like, you know, of course they are, yeah, but we would go after each other, you know, some of the same people. It does help if you get to know the other person one-on-one. I think it does help tamp it down a little bit, but it just feels like, you know, what the people want is something different. And that's where I think, you know, as Jesuits and kind of, you know, the Jesuit family, people who are listening to this and people who care about these things. I mean, we as citizens have to do an exam and we have to examine our own consciences and say, what is it about, you know, this may be reality TV show culture, you know, what is it about us that creates a demand for politicians to act in a way that is actually not who they usually are when the cameras are off. Does that, do you know what I'm saying? - Right, do you have, like, do you answer your own question? - Well, I would say, I mean, I mentioned, you know, the kind of reality TV show culture. I think we are, I mean, I have nothing particularly innovative to say that hasn't been said on podcasts, but I would say, you know, we are in a time of tremendous transition and have been, you know, well, it depends on where you mark it from. In some ways, you know, you could go back to the cultural shifts of the '60s, but I think then there's another transition that really starts in the '90s with when, you know, when globalization and IT, you know, start to go full throttle. And you start to see real economic shifts among segments of this country who had enjoyed privilege for decades and decades. You start to see, you know, just massive labor shifts affected by trade and immigration dynamics, but also and probably even more so by technology. And so, you know, then you have economic, but also demographic anxieties, you know, introduce into that epidemics that we face like, you know, addiction, substance abuse disorders and alienation and isolation. The move online, which has led to the flourishing of really supportive subcultures where people can find each other who felt alone before, but also leads to a move away from in-person connectivity and social structures that had brought people together. You know, I think about, you know, not just, you know, churches and other places of worship, but also service clubs like Rotary and Lions and Kiwanis and institutions like that. All of that, I think, you know, has led to an anxious and angry populace which feels entitled to express its anger often in ways that are anonymous or informed by anonymity. And then you also have, you know, I hate to pick on the media, but, you know, you have a media dynamic where because the news can so easily be shared, what's, you know, what is a media company to do? You know, the news is that the news has already been reported by one outlet, what does everyone else do? Well, analysis, right? That's the polite term, right? Or hot takes or commentary. And that then leads to an entertaining, you know, kind of drive towards entertainment. And, you know, what's entertaining? Well, entertaining is, you know, you go back to, you know, what's Jerry Springer was entertaining, you know, to people. Survivor is entertaining to people. And so our media landscape then, you know, takes its cues because it needs to sell advertising. So, yeah, nothing particularly new or innovative and what I'm describing here. But I think all of that has led to a populace that wants its politicians not so much to be, you know, compromises or deal makers, or even like productive in terms of legislation. But the politicians whom people love are often just the ones who give really exciting, powerful and like, polemical speeches. Yeah. So, and then kind of in this context, like I always think of the speech Pope Francis gave 10 years ago when he said like, politics is one of the highest forms of charity, because it serves the common good and that a good Catholic medals in politics. And so like, when I can see this and kind of want to disengage, that's the big temptation for me, just like to, like, you know, and I think stepping away in some healthy ways can be good, like I took Twitter off my phone and that's been a very good thing for my life. But like, where, like, how do you, like, why do you stay kind of connected, curious about them, like, for you now, having made the smooth? Yeah, what does the faith like, what can the church, which itself is polarized, offer a society that seems to really kind of enjoy this, you know, combative winter loser mentality? There's healing, clearly, that has to be done. And I'm wondering if you feel like the church is in, within a pluralistic society is in a place where it can offer some sources of that healing. Well, yeah. I mean, two, so, you know, I hear two questions. One is, you know, why, why be involved with politics? And then, you know, what's the role of the church? Well, let me start with the first question. You know, I, as someone who became blind as a kid, I am particularly aware of the role that government has played in my life. And, you know, it's been said before, but I will repeat, government is what we do together. It's not some, you know, alien body. It's not some, you know, other thing. You know, in that sense, there's an analogy to the church as well. You know, the church is what we do together. You know, where two or three are gathered, right? And it's, but it's also true in the civil context that, you know, two or three or two or three hundred million, what we do together intentionally is government. And the politics is, you know, politics is the acquisition and exercise of power in affecting those ends. As someone who's blind, I learned how to read from, you know, by borrowing books from the Washington Talking Book and Braille Library, you know, part of, you know, affiliated with the Library of Congress. I learned how to use a cane to get around and to, you know, take transit from orientation and mobility specialists, you know, who work for the state. I learned how to use software that lets me use, you know, my computer from the Department of Services for the Blind. I went to public schools where there are, and this is an unfortunate thing, but there's just much better services for kids with disabilities than what exists in private schools. And so like, you know, but that's my story, but you might, you also, in countless ways, have benefited from what we have done together, you know, for the common good. And we have to care about it. I mean, if we care about human dignity at scale, this is not, this is not, you know, obviously there's a personalism that is important when it comes to charity face-to-face. And we can't lose that. But right now I'm talking about at scale, if we want, you know, millions of kids to be able to read despite their disability, not just one kid when we can teach one by one. If you want to do it at scale, we have to do it through structures and how we, you know, operate and fund and oversee and ensure quality for those structures. That's government. And so we have to care about it. We as Catholics have to care about it. All people of goodwill have to care about it. And I think, you know, when it comes to the polarization I was describing, it's, the problem is that it makes it harder to, you know, to operate and fund and oversee and ensure quality for those services. Because, you know, if I, you know, if everything is zero sum, if it was my idea, now you don't want my idea to win out, not because it's a bad idea, but because it was my idea. And I feel that way about you. And sometimes, unfortunately, it is even the case that a politician or a party might prefer to have an issue remain unsolved because it keeps the people affected adversely by, you know, that lack of a solution. It keeps them engaged and allows the rhetoric to be more powerful. So we need all of us, Republicans, Democrats, independents, Catholics, all people of goodwill. We need to, in addition to looking at particular issues that we care about. We also need to look at, you know, who are the, what's the kind of the type of leadership that we want? You know, what's the, you know, who are those people who demonstrate decency and a collaborative spirit? And that can be hard to find, but I think, you know, people can discern. And I often think, you know, when people show you how they are, you know, take them at their word. Now, what the church can do, well, it's a hard thing because we ourselves, as you well know, suffer from divisiveness and division. And it's a scandal to use a kind of, you know, a term of art. But it is the scandal that we are as divided as we are as a church, Pope Francis is doing something really important in inviting us to a different way of relating to one another. And so I'm hopeful, I'm hopeful, but it is, it is not something that is gonna be easy. We've already seen that as this synodal path has, you know, has been explored. It's not easy to keep the focus on how, you know, this question of how do we talk to one another? How do we listen to one another without wanting to do what is totally natural, which is go to, okay, okay, if we do that, then I can get this outcome or you can get that outcome. - Sure. So I'm curious for you as you were learning about the church and getting to know more about like our social doctrine, if there were things that like for you, just like really connected with your vision for the common good. Even the common good is something that has these deep roots in Catholic teaching, and maybe that is something that we can bring to the table that, you know, maybe is missing sometimes where things feel super individualistic. Okay, like this is from our tradition. This is some resource that we have that we can draw on. So yeah, curious for you as you like got to know that, like seeing, oh, this is a cool history of, you know, this concept or this papal writing or this way that some saint lived this out and then was kind of, you know, brought into church tradition. Yeah, what are like some of those things that like, from your perspective now, as like an advocate who might be reaching out to a lawmaker, can think, oh, like we could draw on this. Like this is something from, yeah, like our Catholic body of stuff, like really rich stuff in this, you know, these areas that the world, like our country in particular like could, you know, could really benefit from. Yeah, well, first of all, I think, you know, for me, it's a great question. I think what I was most attracted to and continue to be drawn, drawn to is Jesus's, Jesus's tendency is not even strong enough word, what is insistence on kind of avoiding or, you know, kind of evading easy categorization, you know, and you see this and I'm sure it frustrated his disciples that, you know, what he was insisting on was not a particular ideology. But, you know, kind of a spirituality and in that sense, you know, I think in terms as a sensibility, I think there is an openness to what, you know, we might consider radical change. Not pie in the sky, but at least, you know, but a kind of expression of an aspiration that is radical. And I think that's something, you know, in our day and age, you think about kind of how modest our, you know, our dreams are and becoming more so every day, you know. You know, so if the federal government can pass, well, can can balance, you know, can, sorry, can pass a debt ceiling increase. It's considered a success. If it can pass a budget, it's a success. And if it can pass an, you know, an infrastructure bill, then that's, you know, something, you know, we cry from the rooftops. But our challenges are so much greater, you know, and the needs of people are so much greater. And to me, what Jesus invites us to do and insists on, and at its best, what the church allows is for us Catholics, for all Christians and people of goodwill to say, you know what? We want to question capitalism, you know, and then where it's relevant in this world still, we want to question communism. You know, we want to challenge these ideologies. And there's a, we ought to have a certain courage, a certain audacity to do that. You know, when I was in elected office, if I went out there and talked about, you know, the evils of capitalism, you know, I'd be, you know, I'd be ridiculed, you know, I'd be absolutely ridiculed. But, you know, as someone who's no longer in politics, as, as just a citizen, I, you know, and one informed by our, you know, our church teaching, but above all, by the gospels, I feel totally empowered to say and express my more, you know, my deeper and more profound concerns, as well as my dreams, you know, I, it may sound trite, but there's a reason that it's, it may sound that way. But, you know, Dr. King, for me continues to be in our political and cultural and social history, the most powerful figure of Christian witness in the US. Because he was so strongly rooted in his faith and willing to pick up his cross, even to die on his cross. And that gave him an audacity that speaks to us in moral clarity to this very day. - So as you're watching this election now and with a different perspective, I guess you entered the Jesuits right before the last presidential election, right? So, right, so like kind of your first one, the pretty dramatic shift in election viewing, I'm sure. And as you're kind of thinking now about it, I'm curious for you, like four years into the society, into your formation, like how are you watching this particular election unfold differently? Are you noticing different things? Do you feel like a different person, as you're like taking in the news? Like, has it changed at all for you since you've joined? - Yeah, people have asked me that a lot lately, because I had attended the DNC in the past and been a super delegate or whatever they call it now. I mean, but participated in party politics as well as an elected official. And so people have been asking me, how does it feel like do you miss it? You know, with so much going on in politics. And I don't miss it, I don't miss being in it. I'm fascinated by it to this day. The kind of two months from late June to late August were among the most politically fascinating in my lifetime, in US politics. And so, yeah, I mean, I'm talking to friends, both those, both Jesuits, non-jesuits, but also people still in politics. And yeah, I'm as interested as ever in the outcome. So again, with your own background, as someone involved with a party, as you've talked a little bit about, a lot about, so another, like a phrase you hear about Catholic sometimes is that we're kind of like politically homeless in this system because there are certain things in which we would kind of fall pretty far to the left, even farther left, say than in the current Democratic Party. Other things, protection of the unborn, I guess would be the chief among them in which we would find ourselves pretty far to the right. And so we don't kind of fit anywhere. And then I think like, so there are some different like responses to that truth, which is either, hey, like, you know, kind of pick, being involved in a party and try to influence it, or is it like, actually withdraw from that process and push for some like more parties or supported a third party or kind of go back and forth. And so, I don't know, I find myself like kind of waffling on all those things all the time. It's like, should I just kind of pick a party and like really like work within it and try to be a voice within it that might be on the outside in some ways or not, like what is your like kind of take on partisanship specifically like now that you again are kind of outside of that world in the society's world. - There's not gonna be a third party, you know, anytime soon. I mean, I'm just gonna say that, you know, because and people may hate me for it or say that, you know, I'm part of the problem by even saying it. But the structures that exist in our country, the way that our system is designed, you know, particularly the electoral college, the way that most states do their elections. Although not Washington State, this is a technical conversation. But, you know, Washington State, California, some of these states that have top two primaries, I think actually would be conducive and are somewhat more conducive to the rise of third party candidates perhaps, but we haven't even seen that in those states. It's just the system is such I would not hold my breath waiting for a third party. And by the way, people when they say, well, what we're doing is the third party, it's like, okay, and what would be the content of that third party? Do you think that third party is gonna be like tailored to you specifically? If it's gonna be a third party that's gonna compete with the other two, it's gonna have to build coalitions. And guess what, that means you're not gonna love every single thing that that party stands for. We are a huge country and we don't have a parliamentary system. And so I also think there's this way in which people have a grass is greener concept is completely unrealistic. And I try to find five people who all want a third party and then get them to sit down and write out what the platform of that party should be. I challenge you to do that. And that's five. Now go try 50 million. So it's also something, by the way, when people talk about, well, what we just need is more, people who can govern from the center. And it's like, okay, we'll find five people and you tell me and get them to agree on what the center or what a moderate position is. So it's hard. I mean, it's real challenging. What I would say is each of these parties that we have, these two major parties, each has kind of parties within the party. There are factions, there are groups within the party. You can see this very clearly, for example, with the Republicans. And there is now a predominant populist, Trumpy kind of anti-trade or trade skeptics or trade skeptical protectionist faction. That is very different from the kind of Wall Street wing of the party, which still has power and chose all of its nominees going back a century. So I do think that what people ought to do is work to make sure that the nominees of the two parties, wherever they lie themselves, that the nominees of these two parties represent the best of America. And so there can be a good debate between these two sides. I mean, I thought Obama McCain was such a race. I think if you go back, I think George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton was such a debate. So we've had them, we've had many of them. And I would say until the last decade or so, they were the rule rather than the exception. - I appreciate your taking this time to kind of look at all these different dynamics and to share a bit of your own story. And so you will not be in the US for election day. You are moving to your next part of Jesuit formation. So maybe we could just end by telling us a little bit about what you'll be doing in Kenya over the next couple of years. - Yeah, I'm beginning my regency, which is the third stage of Jesuit formation. And I will be going to Nairobi, where I'll be working for the Jesuit conference of it's called the Jesuit Congress of Africa and Madagascar. Madagascar gets its own shout out in the name, J-Cam. And that's basically all the Jesuit provinces in sub-Saharan Africa. And so it's a big, I'll be working actually for the Society of Jesus. Specifically, the division that focuses on justice and ecology, economic and environmental justice. And this is responding to Pope Francis's encyclical Adato Si and his other writings and teachings, which your listeners are familiar with. I'm hoping and I'm guessing. In which he calls for us to pay attention to the twin cries of the poor and the earth. Recognizing that it is often in the very same place where extractive industries and polluting kind of imperial forces have led to also economic deprivation for indigenous peoples and or local communities in the global south. So working at the intersection of economic and environmental justice issues, looking at things like agriculture, looking at issues of intellectual property, tax systems, policy issues that affect sub-Saharan Africa, particularly the poor and particularly the earth, is what I'm gonna be doing. And it's really exciting to me because not only will I get to use my kind of law and policy background, but I'm also gonna get to learn about the challenges and opportunities that face the world's fastest growing continent and a place of real growth and vibrancy in the Catholic church. - That sounds like a lot of your interests colliding. So it sounds like a pretty great setup for you. - Yeah, I was very, people often ask like, "Well, do you get to decide what you do?" And no, we do take a vow of obedience, but that said, our superiors really listen to the fruit of our prayer and how God is working through our desires. And I expressed a desire to keep the kind of legal and policy side of my brain active and alive, to not lose that muscle memory. And then also a desire to work on the quote unquote margins, to work in a place, not only that is experiencing tremendous need and also hope, but also a place where my background will not be as I kind of say this, like it's relevant in the sense that I have skills and experience that I can use, but it's a place where nobody should and hopefully will care that I was the acting governor of my state or a legislator or went to Ivy League universities or whatever, I'm not naive. I know that a lot of that privilege follows me for sure, not least of which being an American and part of the kind of institutional church, but it's also a place where I will feel linguistically and culturally like a newcomer and I should. And so it will be a place where I can face some good, healthy challenges that will help me to grow in humility and in trust in God. - Wow, well, yeah, sounds great, we'll be excited to kind of check in in a bit and after you've been there for a while and see how that's going, but-- - Thank you. - All the best to you in that next stage of your formation. And again, thank you so much for taking the time right in this in-between space for you to kind of do some reflection on faith and politics. Thanks so much. - Thank you so much, God bless. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - AMDG is a production of the Jesuit Media Lab, which is a project of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States. We're based in Washington, DC. The show is edited by Marcus Bleach. Our theme music is by Kevin Lasky. The Jesuit Conference Communications Team is Marcus Bleach, Eric Clayton, Becky Sindelar, and me. Connect with the Jesuits online at Jesuits.org. On Instagram at wearethe Jesuits. On X at Jesuitnews and facebook.com/jesuits. Sign up for weekly email reflections by visiting Jesuits.org/weekly. The Jesuit Media Lab offers courses and resources at the intersection of Ignatian spirituality and creativity. If you are a writer, podcaster, filmmaker, visual artist, or other creator, check out our offerings at JesuitMediaLab.org. If you or someone you know might be called to discern a vocation to the Jesuits, connect with a Jesuit vocation promoter at beajesuit.org. Drop us an email with questions or comments at medialab@jesuits.org. You can subscribe to the show on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. An ascending nation of Loyola may or may not have said, go and set the world on fire. 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