Damian Thompson is an associate editor of The Spectator
Last Tuesday, the great footballer Cristiano Ronaldo, captain of Portugal, removed two bottles of Coca-Cola from a table in front of him, and tens of millions of pounds of sponsorship money went down the plughole. Ronaldo was at a press conference for the Euro 2021 Championship, in which Coca-Cola had invested heavily – and, as
34 min listen
Is the mental health of Christians beginning to collapse under the strain not just of Covid and its effect on worship but also the bottomless contempt of progressive ideology for religious belief? This week’s Holy Smoke is a conversation with theologian Dr Gavin Ashenden about a crisis of morale that is robbing some Christians of
16 min listen
America’s Catholic bishops are furiously divided among themselves this week, after a liberal faction led by the Biden loyalists Cardinals Cupich of Chicago and Wilton Gregory of Washington tried to stop them discussing the question of whether the radically pro-choice president of the United States should be allowed to receive Holy Communion. The US conference
33 min listen
Today’s Holy Smoke podcast is about the increasingly brutal bullying and silencing of people – especially Christians – who hold the ‘wrong’ opinions on controversial topics. A culture of censorship is becoming ever more deeply embedded in public institutions not just in Britain but also throughout Europe. In London last month we witnessed the nasty
38 min listen
The subject of this week’s Holy Smoke is charisma, which you might think is one of the most hackneyed and devalued words in the language; only the other day I saw an advert for a ‘charismatic chartered accountant’. But its popularity is no accident. ‘Charisma’ is shorthand for one of the most revolutionary – and
40 min listen
What were Prince Philip’s religious beliefs? The Duke of Edinburgh had Orthodox Christian ancestry, but how was he drawn to its traditions, was he influenced by the Queen’s faith, and why was he critical of Catholicism? Damian Thompson speaks to Gavin Ashenden, chaplain to the Queen from 2008 to 2017.
35 min listen
The intrusion of the sanctuary of a Polish church in Balham on Good Friday by the Metropolitan police was not only a shocking event but also a deeply concerning piece of history. It can’t be interpreted as a premeditated attack on Christianity – but it’s evidence of the utter irrelevance of Britain’s Christian heritage to
38 min listen
Can the West take on China? We may need some kind of economic Nato (00:50). Are Mormons misunderstood, by Netflix and everyone else? (14:15) And what does it really mean to be Spiritual But Not Religious? (27:45). With James Forsyth, The Spectator’s political editor; Iain Duncan Smith, former leader of the Conservative Party; Damian Thompson,
27 min listen
As we all know, it’s safe for three people to sing hymns in church, but any more than three is absolutely deadly. Those are the rules as set down by the Church of England, and as a result no one in Anglican services (or Catholic ones) will hear the glorious Good Friday hymn ‘O Sacred
The new three-part Netflix series Murder Among the Mormons is attracting big audiences, and deservedly so. Finally someone has made a major documentary about Mark Hofmann, the squeaky-voiced Mormon nerd who was both the most brilliant document-forger in history and a psychopathic murderer. In the early 1980s, the young Hofmann manufactured a series of documents
34 min listen
In this week’s Holy Smoke podcast I suggest that Pope Francis has a more profound appreciation of classical music than any of his predecessors. I’ve been saying this for years and everyone assumes that it’s a wind-up or that I’m confusing him with Benedict XVI. Not so. The Pope doesn’t just enjoy listening to Bach,
44 min listen
Is Dr Jordan Peterson about to convert to Christianity? If so, it’s a big deal. The earnest but sardonic Canadian psychologist is already the most effective advocate for the moral precepts of Christianity in the English-speaking media. But, until now, his penetrating exposition of the Bible has been inspired more by Jungian symbolism than by
18 min listen
Beijing’s new rules for clergy of all religions in China have been published in English – and, disastrously for the Vatican, they make no mention of any role for Pope Francis in approving the appointment of Chinese Catholic bishops. So it looks as if the Vatican’s secret deal with China, which gave the Pope nominal
26 min listen
This week’s Holy Smoke examines the fragmentation of American Catholicism following the election of pro-choice Catholic Joe Biden. It focuses on the strangest current of thought among the many conservative Catholics calling for an urgent change of approach in order to confront what promises to be an authoritarian liberal administration. It’s called integralism, a label
32 min listen
In 1930, the American novelist Thomas Wolfe wrote these chilling words: ‘The whole conviction of my life now rests upon the belief that loneliness, far from being a rare and curious phenomenon, is the central and inevitable fact of human existence.’ It’s an idea that, for many of us, is harder to shrug off now
28 min listen
Cardinal Blase Cupich, the ambitious left-wing archbishop of Chicago, must have imagined that Joe Biden’s inauguration last week would be a moment to savour. He and a small number of his liberal colleagues, known as ‘the Biden bishops’, have been working tremendously hard to make sure that, once their candidate was elected, any mention of
27 min listen
The English parish has been a source of spiritual consolation, and a certain amount of social comedy, for more than 1,000 years. So it’s very old – and, it turns out, frighteningly vulnerable to the coronavirus. Countless parish churches, both Anglican and Catholic, will quietly shut their doors forever over the next few months. Bishops
How many people are celebrating the fact that, last week, one of Europe’s most inspired writers about music, modern art and aesthetics celebrated his 90th birthday? The answer is relatively few, which might seem surprising. He is a world-renowned authority on the grotesque and the absurd — territory through which he darts mischievously in his
25 min listen
Every day there’s some sort conspiracy theory being aired by right-wing Catholics on social media involving the globalist agenda of the Pope’s UN/Chinese/Masonic/Soros foundation puppet-masters. No surprise, perhaps, given the fervour with which the Pope promotes a globalist agenda while his diplomats kowtow to Beijing. Some left-wing Catholics are into the conspiracy business, too: in
46 min listen
Rarely has a religious culture collapsed more rapidly than that of Catholic Ireland, which just 30 years ago seemed indestructible. Incredibly, it looks as if the Irish Church will have ordained more bishops than priests in 2020. It goes without saying that the Irish abuse crisis has hugely accelerated the process of secularisation in what
