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Explore every episode of the podcast Holy Smoke
Dive into the complete episode list for Holy Smoke. Each episode is cataloged with detailed descriptions, making it easy to find and explore specific topics. Keep track of all episodes from your favorite podcast and never miss a moment of insightful content.
| Title | Pub. Date | Duration | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Is God an Englishman? | 01 Jun 2025 | 00:31:52 | |
Bijan Omrani joins Damian Thompson to talk about his new book God is an Englishman: Christianity and the Creation of England. They discuss the spiritual and cultural debt the country owes to Christianity. The central question of Bijan’s book is ‘does it matter that Christianity is dying in England?’. The faith has historically played a disproportionate role in many areas of English life that we take for granted now – for example, by shaping both charity and the welfare state. Yet this is influence is often ignored as congregations shrink and the UK slides into secularism.
But are there unexpected grounds for hope? The publication of God is an Englishman has coincided with a modest but surprising revival of traditional worship among Millennials and members of Generation Z. Is there, as the book puts it, a ‘weariness of the young' with what secular society is offering them?’ And could we see the eventual flourishing of a smaller but purer English Christianity? Produced by Patrick Gibbons. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| The mystifying process – and problems – behind choosing the next Archbishop of Canterbury | 25 May 2025 | 00:38:54 | |
After Pope Francis died, it took the Roman Catholic Church just 17 days to choose a successor in Pope Leo XIV. It has been well over 6 months since Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby resigned and we are only just making sense of those chosen to sit on the Crown Nominations Commission (CNC), that will recommend his successor. Even then, it’s unlikely we will know more until the autumn. Why has it taken so long? Journalist, commentator – and quite frankly expert – Andrew Graystone joins Damian Thompson and William Moore, the Spectator’s features editor, to take listeners through the process. From committees to choose committees and confusion about the rules, as William comments, even acclaimed Conclave writer Robert Harris would struggle to make a fast-paced and riveting story out of the Anglican succession. That’s not to say there isn’t plenty of intrigue though: from bishops effectively ruling themselves out, to opaque appointments, and even a former head of M15 appointed to lead the CNC. Andrew, Damian and William discuss the process, the problems plaguing it and unpack those in contention to be the next Primate of All England. The chosen successor will ultimately lead the third largest Christian communion, with around 100 million members worldwide, and play a prominent role in British society with a seat in the House of Lords and as a spiritual advisor to King and country – no pressure. Produced by Patrick Gibbons. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| A sick Pope and a paralysed Vatican: who is actually running the Catholic Church? | 28 Mar 2025 | 00:11:25 | |
A greatly enfeebled Pope Francis is now living in enforced isolation in a suite at his Santa Marta residence that has been converted into hospital accommodation. He won't be resuming public duties for two months, we are told – and even his senior advisors have limited access to him. As a result, it's really not clear who is in charge of the Catholic Church. And, as Damian Thompson reports in this episode of Holy Smoke, it's by no means clear when this paralysis will end; it's significant that there has been so little talk of the Pope making a full recovery. Meanwhile, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Secretary of State who isn't bothering to hide his ambition to succeed Francis, is continuing to forge alliances... Produced by Patrick Gibbons. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| The problem of paranoia on the Catholic Right | 13 Jan 2021 | 00:24:37 | |
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 their imaginations it’s the feisty conservative broadcaster EWTN taking the role of the Soros Foundation. Catholic pundits with furious views have become a major headache for the Vatican – one it richly deserves, you might think, given what Cardinal George Pell describes as the ’Technicolour corruption’ lurking in the Curia, most of which goes unreported by a tame Vatican press corps. But is there any excuse for promoting conspiracy theories? Of course not, especially if a fantasy could have serious consequences for society. So we need to take a close look at the conservative Catholic campaign against coronavirus vaccines, which is informed not only by extreme moral scruples (certain vaccines make use of a ‘cell line’ derived from an abortion 50 years ago, something the Catholic Church isn’t too worried about) but also absurd claims about the vaccines changing our DNA. Ed Condon, editor of The Pillar, a new Catholic investigative outfit, joins me for this episode, which begins with some rather startling ’news’ about the arrest of Pope Francis amid a shootout at the Vatican. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Goodbye to Catholic Ireland | 23 Dec 2020 | 00:45:36 | |
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 was once the most Catholic of countries. Young people in Ireland now refer to the clergy with a withering disdain verging on hatred. My guest today, the celebrated Irish journalist, broadcaster and playwright Mary Kenny, offers a more nuanced analysis of the powerful and paradoxical world in which she grew up: one in which Catholic clergy and lay people could be simultaneously fervently pious, warm-hearted and yet paralysed by petty snobbery. She talks about how the Irish Free State handed far too much power to bishops and priests. In effect, they replaced the disappearing Anglo-Irish nobility as the new aristocracy of rural Ireland, exercising an authority over people's lives that could be generous or malevolent and sometimes a mixture of both. I think it's a gripping interview, full of the little details that make Irish short stories so compulsively readable. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Beethoven’s spirituality: a conversation with Sir James MacMillan | 17 Dec 2020 | 00:34:01 | |
It's the 250th anniversary of the birth of Ludwig van Beethoven. In this episode of Holy Smoke, Damian Thompson is joined by his fellow composer Sir James MacMillan to discuss a side of Beethoven that the postmodern artistic establishment prefers to ignore: his unwavering faith in God and the surprisingly strict morality that arose from it. Beethoven may not have gone to Mass very often, but before he died he asked to see a priest and during years of intense suffering composed one of the greatest of all settings of the liturgy, the Missa Solemnis. He was more proud of this masterpiece than of any of his symphonies; before he wrote it he meticulously researched the Latin text, and he also plunged into a study of the polyphonic masters of the 16th century. Sir James MacMillan is currently presenting a Radio 4 series on the religious faith of four composers: Tallis, Wagner, Elgar and Bernstein. If the BBC has the good sense to make another season, then he's planning to do a programme on Beethoven. But you don't have to wait to hear his fascinating reflections on the great man: just listen to this exhilarating episode of Holy Smoke. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Should devout Christians be scared of a Joe Biden presidency? | 25 Nov 2020 | 00:16:59 | |
The next president of the United States is, we are told, a devout Catholic who scrupulously attends Sunday Mass. This is in sharp contrast to the current president, who has never been more than an occasional churchgoer with, to put it politely, ill-defined religious views. So why are many Christians worried that a Joe Biden presidency poses an unprecedented threat to America’s constitutional guarantee of religious freedom? In this episode of Holy Smoke I talk to Andrea Picciotti Bayer, director of the Washington-based Conscience Project, about the continuing ideological assault by US officialdom on religious believers whose passionately held convictions challenge the closest thing the 21st-century United States has to an official creed – identity politics. For the past four years these believers, mostly Christian, have enjoyed an unusual degree of support from the Trump administration, which has prioritised religious liberty both at home and abroad. But is America’s second Catholic president about to pull the rug from under them? And, if so, why? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Why the fantasy narrative of the Vatican's McCarrick report is already falling apart | 14 Nov 2020 | 00:15:41 | |
In this episode of Holy Smoke, Damian Thompson says the Vatican's report on allegations of sexual assault by Theodore McCarrick is a whitewash. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| 'If necessary I'll be arrested': the lockdown defying priest | 03 Nov 2020 | 00:20:00 | |
Has there been a single Covid death as a result of someone attending a socially distanced church service? The answer is no, as you'd expect it to be. But, despite this, the Government will ban public acts of worship from Thursday. This decision is so perverse that even the Catholic bishops of England and Wales – who fell over each other during the last lockdown in their eagerness to shut churches – have written to the government asking for the scientific evidence indicating that properly supervised Masses pose a threat to the people attending them. So far they haven't received the courtesy of a reply, probably because there is no evidence. In this episode of Holy Smoke, Fr David Palmer, a Catholic priest from Nottingham, tells me that his church will be open this Sunday, cleverly exploiting a loophole in the government guidelines. If the police try to stop him saying Mass, or administering any other sacrament, then he's willing to be arrested. Other clergy, including some in the Church of England, have taken the same decision. Listen to the interview and ask yourself: why is the government targeting religious believers in such a cruel and scientifically illiterate fashion? And is it prepared for the backlash? Tell us your thoughts on our podcasts and be in for a chance to win a bottle of Pol Roger champagne by filling out our podcast survey. Visit spectator.co.uk/podcastsurvey. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| A charity that actually transforms lives: Team Domenica | 23 Oct 2020 | 00:19:08 | |
Ask yourself: who are the most vulnerable and marginalised people in British society? My answer would be young adults suffering from learning disabilities, who attract sympathy when they are children but, once they enter their 20s, simply drop off the map of public consciousness The consequences of this are dreadful: 95 per cent of them are unemployed. But four years ago that situation began to change, when Rosa Monckton founded Team Domenica, named after her daughter, now aged 25, who has Down's syndrome. Domenica was the last godchild of Diana Princess of Wales, who was a close friend of Rosa's. The two women mixed in the same exclusive social circles: Rosa was the Chief Executive of Tiffany, no less, and I remember first meeting her there at an impossibly smart party in their Bond Street store at some point in the 1990s. (To say that I was a fish out of water is putting it mildly.) Years later I watched her shepherding learning-disabled young people across the streets of Brighton in foul weather before organising games of ping-pong in a cheerless church hall. But this was just a small part of her big project: to found a charity that places these young adults in paid employment. That was a massive challenge at the time, and even more now – because the cafés founded by Team Domenica and the internships they managed to secure for their trainees disappeared during the Covid lockdown. So now Rosa and her team have a new mountain to climb, because even after limited re-opening the charity's income is down by 50 per cent. Please listen to my Holy Smoke interview with Rosa, who is married to The Spectator's brilliant former editor Dominic Lawson. You won't forget it in a hurry – though she wisely declines to comment on my opinion that there's a huge and shameful gulf between Team Domenica and charities like it and virtue-signalling pressure groups that specialise in spending taxpayers' money and generally being fashionable. And, please, donate to Team Domenica here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Is Pope Francis's Vatican turning into Richard Nixon's White House? | 08 Oct 2020 | 00:10:39 | |
There was a point in the Watergate scandal when revelations came so thick and fast that journalists struggled to keep up with them. And we seem to have reached an equivalent point in respect to the scandals engulfing Pope Francis's Vatican. Last week I interviewed Vatican expert Ed Condon about the sacking of Cardinal Angelo Becciu, accused by the Pope of stealing or misusing unimaginable sums of Church money, something he denies. Since Ed and I spoke, there have been two developments, both in their own way hard to believe. First, Angelo Becciu is now accused of overseeing the transfer of large amounts of money to Australia during the trial on fabricated sex abuse charges of his arch-adversary Cardinal George Pell, who had rumbled him. Second, the Pope has announced the setting up of a commission to decide which Vatican financial transactions should remain confidential. And, incredibly, the man he has asked to run it is Cardinal Kevin Farrell, formerly one of the closest associates of ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the pathological sex abuser who was for many years Archbishop of Washington. To quote the title of Lionel Shriver's celebrated novel, we really need to talk about Kevin. Listen to this episode to discover why. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| The humiliation of Becciu and the return of Pell | 29 Sep 2020 | 00:24:09 | |
The Vatican is this week in the grip of a paranoia reminiscent of the days when Renaissance popes (and their dinner guests) were forced to employ food-tasters. Cardinal Angelo Becciu, until 2018 the sostenuto at the Secretariat of State – that is, the Pope's hugely powerful chief of staff – has been sacked by Francis, who has accused him of stealing vast amounts of money. The Pope, who once showered him with favours, stripped Becciu of all the privileges associated with the position of cardinal – a twist of the knife worthy of a Netflix drama, or perhaps one of the Godfather films. And now, in an equally extraordinary sequel, Becciu's arch-foe Cardinal George Pell, until recently languishing in an Australian jail cell, is heading back to Rome to advise Francis on resuming the Pell financial reforms that Becciu torpedoed. My guest for this episode of Holy Smoke is the journalist who can take the most credit for uncovering Becciu's activities: Ed Condon, Washington Bureau Chief of the Catholic News Agency. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Is it time for Christianity to go underground? | 24 Sep 2020 | 00:37:58 | |
Boris Johnson's package of Covid restrictions announced this week included a rule that weddings will be limited to 15 people and funerals to 30 – numbers plucked out of thin air that will have questionable effect on the transmission of the virus. You might think that a ruling that affects only weddings and funerals isn't such a big deal for the churches, but that is to underestimate the fanatical zeal of their leaders for implementing, and expanding, restrictions on their own worship. The control-freak Archbishop of Canterbury, predictably, seemed quite thrilled by the government's intervention. My own reaction, informed by conversations with many clergy outraged by their bishops' baffling willingness to accept any curtailment of church life, was to wonder whether some Christians will be forced to 'go underground' – that is, find a way of worshipping that quietly disobeys their own leaders. To an extent this is already happening: at the height of the pandemic, Catholics were holding secret Masses that reminded me of their ancestors' defiance of Protestant penal laws. I didn't report it because I didn't want them hunted down by their own 'fathers in God', the local bishops. So that's the subject of this week's Holy Smoke, a very wide-ranging conversation with Dr Gavin Ashenden of the sort that you would never hear on the BBC. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Christianity, culture wars and J.D. Vance: a conversation with James Orr | 12 Mar 2025 | 01:01:27 | |
James Orr was living the life of a young, high-flying lawyer when, after a few drinks at a New Year's Eve party, he asked for signs that God existed. The signs came; among other things, he narrowly avoided a fatal skiing accident. Now he is a passionate Christian and a conservative culture warrior who helped defeat an attempt to impose the tyranny of critical race theory on Cambridge University, where he is an associate professor of the philosophy of religion. He's also an intellectual mentor to the vice president of the United States; Politico describes him as 'J.D. Vance's English philosopher king'. Dr Orr says Vance is 'extremely articulate, but he takes no prisoners'. As you'll hear in his conversation with Damian Thompson, that's an observation that could easily apply to the man the vice president calls his 'British Sherpa'. Produced by Patrick Gibbons. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Westminster Cathedral and an act of spiritual vandalism | 14 Sep 2020 | 00:17:22 | |
The row over the evisceration of Westminster Cathedral Choir has erupted again. The cathedral's excellent music administrator, Madeline Smith, has resigned from her post, accusing the choir school – which, incredibly, is the ultimate source of the threat to the choir's musical standards – of misleading parents and creating a 'toxic' atmosphere that drove out the master of music, Martin Baker. This week's Holy Smoke gives you the background to the story and argues that the downgrading of Westminster Cathedral Choir is an act of spiritual as well as musical vandalism. There's a powerful contribution from Dr Gavin Ashenden, a former chaplain to the Queen and former chorister at Canterbury Cathedral. The choir isn't singing at the moment, because of Covid: Westminster Cathedral has been predictably craven in its response to the pandemic, embracing and adding to the Government's control-freakery. When services resume, we can expect the long-planned dumbing down of the world's premier Catholic choir to be blamed on the virus. Don't believe a word of it – and please listen to the podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Are the Habsburgs evidence of Catholicism's relevance today? | 29 Aug 2020 | 00:30:25 | |
Damian Thompson is joined by Eduard Habsburg-Lothringen, Hungary's ambassador to the Holy See. A member of one of Europe's most historically influential families, Eduard explains how his religious practices have adapted to the acceleration of new technologies, and tells Damian how the Habsburgs keep in contact. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| The Vatican's sinister deal with Beijing | 07 Aug 2020 | 00:23:56 | |
Next month, the Vatican will talk to Beijing about renewing its 2018 deal with the Chinese Communist Party that effectively allowed President Xi to choose the country's Catholic bishops. He has used this power to force Catholics loyal to Rome to join the puppet Catholic church set up by Chairman Mao in the 1950s. They can no longer refuse on the grounds that they recognise only the Pope's Church because Francis himself has validated the orders of Xi's party stooges. But the Holy Father has done more than that: he has ostentatiously failed to condemn China's savage assaults on human rights, the worst of which is its attempt to eradicate the country's Muslim Uyghurs ethnic minority by herding them into concentration camps and forcing Uighur women to have abortions. As I say in this episode of Holy Smoke, the Pope's behaviour is not just a disgrace but also a mystery. The Catholic Church has gained nothing from the 2018 pact. On the contrary, it has given Beijing a handy excuse to intensify its harassment of Catholics. So why is the Vatican apparently keen to renew a deal that so badly reflects on it? One plausible explanation is money. Rome hasn't got any. China enjoys nothing more than buying influence. This year, claims surfaced that the Communist Party is quietly slipping the Vatican £1.6 billion a year in order to buy the Pope's silence about the Uyghurs, the subjugation of Hong Kong and the demolition of churches. But no evidence has been produced to support this conspiracy theory. My guests are the journalist Catherine Lafferty and Fr Benedict Kiely, a campaigner on behalf of persecuted religious minorities. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| How a ‘biblically illiterate’ generation can discover Christian art | 28 Jul 2020 | 00:38:21 | |
The new Holy Smoke episode is a significant departure from our usual formula. It’s a discussion about the profound and neglected meaning of Christian art. Professor Ben Quash of King’s College London is interviewed not by me but by Carmel Thompson – my sister, who has appeared twice on Holy Smoke to talk about her battle with ovarian cancer but is determined not to be defined by her illness. This is a truly engrossing episode inspired by Carmel’s conviction that art depicting Christian subjects – and that includes most of the great art produced in the West up to and including the Renaissance – is too often examined from a purely aesthetic point of view. Obviously you’ll get far more out of this discussion if you can see what Carmel and Ben are talking about with such infectious enthusiasm, so here are the artworks chosen by Ben. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| The woke new Archbishop of York | 17 Jul 2020 | 00:31:45 | |
Archbishop Stephen Cottrell made the headlines even before he was enthroned last week, when he ‘revealed’ that Jesus was black. This came as news to everyone except the far left, race-baiting fanatics of Black Lives Matter. This week, I talk to Dr Gavin Ashenden, a former chaplain to the Queen, about the implications of this disastrous appointment, which means that for the first time in the history of the Established Church the sees of Canterbury York and the London are all occupied by intellectually challenged bureaucrats with an adolescence enthusiasm for wokeness. Subscribe to the Spectator's first podcast newsletter here and get each week's podcast highlights in your inbox every Tuesday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Who will be the next Pope? | 07 Jul 2020 | 00:31:01 | |
Damian speaks to Edward Pentin, a veteran Rome correspondent whose upcoming book, The Next Pope, runs the rule over the runners and riders for Francis's successor. Click here to try 12 weeks of the Spectator for £12 and get a free £20 Amazon gift voucher. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| The creepy doctrines of Black Lives Matter | 26 Jun 2020 | 00:17:54 | |
With Professor Richard Landes, an expert on millennial or apocalyptic movements. Presented by Damian Thompson. Click here to try 12 weeks of the Spectator for £12 and get a free £20 Amazon gift voucher. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Suicide by secularisation: how the churches are dying | 19 Jun 2020 | 00:34:26 | |
Today’s episode of Holy Smoke exposes the extent to which ordinary Christians have been betrayed by their own bishops. This is a process that began decades ago – but it is only this year, during the coronavirus pandemic, that we’ve seen just how corrupted church leaders have become by secularisation. The need to close churches for public worship during the lockdown meant that, for the first time in many decades, Anglican and Catholic bishops were able to exercise a small but significant degree of secular power – something they desperately crave. In doing so, they displayed a mixture of ruthlessness, vanity, hypocrisy and stupidity that will accelerate the decline of their own institutions. This episode will tell you things that bishops – in Rome and America as well as Britain – are anxious to conceal from their flocks. Please tune in! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| American Christianity will recover from the virus, but English churches are in big trouble | 22 May 2020 | 00:22:51 | |
When the shadow of the coronavirus is finally lifted, the British public will have a long list of people to thank: doctors, nurses, cleaners, shop assistants, charities and – maybe – Boris Johnson. But there won’t be a round of applause for the parish clergy, that’s for sure, and it's not really their fault: the bishops, especially the Catholic ones, have mishandled the Covid crisis spectacularly. And in the United States? To be sure, there are bishops and pastors who, like the Catholic Bishops of England and Wales, form a Mafia of the Mediocre. But there is dynamism, too, and it’s interesting to note the extent to which successful Catholic and Protestant parishes share a common culture. My guest this week is Keith Stanfield, the brilliant young violinist whose Opus 76 String Quartet played Beethoven for us so beautifully a few weeks ago. In addition to having played football for Western Samoa in World Cup qualifying matches, Keith has worked in the US financial sector. He’s a practising Catholic and a keen observer of the Evangelical churches where he regularly performs. He expresses some strong opinions in this episode. So do I. You'll also hear a few seconds of ear-splittingly hideous music and some pointed remarks about the impending vandalism of the Westminster Cathedral Choir. Get a month's free trial of The Spectator and a free wireless charger here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Is this the dawn of a new totalitarianism? | 13 May 2020 | 00:20:25 | |
This week’s Holy Smoke podcast is about the strange and unstable world created by digital technology: one in which distinguishing between truth and falsehood is becoming almost impossible. My guest is the American journalist and businessman Robert Wargas. Robert is adamant that, despite the largely uncensored babble of social media, the boundaries of what it’s permissible to say in public are shrinking all the time. And this, he says, contains the seeds of a new totalitarianism. Presented by Damian Thompson. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Conclave – what really happens when a pope dies? | 25 Feb 2025 | 00:53:57 | |
The film Conclave has picked up a host of awards across all the major ceremonies so far, including at the Screen Actors Guild, the Golden Globes, and winning Best Picture at the BAFTAs. Adapted from the novel by Robert Harris, it also has eight nominations at the upcoming 2025 Academy Awards. Full of intrigue, the film has viewers wondering how true to life the process depicted on the big screen is. And, with Pope Francis hospitalised, amidst the award season, this has only heightened interest in Papal conclaves and the election process. Dr Kurt Martens, Professor of Canon Law at the Catholic University of America, joins Damian Thompson to unpack the process. What really happens when a Pope dies? Produced by Patrick Gibbons. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Have the churches been betrayed by their bishops? | 23 Apr 2020 | 00:22:58 | |
Last week I was sent a copy of a devastating 7,000-word letter accusing the Catholic bishops of England and Wales of grossly mishandling the coronavirus crisis by lobbying the government for a complete shutdown of their own churches, even for private prayer. As you'll hear in this week’s Holy Smoke podcast, McDonald really stuck the knife into the Church’s officials, producing document after document calling into question their integrity. So have the churches been betrayed by their bishops? Presented by Damian Thompson. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Cancer and life in lockdown | 11 Apr 2020 | 00:31:55 | |
In this week’s episode of Holy Smoke, I get to interview my personal heroine – my younger sister, Carmel Thompson. She was diagnosed with stage four ovarian cancer in November 2018. She’s now undergoing a second round of chemotherapy after coming out of remission. And she’s enjoying life. In our conversation she explains how the Coronavirus pandemic presents us with an opportunity to treasure the simple things in life – a lesson she learned the (very) hard way. She also talks about the two women saints who have given her strength – the ‘two Theresas’, St Thérèse of Lisieux and St Teresa of Avila. The drawing above is by the phenomenal Brazilian artist Ritchelly Oliveira (check out his Instagram account). It captures her indomitable spirit to perfection – though, in fact, it was drawn from a photograph of Carmel waiting impatiently for her brother to come out of a vape shop. I also talk to her next-door neighbour, Shelley Turley, who has acted as a sort of guardian angel during this troubling and surreal time, one which began for us long before the virus appeared. Carmel was on Holy Smoke last year, and the response from listeners was overwhelming. This episode is even more uplifting. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Unlock the churches! | 03 Apr 2020 | 00:25:49 | |
Harry Mount, the editor of The Oldie, is appalled that thanks to the coronavirus regulations, he can't seek spiritual comfort in any of Britain's glorious churches. And he's not a religious believer. In this week's Holy Smoke podcast, Harry tells me why the ban on even entering a church is so pointless: he describes it as a giant exercise in 'our old friend, virtue-signalling' by the Anglican and Catholic hierarchies. I couldn't agree more. It was the bishops, not the Government, who came up with the idea of a total lockdown. One minute they're opening their cathedrals to helter-skelters and crazy golf; the next they're grossly exaggerating the health risks of solitary and well-regulated visits to churches. (No one disputes that a temporary ban on public liturgies is necessary.) But this episode is about much more than the current outbreak of control-freakery from their Lordships. Harry Mount is an agnostic; why does he feel the need to visit churches? His answer to this question is fascinating and uplifting. Presented by Damian Thompson. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Beethoven's victory over sickness and fear | 26 Mar 2020 | 00:20:52 | |
This week's Holy Smoke podcast is a celebration of what must surely be the most inspiring piece of music ever written by a sick man recovering from illness – the slow movement of Beethoven's String Quartet, Op. 132, which he entitled 'A Song of Thanksgiving to the Deity by a Convalescent'. The relevance of this sublime music hardly needs spelling out. But what makes this episode particularly special is that, when they learned of the plans for the podcast, a brilliant young string quartet based in Kansas City, which calls itself The Opus 76 String Quartet, offered to record it for us. And that's what they did, without charging a fee, in the lovely acoustic of Visitation Parish Church just before it closed its doors because of the virus. They made a video of their luminous performance, which you can find on the Spectator's website, and there are two short extracts in the episode. My guest is the leader of the quartet, Keith Stanfield, who must be the only classical chamber musician in history to have played football in a World Cup qualifying match, for his mother's country, Western Samoa. I couldn't resist asking him about that. He and his colleagues went to heroic lengths to play Beethoven's 'Song of Thanksgiving' for Holy Smoke. Please listen! Presented by Damian Thompson. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| As we confront mortality, why do our bishops have so little to say? | 17 Mar 2020 | 00:29:45 | |
Do you sense that something is missing in the churches' response to the coronavirus? In this week's Holy Smoke episode, Dr Gavin Ashenden, a former chaplain to the Queen, argues that the bishop's attitude of 'wash your hands and be nice' reflects the churches' polite surrender to secularisation – but suggests that ordinary believers now have the opportunity to show the public what Christianity really looks like. The coronavirus, dreadful though it is, could mark a turning point – one that leads to a religious revival in which the old breed of bishop-bureaucrat gives way to more inspiring leadership. Presented by Damian Thompson. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Has the Vatican become a mouthpiece for Beijing? | 09 Mar 2020 | 00:19:44 | |
With Ed Condon, Washington bureau chief of the Catholic News Agency. Presented by Damian Thompson. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Why the collapse of Christian Science should worry mainstream churches | 28 Feb 2020 | 00:16:29 | |
In this week’s Holy Smoke podcast, Damian talks to Jon Anderson, an expert on religious and political sects, about the collapse of Christian Science – whose followers included Joyce Grenfell and Doris Day – and the scary lessons it holds for today’s mainstream religions. Presented by Damian Thompson. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Why the Pope said no to married priests | 20 Feb 2020 | 00:21:00 | |
The dust has still not settled after Pope Francis unexpectedly – and very pointedly – ignored pleas from liberal Catholics to ordain married men as priests. They had a fully worked-out plan in place, but the Pope had pressed the 'delete' button. So what happened? With Vatican expert Dr Ed Condon, Washington bureau chief of the Catholic News Agency and a canon lawyer. Presented by Damian Thompson. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| The strange journey of Europe’s ‘Christian’ Jews | 10 Feb 2020 | 00:30:05 | |
With writer Norman Lebrecht, whose book Genius and Anxiety takes a look at the exceptional intellectual contribution of Jews from 1847 to 1947, to the worlds of medicine, music, philosophy, engineering and more. Presented by Damian Thompson. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Has the Church of England surrendered to ‘soft socialism’? | 10 Jan 2020 | 00:22:29 | |
Just before Christmas, Dr Gavin Ashenden, a former Chaplain to the Queen, converted to Catholicism. In this episode, he deplores the Church of England’s surrender to secularism under Archbishop Justin Welby, who won’t enjoy his former colleague’s assessment of his talents... Presented by Damian Thompson. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Holy War and Antichrist: The rise of extremist rhetoric inside the Russian Orthodox Church | 20 Feb 2025 | 00:35:06 | |
The subject of Ukraine shattered the unity of Eastern Orthodoxy long before Russia’s full-scale invasion began. In 2018 the Ukrainian Orthodox Church declared independence from Moscow with the approval of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople. In response, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow broke off all relations with Constantinople, creating arguably the greatest schism in Orthodoxy for 1,000 years. There are now two main Ukrainian Orthodox Churches: one that supports independence and one still loyal to Moscow. As The Spectator’s Ukraine correspondent Svitlana Morenets points out, Ukrainians who previously didn’t care which church they attended now have to decide which to attend. Meanwhile, Dr Yuri Stoyanov, a fellow at SOAS, describes the alarming escalation of apocalyptic rhetoric encouraged by Kirill, whose talk of a Holy War against the forces of Antichrist is popular with soldiers but means little to the average Russian. As we approach the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Svitlana and Yuri join host Damian Thompson to discuss the role of the Russian Orthodox Church in perpetuating the conflict. Has Holy War returned to Europe? And is it true that President Putin has secretly been taking part in bizarre quasi-shamanistic rituals? Produced by Patrick Gibbons. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Why it's a sin to sneer at 1970s Christmas specials | 23 Dec 2019 | 00:23:15 | |
With Dr Tim Stanley, journalist and historian. Presented by Damian Thompson. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Does the Church know how to deal with mental illness? | 15 Nov 2019 | 00:37:22 | |
We're all sick of celebrities making a meal of their mental health problems – but that doesn't mean that we aren't facing a potential crisis. The unique strains of living in the technology-driven 21st century are taking their toll on people who, in an earlier era, would have been psychologically robust. Many of us are affected by anxiety, depression, addiction and eating disorders; all sorts of compulsive behaviour are flourishing as never before. And the mainstream churches have got nothing useful to say about it. Many bishops seem content to blame it on Brexit. Damian Thompson talks to Professor Stephen Bullivant, Britain's foremost expert on patterns of religious belief. Both talk frankly – 'bravely', as they say of celebrities – about their struggles with mental illness. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Eduardo Hiiboro Kussala: a different sort of bishop | 01 Nov 2019 | 00:16:13 | |
On today's Holy Smoke Damian Thompson meets a one-of-a-kind bishop: one whose most important dialogue is with armed warlords and their teenage mercenaries. South Sudan's Bishop Eduardo Hiiboro Kussala runs a hospital that is desperately short of doctors and medicine amid a humanitarian crisis in which over 200,000 people have died. On the podcast, he talks about his work, and the apparent corruption of various NGOs who have set up shop in this terribly troubled part of Africa. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Why the Vatican is more corrupt than ever | 11 Oct 2019 | 00:25:05 | |
Last week, Vatican police raided the Church's own money-laundering watchdog. Meanwhile, in a simultaneous raid on the Vatican Secretariat of State, prosecutors seized documents, computers, telephones and passports. It seems to be a dirty business. According to the Italian press, police want to know more about a multi-million-pound real estate transaction in Mayfair. Significantly, all the seized documents reportedly relate to the years when Cardinal Angelo Becciu, a close papal ally, was running the Secretariat of State’s offices. In this episode of Holy Smoke, Damian joined by Vatican-watcher Fr Alexander Lucie-Smith. We discuss what he calls Rome's culture of 'obsessive secrecy', the unwillingness of the mainstream media to investigate Vatican scandals, and ask what John Henry Newman, who will be canonised this weekend, would have made of the cringe-making Amazon Synod... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| The strange religion of cryptocurrency | 03 Oct 2019 | 00:31:05 | |
In this week's episode of Holy Smoke Damian is joined by Jamie Bartlett, one of the world’s leading experts on the dark web, radical politics and technology, whose gripping podcast series The Missing Cryptoqueen is currently being broadcast by the BBC. It tells the story of a shady Bulgarian tech entrepreneur, Dr Ruja Ignatova, who vanished just as her dodgy cryptocurrency OneCoin was raking in billions of euros from investors – or true believers – all over the world. Despite her disappearance, it still has footholds in African villages, the Chinese business community, Scottish housing estates and Britain’s Muslims – it claims to be Sharia-compliant. Not only does Dr Ruja's operation resemble a religious cult, it also gives us a glimpse of how technology and belief are combining in ever stranger patterns, often inspired by the utopians of Silicon Valley. Presented by Damian Thompson. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| The Kremlin's persecution of Jews | 20 Sep 2019 | 00:24:28 | |
Damian talks to Jewish pianist Ariel Lanyi about the cruel cat-and-mouse game that the Soviet Union played with Jewish classical musicians at a time when it was sneakily trying to extinguish both their religion and their ethnic identity. Presented by Damian Thompson. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Why liberals turn a blind eye to the global persecution of Christians | 02 Sep 2019 | 00:30:58 | |
The new episode of Holy Smoke is about the persecution of Christians. That's a familiar concept, even if we don't read much about it in the media. Damian is joined on the podcast by a fearless campaigner on behalf of the suffering Church, Fr Benedict Kiely, founder of the charity Nasrean.Org. Tune in to what he has to say about the Vatican's cynical deal with China – and Britain's wretched Department for International Development. Presented by Damian Thompson. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| The two time bombs threatening Pope Francis’s moral authority | 16 Aug 2019 | 00:31:00 | |
This week’s Holy Smoke podcast discusses two looming disasters for Pope Francis. The first is the ‘Amazon Synod’ in October, at which the world’s bishops will discuss a bizarre plan to ordain Amazon ‘village elders’ as priests. The framework for the synod has already been published; Damian's guest Dr Ed Condon uses the word ‘Orwellian’ to describe the language it employs. The second threat to Francis is more personal. When he became pope he lost no time making his friend Gustavo Zanchetta a bishop in Argentina. Bad move. Within a short time Zanchetta was facing allegations of sexual and financial impropriety. The Pope was informed of these allegations (and if you google them you’ll discover that they were pretty lurid). His response? He plucked Zanchetta out of his diocese and created a plum job for him in Rome... managing the Vatican’s finances. Another bad move, now that Zanchetta, back in Argentina, is facing charges of molesting seminarians and other allegations of misusing money. A mood of despair has set in at the Vatican. You’ll understand why if you listen to the podcast. Presented by Damian Thompson. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Lessons learned from Carl Beech and what they mean for Cardinal Pell | 07 Aug 2019 | 00:13:05 | |
Damian speaks to journalist Catherine Lafferty, who was in court for Carl Beech's trial, about the sensitivities surrounding sex abuse allegations. Have the police jumped to conclusions in Cardinal Pell's case too? Presented by Damian Thompson. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| How radical Islam taught the progressive left to blame the Jews | 30 Jul 2019 | 00:34:16 | |
It's less than four years since Jeremy Corbyn's hard-left sect seized control of the Labour Party, and yet already its anti-Semitic views – so alien to Labour tradition – seem too deeply rooted to eradicate. Today's 'Holy Smoke' podcast puts this sinister development in the broader context of the 'Red-Green' alliance – the love affair between the progressive Left and the Jew-haters of jihadist Islam. On the face of it, this is an unlikely, even surreal, relationship. But as Damian's guest, the historian Richard Landes, argues, the two have something in common: millennialism, the belief that some sort of Heaven on Earth, is not only imminent but historically inevitable. In theory, progressives believe that this transition to a new era will be peaceful; Jihadists, by definition, don't. But, as Landes explains, it's not as simple as that... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Why militant atheists don’t understand religion: a conversation with Alister McGrath | 13 Feb 2025 | 00:35:58 | |
In his new book Why We Believe: Finding Meaning in Uncertain Times, Prof Alister McGrath rejects the notion that belief is a relic of the past and takes aim at the ‘new atheists’ who attack religion without even knowing what it is. Prof McGrath, emeritus Andreas Idreos Professor of Science and Religion at Oxford University, has had a unique journey to religion. A former Marxist atheist with a doctorate in molecular biology, he’s now a world-renowned theologian and Anglican priest. In this lively discussion with Damian Thompson he talks about the boundary between science and religion, something poorly understood by aggressive atheists such as Richard Dawkins and the late Christopher Hitchens. He suggests that, while we all look for meaning, the safety of science doesn’t provide the sense of belonging that we all crave. Produced by Patrick Gibbons. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Does Boris Johnson have Christian values? | 23 Jul 2019 | 00:11:25 | |
With Harry Mount, editor of the Oldie and author of the Wit and Wisdom of Boris Johnson. Presented by Damian Thompson. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Why has big business become so woke? | 21 Jun 2019 | 00:17:39 | |
With the Daily Telegraph's Tim Stanley and Father Benedict Kiely, from the charity Nasarean.org, which campaigns in support of persecuted Christians. Presented by Damian Thompson. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Why Bach's The St Matthew Passion speaks to all of us | 18 Apr 2019 | 00:19:05 | |
Every year around the world, many people around the world listen to Bach's three-hour musical depiction of Jesus' trial and execution. Why? Host Damian Thompson is joined by Thelma Lovell, musical scholar and writer, to discuss why St Matthew Passion exerts such a strong grip on our imagination. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
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