Dear Listeners,
This week on the Whiplash with Maxwell Kuzma podcast, we’re honored to bring you a conversation with Kaya Oakes — Catholic writer, feminist, teacher, and author of books like Radical Reinvention, The Defiant Middle, and most recently Not So Sorry. Kaya’s writing invites us into the messy, embodied, and often uncomfortable places in faith: grief, anger, resistance, and joy — sometimes within the Church, and sometimes in spite of it. Her latest book takes on our cultural obsession with forgiveness — who it serves, who it harms, and why survivors so often feel pressured to forgive before accountability and repair have even begun.
In this episode, we talk with Kaya about growing up Catholic, leaving for decades of punk and activist life in the Bay Area, and then finding her way back to church after a season of loss — but on her own terms. We explore what it means to hold the institution at arm’s length while still showing up for your community. We also dive into the embodied reality of trauma and queer joy, the paternalism baked into much “allyship,” and the limits of the Church’s shallow language of welcome. Kaya reminds us that Catholicism can and must evolve — and that there’s room for those who refuse to fit the mold.
On a related note: we’ve also just launched a new series here called High Control Catholicism, exploring the fundamentalist and sectarian tendencies emerging in Catholic spaces today. If you have a story about your own experience with high-control Catholicism — in a parish, school, ministry, or movement — we’d love to hear from you. Your insights and voices are an essential part of this work. Feel free to reply to this email or reach out through Substack to share your story.
Content Statement: Before you press play on this podcast episode, please know that this conversation discusses sexual abuse, conversion therapy, purity culture, family estrangement, cancer, and loss. Take care of yourself as you listen, and feel free to step away if you need. We’re so grateful to Kaya for sharing her story and her sharp, tender wisdom with us.
Catch the full episode here on Substack, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.
With care,
Max & Emma
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