Podcasts By Donna Jodhan

🎙️ Remarkable World Commentary Episode #73: Interview with Aisling Redican, Communications Director and Fundraising Manager, Xavier Society for the Blind | Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA https://donnajodhan.com/rwc-02-04-2026/ In this thought-provoking and deeply human episode of Remarkable World Commentary, Donna J. Jodhan sits down with Aisling Redican, Communications Director and Fundraising Manager at the Xavier Society for the Blind, for an engaging conversation about faith, accessibility, and global inclusion. Aisling shares her personal journey into disability service work and explains how the Xavier Society has, for more than 125 years, quietly ensured that blind and low-vision Catholics around the world have free access to religious materials in Braille, large print, and audio formats. Together, Donna and Aisling unpack what true accessibility means, not as charity, but as dignity, participation, and belonging. The discussion explores the Society's worldwide reach, its production of hundreds of thousands of Braille pages annually, and the critical role accessible Mass propers play in enabling blind Catholics to fully participate as lectors, congregants, and clergy. Aisling also reflects on the organization's evolving work in Spanish-language materials, accessible web design, and future projects such as large-print Roman Missals. Grounded in lived experience and practical advocacy, this episode highlights how sustained commitment, thoughtful design, and listening to blind users can transform faith practice, and serves as a powerful reminder that accessibility is not optional, but essential to an inclusive world. TRANSCRIPT ADVERTISEMENT: This podcast brought to you by Pneuma Solutions. ADVERTISEMENT: I can't see it. ADVERTISEMENT: ADA Title II has a real compliance deadline. April 2026. Public entities are required to make their digital content accessible, including websites, PDFs, reports, applications, and public records. If a document cannot be read with a screen reader, it is not compliant and if it is not compliant, blind people are still being denied equal access. For a clear explanation of what the rule requires, visit www.title2.info. It's one of the leading resources explaining what agencies must do and when. This message is brought to you by Pneuma Solutions, we have remediated hundreds of thousands of pages in days, not months or years, aligned with WCAG 2 AA guidelines at a fraction of traditional costs. Accessibility isn't a privilege, it's a right. Now that you know, ask your agencies a simple question, are your documents actually accessible? Podcast Commentator: Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP and MBA invite you to listen to her biweekly podcast, Remarkable World Commentary. Here, Donna shares some of her innermost thoughts, insights, perspectives, and more with her listeners. Donna focuses on topics that directly affect the future of kids, especially kids with disabilities. Donna is a blind advocate, author, sight loss coach, dinner mystery producer, writer, entrepreneur, law graduate, and podcast commentator. She has decades of lived experiences, knowledge, skills and expertise in access technology and information. As someone who has been internationally recognized for her work and roles, she just wants to make things better than possible. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of Remarkable World Commentary. I'm Donna Johnson, a lifelong disability advocate and one who sees the world mainly through sound, touch and stubborn optimism. I am a law graduate, accessibility consultant, author, lifelong barrier buster who also happens to be blind. You may know me from a few headline moments, as in November 2010, I won the Landmark had a case that forced the Canadian government to make its websites accessible to every Canadian, not just to cited ones. And in July of 2019, I co-led the Accessible Canada Act with more than two dozen disability groups to turn equal access into federal law. And most recently, on June 3rd, 2022, I was greatly humbled by Her Late Majesty's Platinum Jubilee Award for tireless commitment to removing barriers. When I'm not in a courtroom or in a committee room or in a pottery studio, you will find me coaching kids with vision loss, producing audio mysteries, or helping tech companies to make their gadgets Top back in plain language. Everything I do circles one goal to turn accessibility from an afterthought into everyday practice, and I invite you to think of the show as your shared workbench where policy meets lived experience and lived experience sparks fresh ideas. Now, before we jump into today's conversation, let me shine a spotlight on today's guest, a change maker whose work is every bit as remarkable as the world that we are trying to build. I'm very pleased and I'm very privileged to welcome Aisling Redican. I hope I got this correctly of the Xavier Society. Welcome to my podcast Aisling, you and I have been connecting and engaging with each other over the last few years. So welcome to my podcast. Aisling Redican: Thank you so much, Donna, for having me. Yes, we've been we've been well connected over the years and I've really enjoyed listening. To your your introduction there. Very impressive background. But thank you for having me. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: You're very welcome. So let's get started. Aisling, I'd love to start with you personally. Could you share a bit about your own background and faith journey and how that path eventually led you to the Savior Society for the blind? Aisling Redican: Sure. So it's kind of funny. You know, I look back and how I ended up at Xavier Society and it's kind of like, you know, different, you know, some might say coincidences, some might say it was God winks, you know what have you. But I grew up a cradle Catholic, so I was raised Catholic. I didn't go to Catholic school. I went to public school here in the United States. So I did religion classes on the weekend and things like that. So I wasn't, you know, we went to church on Sundays and things like that, but weren't very, you know my parents are Irish, like, off the boat. So they're, you know, they're, you know, culturally, you know, really Catholic, but I wouldn't say religiously, like, super religious. So I didn't really grow up, you know, as I, as super religious, but I went to college, I went to NYU. So it wasn't a religious, you know affiliated university. But I kind of, you know, stuck with, you know, I kept going to mass, kept, you know, doing that. I graduated college with a degree in English. So basically, I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. And when I left university, I traveled, which I have a huge interest in and I did everything kind of I wanted to do. And you know, when you're young and free and things like that. And when I came back to, to the States I was like, all right, I need to get a job. Aisling Redican: So I had as most, you know, young people do in New York City, I had quite a, a long background in the service industry in you know, waiting tables and bartending and things like that. But I got to about 27, and I was like, you know what? I'm getting kind of old for this. I need to get a real job. Right. And I just kind of stumbled on this, this ad for Xavier Society for the blind. They were looking for someone. A communications and fundraising person. And I didn't know what that what the fundraising part entailed, but I was like, you know, I have a background in English, so I can I can do the communications part, I think. So and they were looking it was funny in the, in the job description, they were looking for someone who could carry heavy things. And I was like, well, I'm a bartender. I carry stuff up and down stairs all the time. I can do this. So and I'm Catholic, so let me apply for this job. So I applied for it and lo and behold, I got it. And then I realized they needed someone to carry heavy things because there was a hundred Braille Bibles that needed to be transported from one office to another on a different floor. So that was my first week at Xavier Society was moving Braille boxes, Braille Bibles, and as I'm sure you know, Donna the Braille Bible is 45 volumes long. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah. Aisling Redican: So that was a lot of up and down stairs. But anyway, that's kind of my background with Xavier Society. It's evolved over the years. I'm more I started off kind of with a client services end of things. I was kind of helping out with that with the woman who used to to be the coordinator at Xavier Society Christine Moore. But she retired, and we had someone else come in and fill the role, and I kind of moved away from the client services end of things and more into fundraising and communication where I am now. But I I supervise the client services department. So I still have you know, a little bit of my foot in the door there. Aisling Redican: Yeah. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: So for listeners who may be hearing about the Xavier Society for the blind for the very first time, How would you describe its mission and what makes it unique within the Catholic Church, church and the wider blindness community? Aisling Redican: Well, quite simply, I would just say Xavier Society's mission is to provide the word of God in accessible formats at no charge to people all over the world in in whatever format that they need. So we provide braille, large print talking books, which are audio books that play on the talking book machines provided by the Library of Congress here in the United States. Yeah. And we also have some downloadable audiobooks because a lot of our clients are outside the United States as well, and they don't have access to those machines. That's great. Yeah. So I mean, we're kind of the only rodeo in town in terms of what we provide one of our largest lines of service is the propers of the Sunday mass, right. Which are esse