Can Saints Still Change the World? (NCB’s Radix Live)

Whose life has inspired you to love God — and your neighbor — more deeply?

Throughout Christian history, believers have wrestled with the perennial question: What does faithful discipleship look like when it leaves the sanctuary and enters the public square? In this Radix Live conversation, we welcome Daryl Grigsby, author of Catholics for the Common Good: An Eternal Offering, a powerful collection of profiles celebrating 36 near-contemporary Catholics who have made a significant impact in the public sphere. Spanning the globe and encompassing both laypeople and clergy, these individuals, from Fr. Daniel Berrigan to Paul Farmer to jazz legend Mary Lou Williams, offer a rich tapestry of Catholic witness in action.

Each vivid portrait reveals a life of service, sacrifice, and joy rooted in the Eucharist—the “source and summit” of Christian life. Come discover an invitation to see holiness not just in the canonized saints, but in the lives of ordinary people striving to live extraordinary faith.

“This book beautifully honors the legacy of ordinary radicals who prophetically lived out Catholic social teaching in remarkable ways, as we are all called to do.” —Joanna Arellano-Gonzalez, cofounder and director of training and formation, Coalition for Spiritual and Public Leadership, Chicago

“A second grader once described a saint as ‘Someone the light shines through!’ In Daryl Grigsby’s engaging and inspiring portraits of contemporary men and women saints, the light does indeed shine through!” —Joann Heinritz, CSJ, spiritual director and presenter, the Renewal Program, Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University

Daryl Russell Grigsby is the author of Catholics for the Common Good: An Eternal Offering and other books. He writes for National Catholic Reporter and Black Catholic Messenger. Daryl is on the Board of Directors of FutureChurch and Leadership Foundations, and has led retreats and workshops on synodality and Black Catholic spirituality.

Names mentioned:
Paul Magnano, Rutilio Grande, Laura Manso, Marguerite Barankitse, Shannen Dee Williams, Theresa Harpin, Howard Thurman, Robert P. Jones, Patty Repikoff, Mary Magdalene, Martin Luther King Jr., Brandon Johnson, Pope Leo XIV, St. Ignatius of Loyola, Clarence Hilliard, Thomas Bonacci, Joanne Heinritz, Cynthia Bailey Manns, Joanna Arellano Gonzalez

Books / Works mentioned:
Gaudium et Spes (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World) (Second Vatican Council)
Subversive Habits: Black Catholic Nuns in the Long African American Freedom Struggle (by Shannen Dee Williams)
The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory (by Tim Alberta)
White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity (by Robert P. Jones)

Daryl has also kindly provided us with a suggested reading list! Enjoy

Black Catholic and Black Christian History and Spirituality

  1. The History of Black Catholics in the United States (by Cyprian Davis)
  2. Racial Justice and the Catholic Church (by Bryan N. Massingale)
  3. The Fire This Time: A Black Catholic Sourcebook (edited by M. Roger Holland II, Kate Williams, and Kim R. Harris)
  4. Leveling the Praying Field (by Ansel Augustine)
  5. Forged in the Fiery Furnace (by Diana L. Hayes)
  6. Black Theology and Black Power (by James H. Cone)
  7. The Cross and the Lynching Tree (by James H. Cone)
  8. Joy Unspeakable (by Barbara A. Holmes)
  9. Thea’s Song: The Life of Thea Bowman (by Charlene Smith and John Feister)
  10. The New Abolition (by Gary Dorrien)
  11. Breaking White Supremacy (by Gary Dorrien)
  12. A Darkly Radiant Vision (by Gary Dorrien)
  13. To Stand on the Rock (by Joseph A. Brown)
  14. From Slave to Priest: A Biography of the Reverend Augustine Tolton (by Caroline Hemesath)
  15. Subversive Habits: Black Catholic Nuns in the Long African American Freedom Struggle (by Shannen Dee Williams)

Truths About Black History

  1. White Freedom (by Tyler Stovall)
  2. White Rage (by Carol Anderson)
  3. Mother Emanuel (by Kevin Sack)
  4. The Broken Heart of America (by Walter Johnson)
  5. Freedom’s Dominion (by Jefferson Cowie)
  6. Until Justice Be Done (by Kate Masur)
  7. The New Jim Crow (by Michelle Alexander)
  8. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Poor People’s Campaign of 1968 (by Robert Hamilton)
  9. Essays by James Baldwin
  10. The Souls of Black Folk (by W. E. B. Du Bois)
  11. Last Seen: The Enduring Search by Formerly Enslaved People to Find Their Lost Families (by Judith Giesberg)
  12. Medgar & Myrlie (by Joy-Ann Reid)
  13. The Battle of Negro Fort (by Matthew J. Clavin)
  14. We Refuse: A Forceful History of Black Resistance (by Kellie Carter Jackson)
  15. The Barn: The Secret History of a Murder in Mississippi (by Wright Thompson)

Theology, Practice, and Catholic Social Teaching

  1. Gaudium et Spes: Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Second Vatican Council)
  2. Jesus and Justice: Organizing for God’s Reign on Earth Then and Now (by John Dominic Crossan and Michael Okinczyc-Cruz)
  3. Come, Holy Spirit (by Leonardo Boff)
  4. Keys to the Council: Unlocking the Teaching of Vatican II (by Richard R. Gaillardetz and Catherine E. Clifford)
  5. The Church in the Modern World (by Michael G. Lawler)
  6. From the Heart of the Church: The Catholic Social Tradition (by Judith A. Merkle)
  7. Marie-Dominique Chenu: Catholic Theology for a Changing World (by Mary Kate Holman)
  8. A Theology of Liberation (by Gustavo Gutiérrez)
  9. Catholic Social Thought: The Documentary Heritage (edited by David J. O’Brien and Thomas A. Shannon)
  10. Learning to Pray (by James Martin, SJ)
  11. The Crucified God (by Jürgen Moltmann)
  12. Quest for the Living God (by Elizabeth A. Johnson)
  13. The Call to Discernment in Troubled Times (by Dean Brackley, SJ)
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