Religion

Yesterday

Melanie McDonagh

What makes a ghost Catholic or Protestant?

W.H. Auden, in his essay on detective fiction, ‘The Guilty Vicarage’, asked: ‘Is it an accident that the detective story has flourished most in predominantly Protestant countries?’ He was thinking about confession and how this changes things. In Auden’s view, murder is an offence against God and society and when it happens it shows that some member of society is no longer in a state of grace. But confession gives a transgressor a means of returning to a state of grace, so the moral order can be restored without recourse to a policeman. You wonder: do ghost stories too flourish most in a Protestant (or formerly Protestant) society? There have

Tuesday

Damian Thompson

How was Commercial Christmas born?

31 min listen

Historian and writer Charles Coulombe joins Damian Thompson to talk about how Christmas has changed over the past two centuries, the differences between Catholic and Anglican Christmas – and how a modern, commercial Christmas developed over time. Plus, he takes us through the origins of Christmas traditions from Christmas trees to Advent and whether we should say ‘Happy’ or ‘Merry’ Christmas.

Thursday

Melissa Kite

Why is Westminster Cathedral leaving Jesus in the dark?

Sitting beneath the looming darkness of the unfinished ceiling of Westminster Cathedral, I found myself praying. I didn’t even know why, but I was walking past during a trip to London and I decided to go in, and I sat down, and then a priest came and began to say mass so I stayed, not knowing what was about to happen back in Ireland to the builder boyfriend, and not having any real feeling that you could call premonition – unless you count an overwhelming urge to be sitting in a cathedral praying, when I have passed there many times on similar trips and never once gone in. It was

Thursday

Madeline Grant

How America’s Wasps lost their sting

They moved, with a sort of nonchalant intent, up the aisle to make communion with their God; the men in bow ties and immaculate blazers, the women in pearls. They spent the service making small bows, singing (but not too loudly) and wearing looks of pacific – or rather, north Atlantic – calm. These were the Wasps and this was St Thomas Fifth Avenue, one of their high temples in New York, where they come for their moments of triumph and where the world often bids them adieu. It was hard to tell from those gathered on a recent Sunday morning if the stiffness of their physical motions was the

Sunday

Charles Moore

How did faith shape Thatcher?

38 min listen

How did faith shape Margaret Thatcher’s politics? To mark the centenary month of Margaret Thatcher’s birth, Damian Thompson introduces a conversation between the Spectator’s Natasha Feroze, Thatcher’s biographer Lord Moore and Bishop Chartres who delivered the eulogy at her funeral. They discuss her relationship with faith, how both her family background and her training as a scientist influenced her beliefs and her understanding of the relationship between wealth and society based on Jesus’s parables. Plus – what would Thatcher have made of the much talked about ‘Christian revival’ in the West? Produced by Patrick Gibbons and Natasha Feroze.

Thursday

James Delingpole

Believe it or not, Russia is great

I have been invited to Moscow by the Russian Orthodox patriarchate because the organiser is a fan of my podcast. Everyone at home thinks I am either dangerous or mad. My mother is convinced I’m going to be bumped off by the FSB or killed by a drone. Others claim I have become a useful idiot of the evil dictator Putler because the patriarchate are merely his stooges. ‘Is that true?’ I ask the patriarchate’s media affairs guy. ‘Well, under Peter the Great we were run by the government. And under communism we weren’t allowed to exist. So you could argue that, historically, we’re about as independent as we’ve ever

Tuesday

Robert Douglas-Fairhurst

The young Tennyson reaches for the stars

Edward FitzGerald had a good story about rowing across Lake Windermere at the end of May 1835 with his old friend Alfred Tennyson. As they rested on their oars and gazed into the clear, still water, Tennyson recited some lines from his work in progress, ‘Morte d’Arthur’, describing how the Lady of the Lake fashioned Excalibur out of sight: ‘Nine years she wrought it, sitting in the deeps/ Upon the hidden bases of the hills.’ Then he gave himself a little pat on the back: ‘Not bad that, Fitz, is it?’ The lines are better than not bad, as they imagine an invisible process of creation by incorporating several fragments

Friday

Damian Thompson

800 years on, why is Aquinas Gen Z’s favourite philosopher? 

26 min listen

This year marks 800 years since the birth of the theologian St Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas, best known for his theory of natural law and his magnum opus the Summa Theologia, argued for the existence of God through faith-based reason. The influence of the 13th Century theologian on the philosophy of religion is unquestionable, but what is curious is his resurgent popularity amongst Generation Z – particularly in America. Is this part of the recovery of the sacred seen across the global west? Fr Gregory Pine OP, professor of dogmatic and moral theology at the Dominican House of Studies, joins Damian Thompson to talk about Aquinas’s legacy, unpack some of the

Saturday

Damian Thompson

Why the canonisation of the first millennial saint is a cause to celebrate

37 min listen

On Sunday the Catholic Church will acquire its first millennial saint, when Pope Leo XIV canonises someone who, if he were alive today, would be young enough to be his son.  Carlo Acutis, a ‘computer geek’ from a prosperous Italian family, died aged just 15 in 2006. In this episode of Holy Smoke, Damian Thompson talks to Mgr Anthony Figueiredo and the Italian-based journalist Nicholas Farrell about the extraordinary phenomenon of St Carlo, the miracles associated with him – and the scepticism they arouse – and a mean-spirited attack on him by one of the late Pope Francis’s closest advisers.  Produced by Patrick Gibbons.

Thursday

Iben Thranholm

Denmark’s ‘spiritual rearmament’ is a lesson for the West

Something unusual is happening in Denmark – and other countries across Europe, including Britain, ought to pay attention. This spring, Denmark’s Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen, stood before a group of university students and made a striking statement: ‘We will need a form of rearmament that is just as important [as the military one]. That is the spiritual one.’ Few expected such words from the leader of the Social Democrats, a party which spent much of the 20th century reducing the Church of Denmark’s influence in public life. Yet this was no passing remark. Just days earlier, Frederiksen had announced a major military build-up: increased conscription, a sharp rise in defence

Friday

Damian Thompson

From the Bible to Tolkien: the risks & rewards of collecting rare books

27 min listen

The Bible is widely said to be the most published book of all time. Despite this, many older versions of the Bible are still sought after. This is because, as Tom Ayling tells Damian Thompson on this episode of Holy Smoke, there is a great deal of diversity amongst the editions precisely because it has been so widely published. Tom, a young antiquarian bookseller who set up his own business, joins the podcast to talk about the risks and rewards behind collecting rare books. Tom explains why, for him, books are ‘most than just a text’; takes us through the various religious books in his collection, from old editions of

Thursday

Margaret Mitchell

The Catholic influencers spreading the word of God

Vatican City In an auditorium just outside St Peter’s Basilica, the Vatican’s Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, sat solemnly in the front row as a young crowd sang, danced and hopped around to a pop hymn. The cardinal, who is 70, was widely expected to become the pope earlier this year. Instead, he inaugurated the Catholic Church’s first social media influencer conference. Around 1,000 influencers attended last week’s Jubilee of Digital Missionaries and Catholic Influencers. In his opening remarks, Parolin described social media as not just an instrument of communication, but ‘a way of living in the world’. The division between the real world and the virtual world is thinning,

Thursday

Damian Thompson

Massacres in Syria & the Congo: why aren't Western elites drawing attention to religious persecution?

28 min listen

After the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, many people voiced fears that the religious minorities in the country could face increased persecution. This could be at the hands of the new government’s supporters, or simply because the new regime can’t protect them. Now those fears appear to have been realised. There is rising sectarian violence against Christians, the Alawites and the Druze (pictured). There are also frequent barbaric attacks on Christians in parts of Africa: more than 40 Christians have just been murdered by Islamists in the Democratic Republic of the Congo while attending church. Fr Benedict Kiely joins Damian Thompson on this episode of Holy Smoke to discuss the background

Monday

Damian Thompson

Recovering the Sacred: listen to our unique Spectator event celebrating the rediscovery of tradition by young Christians

75 min listen

Last week The Spectator held a live event entitled ‘Recovering the Sacred’ in the glorious surroundings of St Bartholomew the Great, the oldest parish church in the City of London. The speakers included two London parish priests – one Anglican, one Catholic – who have contributed much to the growing interest among young people in traditional liturgy and Christian theology, a development that the hierarchy of their respective churches certainly didn’t foresee. They were the Rev Marcus Walker, Rector of St Bart’s, whose Prayer Book Evensongs and Eucharists attract large numbers of young professionals to his ancient church; and Fr Julian Large, the Provost of the Brompton Oratory, where an

Thursday

Stuart Kelly

A double loss: The Möbius Strip, by Catherine Lacey, reviewed

The Möbius Book has been variously described as ‘a hybrid work that is both fiction and non-fiction’ and a ‘memoir-cum-novel’. Catherine Lacey herself asserts that it is a work of non-fiction, but with a qualifying ‘however’. It comprises two narratives, first- and third-person, and is published to be flipped 180 degrees. Ali Smith’s How to be Both had a similar format, as did Mark Danielewski’s Only Revolutions. All three force the reader into making a choice and living with the consequences. This is not cosmetic, as The Möbius Book is about decisions and repercussions. Lacey writes in the aftermath of two break-ups: a romantic one with a man referred to

Fergus Butler-Gallie

Why should the hunt for the next Archbishop of Canterbury be ‘inclusive’?

On 21 July 1828, the urbane aristocrat Charles Manners-Sutton, 89th Archbishop of Canterbury, died. Just two and a half weeks later, on 8 August, the mild-mannered linguistic scholar William Howley was elected as his successor. The efficiency of this process is in marked contrast to the current search to find the next successor to Manners-Sutton and Howley. Justin Welby announced he was vacating the throne of St Augustine on 12 November last year; it took until 28 May even to assemble the committee who will discuss the names of his potential successor. It will be a miracle if we know the name of the new Primate of All England by

Tuesday

Damian Thompson

It’s time for Pope Leo XIV to make some tough decisions

13 min listen

Nearly everyone loves Robert Prevost, the unassuming baseball fan from Chicago who unexpectedly became Pope Leo XIV this year. But as he prepares to spend his summer in Castel Gandolfo he has some difficult decisions to make. Is he prepared to clear up all the doctrinal confusion created by his predecessor Pope Francis? And will he allow liberal bishop to continue to persecute Catholics who prefer the ancient Latin form of Mass?  Damian Thompson gives us his thoughts in advance of Recovering the Sacred, a Spectator event at St Bartholomew-the-Great in the City of London on July 8 featuring debate and sacred music illustrating the recovery of tradition by a

Wednesday

Damian Thompson

Why are young Christians returning to tradition?

41 min listen

Today’s Holy Smoke is a curtain-raiser for ‘Recovering the Sacred’, a Spectator event at St Bartholow-the-Great in the City of London in which a panel of experts will explore the rediscovery of traditional worship and theology by young Anglicans and Catholics. The event will be held on Tuesday 8th July; for more details, and to book tickets, go to: spectator.co.uk/church In today’s episode Damian Thompson talks to Anglican James Vitali and Catholic Georgia Clarke, two Generation Z professionals bursting with enthusiasm for their faith. It’s an exhilarating discussion; don’t miss it.  Produced by Patrick Gibbons.

Thursday

Sam Kriss

How do you exhibit living deities?

The most-watched TV programme in human history isn’t the Moon landings, and it isn’t M*A*S*H; chances are it’s Ramayan, a magnificently cheesy 1980s adaptation of India’s national epic. The show has a status in India that’s hard to overstate. Something like 80 per cent of the entire population watched its original run; in rural areas entire villages would crowd around a single television hooked up to a car battery. When the show ended, omitting the ‘Uttara Kanda’, the fairly controversial last book of the original poem, street sweepers across the country went on strike, demanding the government fund more episodes. The government caved. But while every country has its pieces

Tuesday

Damian Thompson

A Jewish guide to arguing 

52 min listen

Daniel Taub, former Israeli Ambassador to the UK, joins Damian Thompson to talk about his new book Beyond Dispute: Rediscovering the Jewish art of constructive disagreement. In a fast-moving interview, Daniel explains how the art of arguing has shaped Jewish humour and scholarship, and Damian asks him about keeping kosher, life after death – and the influence of the Talmud on Curb Your Enthusiasm.  Produced by Patrick Gibbons.