“A combo burger of Krista Tippett meets Jimmy Fallon!”

That’s how Fr. Greg Boyle described In Other News, a radio show hosted by “two over-caffeinated Jesuits in formation,” Matt Wooters (Brother Matt) and Louie Hotop (Captain Louie). Broadcast on Saint Louis University’s KSLU and podcast on SoundCloud, In Other News features interviews with an impressive line-up of Jesuits and Catholic thinkers and doers, including Fr. James Martin, Sr. Simone Campbell, Fr. Greg Boyle, and Sr. Helen Prejean.

In jest, they’ve said they “hope to become the Ellen DeGeneres of small town radio.” At its core, their podcast asks big questions about mystery and the human spirit. For the final episode of their second season, they dialed up our host Krista Tippett and expressed a rare optimism and faith in their generation’s commitment to community, communion, and service.

It’s voices like these that are often missing when we talk about faith and the millennial (my) generation. You’ll find yourself doubled-over in laughter at points and at others misty-eyed, particularly when they recall the beautiful life and legacy of a fellow Jesuit, Fr. T.J. Martinez, the founding president of the Cristo Rey Jesuit College Preparatory School of Houston who passed away recently.

In the interview, Krista says this about the future of journalism:

“As somebody who’s in journalism, I think a lot about how we’ve developed these terrible habits that we have to live out of, of applying our best critical faculties to what is catastrophic, corrupt, or failing. That’s what we focus on. That’s what we lead the news with. And it has a corrosive effect. We all start to internalize what’s going wrong as the real bottom line about who we are and what we’re up against as a species and that’s not true. I very much value that biblical teaching to develop ‘eyes to see and ears to hear.’ And if you do that, if you look for and listen for what is true and beautiful and good. It’s so abundant. The dark side is true as well, but we don’t have to let it have the last word or imagine that it does.”

Wooters and Hotop say they see their vocation as “sharing our laughter and our joy as a means of sharing our faith.” It’s abundantly clear that they are undertaking that kind of ministry of listening in their podcast.

As their lives diverge in different directions, the self-described “quirky Jesuits” said this may be their last podcast. But let’s hope they keep making radio, because these kind of conversations, these kinds of questions are sorely needed.