New Vatican Consultor Fr. James Martin on Holy Week and the Gospel’s Radical Message

This week, Fr. James Martin, SJ was appointed as a consultor to the Vatican’s Secretariat for Communications. He was also interviewed in Vanity Fair on his social media presence in the Trump era:

Vanity Fair: Those of us in the media joke about “hot takes,” where you weigh in quickly on a topic that everyone’s talking about, but you do a legitimately good job of that. What’s your approach to covering the news?

Rev. James Martin, S.J.: People are hungry naturally for a moral perspective. That’s their conscience desiring some kind of moral compass. The Gospels are always relevant, and Jesus’s way of looking at something is my way of looking at something. There are some questions that cry out so much for a Christian perspective that, when you find them, they take off on social media.

But there are different ways of looking at the Gospels. How would you describe the Jesuit perspective, specifically?

That Jesus’s message is essentially one of love, mercy, and forgiveness, and that his approach was radical inclusion. He was in particular concerned with the marginalized, which is why I’m concerned with the marginalized.

Fr. Martin also made his second appearance on the new podcast Jesuitical, which is hosted by Olga Segura, Zac Davis, and Ashley McKinless, to talk about Holy Week. You can download or listen to the podcast here.