Archdiocesan Catholics give voice to their faith through a growing number of podcasts
Father Michael Keucher, left, and Father Adam Ahern pose on Feb. 10 at the Archbishop Edward T. O’Meara Catholic Center in Indianapolis with equipment they use in producing the first season of their podcast “Priest Cast,” which they posted on a daily basis from Holy Thursday last year through Holy Thursday earlier this month. (Photo by Sean Gallagher)
(Editor’s note: A September 2025 report by the Pew Research Center showed that more than half of American adults have listened to a podcast during the past year. The number of podcasts on the Catholic faith produced by people in the archdiocese is increasing. This article is the first in an occasional series on this growing phenomenon in which archdiocesan Catholics explore and share the faith.)
By Sean Gallagher
For two years, Father Adam Ahern had been listening to his friend Father Michael Keucher, the archdiocese’s vocations director, talk again and again about how he wanted to produce a podcast to promote priestly vocations.
Finally, Father Ahern got tired of him talking so frequently about it.
“So, I finally said to him, ‘OK. We’re doing a podcast,’ ” Father Ahern recalled.
Did he say that just to stop the conversation?
“Yeah, pretty much.”
It didn’t work.
For almost an entire calendar year, the pair talked to each other every day for their podcast on the diocesan priesthood called “Priest Cast.”
It began and concluded its first season on the day when the Church celebrates the institution of the priesthood—Holy Thursday. It started on that feast on April 17, 2025, and concluded earlier this month with its 351st episode on April 2.
So, how does Father Ahern look back on agreeing to do a podcast with his friend just to make him be quiet?
“Well, best laid plans, you know,” he says with smile and a shrug.
The priests are among a wide variety of Catholics across central and southern Indiana who explore the faith in diverse ways through podcasts of their own and inviting others to dive in it more deeply with them.
The wide range of podcasts created by Catholics in the archdiocese can be seen in the three that are profiled in this article. There’s “Priest Cast,” which focuses on the diocesan priesthood.
Then there’s “ArchIndy Vox,” a relatively new podcast of the archdiocese’s Secretariat for Communications, which helps listeners learn about a wide variety of Catholic beliefs and practices, often related to liturgical seasons or events happening in the local Church.
Finally, “All Set for Sunday” sees two Catholic dads try to help, in the words of the description for their podcast, “busy or distracted Catholic parents be a little more prepared for Sunday Mass.”
See an accompanying article for a list of other podcasts produced by Catholics from central and southern Indiana. Even that list won’t include them all, since the list of such podcasts is growing. (Related: Other podcasts on the faith produced by Catholics across the archdiocese)
‘All Set for Sunday’
Scott Williams and Jeff Traylor talked back in 2019 about creating a podcast about the Sunday Mass readings. At the time, Williams was a new father and Traylor’s three daughters were all in grade school.
Both were the kind of “busy or distracted Catholic parents” noted in the description of their podcast, in addition to leading a new start-up business that has since grown to become Catholic Concepts, which includes its Sock Religious line.
Traylor said that having young children made it hard for him to pay close attention to the readings and homily at Mass on Sundays.
“You’re in scramble mode,” recalled Traylor, a member of St. Mark the Evangelist Parish in Indianapolis. “What order are we sitting in? Who’s where? What are you playing with? Put that away. Stop touching your sister. All of that kind of stuff.”
So, in early 2020 when work at Catholic Concepts was slowed down because of the COVID-19 shutdown, Williams and Traylor launched “All Set for Sunday.”
It’s been posted on a mostly week-to-week basis since then with the friends discussing the upcoming Sunday Mass readings with a guest priest, most of whom serve in the archdiocese. Most episodes are between 30 and 40 minutes long. The first episode focused on the readings for Easter Sunday in 2020.
Over the past six years, Williams and Traylor have heard from people across the country who listen to the podcast regularly. But as their audience has grown, the pair stay focused on what brought them to create it in the first place: their own spiritual development.
“It’s humbling,” Traylor said of knowing of the podcast’s growing listenership. “But the day that I feel like we’re doing it for others, I’d worry that we’d have lost the sense of it. Sometimes, the best thing that we have going for us is that we’re doing this for ourselves.”
“We do this for us, and we also know that it supports other people in their journey,” added Williams, a member of St. Barnabas Parish in Indianapolis. “But that doesn’t really cross my mind very often.
“It’s not something that we do for money or fame. It would be the easiest thing to cross off the list. But I also think that that’s probably what the devil wants us to do. So, I think it’s even more of a reason to double down and say, ‘We are going to keep doing this.’ ”
Although “All Set for Sunday” has grabbed the attention of people far beyond the archdiocese, Traylor knows that the podcast isn’t nearly as important as what it points to.
“Is it the be all, end all? No. But the Eucharist is,” he said. “If what we’re doing is pointing in that direction, then I’m OK with it being important.
“But if someone told me that they listen every week but don’t go to Mass, I’d say, ‘You should stop listening and just go to Mass.’ ”
‘ArchIndy Vox’
While many Catholics across central and southern Indiana have been producing podcasts about the faith for many years, the archdiocese just began its own podcast seven months ago.
Launched last September, “ArchIndy Vox” explores all facets of the faith through conversations that Emily Mastronicola, archdiocesan social media coordinator, has with ministry leaders across the archdiocese.
In just seven months, listeners have heard episodes, each about 30 minutes long, that cover topics as wide-ranging as Black Catholic ministry, ecumenism, Catholic schools, the Church’s social teaching and how to prepare for Christmas during the season of Advent.
“We’re able in the podcast to talk about the truth, beauty and goodness of the Church and how that’s being lived out today in events that are happening in the archdiocese,” Mastronicola said.
Mary King, the archdiocese’s assistant communications director, described the podcast simply as a way to reach more people with the Gospel in a time when the listening and viewing options for people are increasing. (Related story: ‘ArchIndy Vox’ episode highlights ways families can grow in faith this summer)
“It’s like Jesus, meeting people where they’re at,” King said. “There are so many different options out there. Everything’s so fragmented in the way people get their information in the digital space.”
Because the potential listenership of the podcast could include people who have little or no knowledge of the faith, Mastronicola said she and her guests try to be “hospitable with the dialogue and what we’re conversing” and to avoid “insider language.”
King and Mastronicola talk with archdiocesan ministry leaders to develop episode topics, which sometimes are adapted to respond to events happening in the broader Church and society.
Shortly before the start of Lent this year, social unrest in Minneapolis related to federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations led “ArchIndy Vox” to focus on the Church’s social teaching during the season leading up to Easter.
“We were going to do something entirely different,” Mastronicola said. “But then we were just listening to the people around us in ministry and saw how this was a really big need. How could we fulfill this need and also still talk about this penitential season of Lent?”
In whatever direction “ArchIndy Vox” goes in the future, King and Mastronicola agreed that the podcast will be aimed at drawing listeners closer to Christ and the Church.
“I just want them to grow closer to Jesus Christ in any form, at any level, from wherever they’re at,” King said.
“The Gospel needs to be everywhere—on podcasts, on social media, in print, in our conversations,” Mastronicola added. “This is just another place where we can take the Gospel and present it to somebody.”
“Priest Cast”
When they launched “Priest Cast” on Holy Thursday last year, Father Michael Keucher and Father Adam Ahern wanted to promote vocations to the diocesan priesthood through the topics they discussed on the podcast from day to day.
But even before that, they saw the podcast as a way to help listeners experience how priests live out their vocation every day.
In episodes that range from 10 to 40 minutes in length, the priests would chat about what was happening in their ministry and parishes.
In addition to serving as archdiocesan vocations director, Father Keucher leads St. Joseph Parish in Shelbyville and St. Vincent de Paul Parish in Shelby County.
Father Ahern ministers as pastor of the parishes of Most Sacred Heart of Jesus and St. Augustine, both in Jeffersonville. He also serves as an associate vocations director in the archdiocese.
So, they’re busy priests. But they’re also happy.
“We don’t pretend to be happy. We are happy,” Father Ahern said. “We’re not on the podcast trying to put
rose-colored glasses on the priesthood. We don’t sit there and pretend that everything is great when it’s really not. But what we do is try to focus on the good that we have in our lives. And that’s very uplifting for me personally in my day in and day out life.”
“Naming grace in our priesthood, in a daily fashion, is really beautiful,” Father Keucher added. “Being able to name how God is working in the priesthood, in a lived way through us is really powerful.”
After concluding the first season of “Priest Cast” on Holy Thursday on April 2, the priests are taking a break. But they plan on starting the second season soon. It won’t be posted daily, though, and the format will change.
“We’re probably going to do more interviews with various priests, because the priesthood is lived out in a special way by each priest,” Father Keucher explained.
The priests have heard from many listeners who are young men open to a possible call to the diocesan priesthood, an audience they particularly want to reach with “Priest Cast.”
“For so many people, discernment begins with just a quiet thought in their own mind that grows from there,” Father Ahern said. “In particular, the first stages of their discernment are very private and intimate and personal. So, in listening to a podcast, you’re not making a big public statement about your discernment. It’s a way for you to begin to enter into that discernment sphere in a private, personal way.”
Father Keucher describes good Catholic podcasts as “spiritual listening” that can “empower people to live holier and better lives.”
“We need to be where the people are,” he added. “And if the people are online, we need to be online.”
(“All Set for Sunday,” “ArchIndy Vox” and “Priest Cast” are available for listening on most online platforms such as Spotify and “Apple Podcasts” which make podcasts available.) †
