Book Discussion: My Son, the Priest: A Mother’s Crisis of Faith by Kristin Grady Gilger

The true story of a young man’s journey to become a Jesuit priest—written by his mother, a fallen-away Catholic who must come to terms with her son’s decision or risk losing him. It is an intimate, sometimes irreverent, and often searing examination of faith, family, and reconciliation. The book offers a rare, often entertaining, glimpse into the “highly unusual” Jesuit formation process—which includes sending would-be priests off on pilgrimages with $35 in their pockets. It also takes on tough issues, from the church’s history of sexual abuse to its treatment of women, and asks tough questions: Is it possible to be Catholic, liberal, and a feminist all at the same time? What does it mean to call yourself a Catholic? We are delighted to welcome both Kristin Grady Gilger and dear friend of the Hank Center, Paddy Gilger, SJ, for this very special conversation.

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About the speakers

Kristin Gilger is Professor Emeritus of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, where she held leadership roles for 16 years, including serving as interim dean in 2020-2021. 

She joined the school in 2007 as assistant dean and subsequently served as associate dean and senior associate dean. While at Cronkite, she also served as the Reynolds Professor of Business Journalism and executive director of the National Center on Disability and Journalism. Previously, she was director of Student Media at Arizona State University. 

Before coming to ASU, Gilger served as deputy managing editor for news at The Arizona Republic, where she led a team of more than 100 reporters and editors at the nation’s 15th largest newspaper. She also served as managing editor of The Statesman Journal newspaper in Salem, Oregon, and in various editing positions at the Times-Picayune newspaper in New Orleans. She was a reporter and editor in St. Cloud, Minnesota, and in Charleston, South Carolina, early in her career.

She has conducted seminars and training sessions around the world on newspaper management, disability and gender representation in newsrooms, news writing, and journalism ethics. She has led sessions for The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, Associated Press Managing Editors, American Association of Sunday and Features Editors, National Writers Workshop, and the U.S. State Department, among others.

She is the co-author of a book, "There's No Crying in Newsrooms: What Women Have Learned About What it Takes to Lead," published by Rowman & Littlefield in 2019. Her second book, "My Son, The Priest: A Mother's Crisis of Faith," will be released by Monkfish Publishing in fall 2025. 

Gilger received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in journalism from the University of Nebraska and in 1998 was named a Most Distinguished Alumnae by the journalism faculty at the University of Nebraska’s Omaha campus. In 2018, she received the Order of the Silver Key for outstanding service to journalism from the Valley of the Sun Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.

She shared the National Headliner Award for Public Service in Journalism in 1993 for her work editing a year-long project on race relations in New Orleans. She also has won awards from Gannett Co., The Associated Press, Best of the West, and the Society of Professional Journalists.

Fr. Patrick Gilger, S.J. is a priest of the Midwest Province of the Society of Jesus. A graduate of Creighton University, he has been a Jesuit since 2002. Trained in philosophy and theology in addition to sociology, he now primarily studies social theory, the sociology of religion, and secularity. His current research focuses on how communities of practice cultivate (religious) subjectivities that are difficult to see and hear in a secular age, and how these unique subjectivities cultivate particular "powers of publicity" that can be deployed within an always-already-power-inflected public sphere.