Abba, Twitter vs Instagram, and papal selfies: the modern face of the Catholic Church

As a lifelong Catholic, I’ve often thought that two of the Church’s chief characteristics are a) how weird it is when you think about it; and b) how weird it is that so few people in it think how weird it is when you think about it. Happily, if a little smugly, I have to say that nothing in the first episode of Inside the Vatican (BBC2, Friday) caused me to revise this theory.

There was a time, of course, when allowing TV cameras to film your institution was a risky strategy, as St Paul’s cathedral and the Royal Opera House can testify after those fly-on-the-wall series of the 1990s showed us their dirty laundry with some glee. These days, though, organisations tend to be a bit more savvy — and, judging from Friday’s programme, none more so than the Catholic Church. Certainly anybody who tuned in hoping for duelling crosiers or the angry slamming down of psalters will have been disappointed.