Damian Thompson is an associate editor of The Spectator
24 min listen
Few things are more depressing than the art, architecture and furnishings of the average modern church. The glorious aesthetic of light and colour of the Middle Ages and Renaissance has been replaced with an infantile modernist decor more suited to a primary school than a place of worship. In the Catholic Church, especially, bishops who
22 min listen
My guest on this episode of Holy Smoke was an Anglican bishop for 37 years – one of the Church of England’s foremost scholars and its leading witness for persecuted Christians. He was also an evangelical who, as bishop of the ancient see of Rochester, ordained women priests. But, as of this month, his title
22 min listen
Did you know that in the last year more Christians have been killed for their faith in Nigeria than anywhere else in the world combined? In 2021, at least 6,000 Christians died for their faith, and 80 per cent of those were Nigerians. Their murderers were – you may not be too shocked to learn –
Most of my women friends work hard to keep ancient friendships alive; the seasonal lunches, shopping trips and afternoon teas are observed as scrupulously as the feasts of the liturgical calendar. ‘Friends make all the difference in life,’ my mother used to say. In her late eighties, she would defy the wobbles of Parkinson’s and
24 min listen
On this week’s episode, we’ll hear from Damian Thompson on the Patriarch in league with Putin. (00:58) Next, Jade McGlynn on how Russian TV is presenting the war to its people. (08:46) And finally, Nick Newman asks how should cartoonists respond to war? (17:35) Produced and presented by Sam Holmes and Max Jeffery Subscribe to
Until very recently, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, was most famous for being the owner of a phantom wristwatch. It had the magical property of disappearing from sight, visible to onlookers only as a reflection. Don’t believe me? Google ‘Kirill’ and ‘watch’ and you’ll find a photo of the Patriarch
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Cardinal George Pell has given a wide-ranging interview to The Spectator‘s Holy Smoke podcast in which he criticises the Vatican’s 2018 deal with Beijing and especially the secrecy surrounding it. The unpublished pact allows the Chinese Communist Party to choose Catholic bishops, whose appointments are then rubber-stamped by Pope Francis. ‘I know high-up people in
24 min listen
Four million Christians in western Ukraine belong to the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, which since the end of the 16th century has adhered to a Byzantine rite while recognising the authority of the Pope. For this reason these Ukrainian Catholics are despised by the Russian Orthodox and its political masters: Stalin tried to force them
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Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is fundamentally inspired by his determination to preserve the Orthodox identity of Holy Mother Russia, according to the Rev Giles Fraser, writing for UnHerd today. That’s not as preposterous a suggestion as you might think, given that the first mass baptisms in the ancient homeland of ‘Rus’ took place in Kiev
14 min listen
In the latest Holy Smoke, I ask the Rev Marcus Walker, Rector of St Bartholomew the Great in the City of London, about the Church of England’s plans to create a new breed of bureaucrat-bishop who will pontificate about climate change, Brexit, Covid or whatever without having to bother looking after a diocese. He also
17 min listen
This photograph shows my dear sister Carmel on what turned out to be her last birthday a year ago today. She died aged 57 on November 23, after a three-year cancer ordeal during which she displayed the most astonishing courage. I interviewed her twice on this podcast about her faith, her illness and her unquenchable
How are we to interpret the revelation that Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI misled a sex abuse inquiry? That might seem an odd question. What is there to ‘interpret’ about the former Archbishop Ratzinger’s decision 43 years ago to allow a child abuser, Peter Hullermann, to live in Munich after he was thrown out of the diocese of
When the world’s number one tennis player Novak Djokovic found himself locked in a Melbourne hotel because he’d entered Australia without being vaccinated, he sent out an urgent request for gluten-free food. The 34-year-old Serbian — currently at the centre of a furious dispute over his right to stay for the Australian Open — is
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In this episode of Holy Smoke, Archbishop Nikitas of Thyateira and Great Britain, leader of Britain’s Greek Orthodox, defends sacred Christian tradition with a robustness I’ve never heard from a native British bishop. The Florida-born Nikitas has exhilarating and controversial things to say on all sorts of topics: the Western Churches’ cosy relationship with secularism,
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Pope Francis renewed his campaign against the Latin Mass this month, permitting his liturgy chief Archbishop Arthur Roche to issue all manner of threats to clergy celebrating the ancient liturgy. This ‘clarification’ has been greeted with horror by bishops around the world, including many who aren’t keen on the old rite. This episode of Holy
In 2013 the Oxford English Dictionary named ‘selfie’ as the word of the year. Its use had increased by 17,000 per cent in just 12 months, the OED revealed. Before long a cottage industry of feminist scholars sprang up, dedicated to producing gruesome waffle on the subject. A paper by Emma Renold of Cardiff University
30 min listen
In this episode of Holy Smoke, I interview Julia Meloni, author of The St Gallen Mafia: Exposing the Secret Reformist Group Within the Church. It’s the first detailed study of the self-described ‘mafia’ of liberal cardinals who worked tirelessly to prevent and then undermine the pontificate of Benedict XVI. The book contains many disconcerting revelations,
When Pope Francis was asked last month how he was doing after surgery on his colon in July, he replied: ‘Still alive, even though some people wanted me to die. I know there were even meetings between prelates who thought the Pope’s condition was more serious than the official version. They were preparing for the
Michael Nazir-Ali, the former Bishop of Rochester and one of the best-known Anglican clerics, could be ordained as a Catholic priest as early as next month. The conversion of such a high-profile intellectual would be an enormous boost for the Catholic Ordinariate, set up by Pope Benedict XVI to receive Anglicans into the Roman church.
30 min listen
The University of Nottingham has been forced to abandon its sinister attempt to ban Fr David Palmer from becoming its Catholic chaplain because his defence of unborn life might upset snowflakes. In this episode of Holy Smoke, I talk to one of Fr Palmer’s key allies, Ryan Christopher, UK director of Alliance Defending Freedom, about
