Member Spotlight: Michael Jordan Laskey shares a Jesuit sensibility

Mike Jordan Laskey likes making connections. Among people. And ideas. And resources.

After spending time in parish ministry, he had a chance to make different kinds of connections when he became director of communications for the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States.

He’s the host of AMDG: A Jesuit Podcast, for which he received the Podcaster of the Year Award at last summer’s Catholic Media Conference.

Michael Jordan Laskey is Podcaster of the Year from the Catholic Media Conference for his “AMDG: A Jesuit Podcast.”
Photo: Courtesy

“I really like the conversations, where it’s like two people working things out or exploring a topic, and then listeners get to listen in on that conversation,” he said.

He and his team are responsible for a lot of media outreach, including the podcast he hosts that debuted in the summer of 2019.

“Ignatian spirituality has a real emphasis both on engaging culture, not turning away from it … and Ignatius was all about using the imagination, the human imagination, and using it for prayer.”

Through the podcast, he said, “We can engage with art and culture and texts that are not ‘sacred’ with a capital S, but we can experience them as sacramental and receive grace through them and we can see how God’s at work in those places.”

In addition to inspiration from Jesuit tradition, Jordan Laskey has a personal motivation toward religious service.

“As the son of a Catholic mom and Jewish dad, building interfaith understanding, especially between Christians and Jews, is a huge part of my vocation.”

The podcast, he said, could draw interest from Jesuit colleges and universities, secondary and pre-secondary schools, parishes and retreat centers in the U.S. and Canada. That network, along with “people who are fans of the Jesuits” seemed like a natural audience.

“We could do a Jesuit approach to podcasting that would include Jesuit guests, certainly, but also the sort of Ignatian charism of searching and finding God in all things. … You would never run out” of topics.

As they were planning the AMDG podcast, he said, “The journalist, podcaster Malcolm Gladwell … did a series of three episodes on the Jesuits, so we reached out to him and asked, ‘Would come and talk about your experience getting to know the Jesuits on our podcast?’ He did and that was our first official episode.”

Gladwell remains one of their most famous guests.

Another was Dr. Anthony Fauci, who served as director of the National Institutes of Health during the COVID pandemic. Fauci attended the prestigious Jesuit Regis High School in New York and the Jesuit College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass.

Fauci “really valued, both in the high school and college, the learning, how to be a critical thinker. … He studied the classics in college. He (learned) critical thinking, the ability to communicate, which was such an important part of his job,” Jordan Laskey said.

“We have a great working environment at the Jesuit conference … and that’s something I try to bring to our team of four. … Let’s do good work — there’s always more, another post to do, another article to write … it doesn’t stop — so to plan well so we can stop, to have a good team so we can cover for each other.

“It has been a good job here in terms of that life and family balance.”

He and his wife, Genevieve Jordan Laskey, who is a consultant for Catholic organizations, have three kids, 11, 8 and 6.

He chuckled as he added, “Podcasting is a fun job to do when you have kids. You can bring them into the studio, push record, and see what they come up with.”

He admitted the kids think it’s funny when they hear their dad’s voice coming over a speaker somewhere.

He’s made some family connections with AMDG. His brother wrote the theme music, and in one episode, he read an essay with music from their family band — Down by the Bagel — as the backdrop. (You can listen at tinyurl.com/wbchcwxu)

Jordan Laskey’s degrees came from Notre Dame, where he studied English, journalism and theology, but he thinks that’s far from the only path into today’s media.

“It seems now that people who can do a lot of different things … have found their way into the new media landscape.”

His Jesuit Conference team works with other creatives who share an Ignatian sensibility, many of whom labor alone. The team began to wonder, “How do find a community of creators to connect with?”

The team launched the Jesuit Media Lab in 2023 and developed courses, offered reading groups and published resources for other creatives. They also began hosting an annual Creative Summit, inviting 30 writers, podcasters, film makers and other creatives.

“We’re happy to try to make those connections and build up the church —the terms they use are gathering, forming and unleashing Ignatian creatives. … Next year, in August 2027, we’re doing a bigger, open-to-everyone Jesuit Media Lab Creators Festival at Georgetown University’s Capitol Campus.”

Of his award, he said, “It’s an honor to be recognized by your peers. Occasionally you get a letter from a listener ... You can sometimes read metrics, but it’s not the most educational feedback. What I really want is feedback from people in this field. So, the citations that we got, that I received (for the show), describing what they liked about it, that’s exactly what we were after. It’s so affirming to hear from these people who know the business, and the art and the work, that we were successful in doing what we set out to do.”