In this episode of Holy Smoke, I'm joined by The Spectator's features editor William Moore, who asks in this week's issue of the magazine whether the Church of England is 'apologising for Christianity'. A report by the Oversight Group, set up by the Church Commissioners to make reparations for African slavery, not only wants to see unimaginable sums transferred to 'community groups' – its chair, the Bishop of Croydon, thinks a billion pounds would be appropriate – it also deplores the efforts of Christian missionaries to eradicate traditional religious practices. But, as Will's article points ..read more

At a press conference in Rome last week, an ex-nun claiming to have suffered ritual sex abuse at the hands of Fr Marko Rupnik turned the heat on Pope Francis. How much did he know about the stomach-turning charges levelled at the Slovenian mosaic artist, who was a Jesuit until he was thrown out of the order? And, more important, when did he know? Why is Rupnik still a priest? The Pope's allies in the media are desperate for this story to go away. But, as this episode of Holy Smoke argues, the scandal is growing and threatens to engulf Francis himself.  ..read more

Donald Trump now seems certain to be the Republican presidential candidate in this year's US presidential elections. That's a prospect that horrifies liberal America and quite a few other Americans besides. The former president secured overwhelming support from evangelical Christians in Iowa and New Hampshire and some commentators are speculating that we're seeing a resurgence of the so-called 'religious right'. Does he have born-again Christians to thank for his astonishing progress so far? In this episode of Holy Smoke my guest is Ryan Burge, the American political scientist whose Graphs on ..read more

Just before Christmas, the Vatican's new doctrinal chief Cardinal Victor ‘Tucho’ Fernandez unveiled a new style of blessing designed to make gay couples feel at home in church without changing the Church's teaching on marriage. The Argentinian Tucho has for years been Pope Francis's protégé – but for how much longer? The new gay blessings, supposedly blessing the couple but not their union, have been decisively rejected by all the Catholic bishops of Africa, forcing Francis to backtrack and say they could ignore Fernandez’s decree. Then, last week, it was revealed that in 1998 Tucho published ..read more

You might imagine that a political project to place modern nation states under the supreme authority of the Catholic Church would stand zero chance of success anywhere in the world, including in traditionally Catholic countries. And you'd be right. Even so, a movement known as Integralism – whose 20th-century incarnations were closely related to fascism – has gripped the imaginations of ultra-conservative Catholics in America, and especially on campuses. The Eastern Orthodox political philosopher Kevin Vallier has written a book, All the Kingdoms of the World, about this bizarre development. I ..read more

When I was in Rome last month, I watched the 'synod on synodality' fizzle out while the Marko Rupnik sex scandal took another sinister turn (and various Catholic journalists shamefully tried to suppress the story). But don't worry: this episode of Holy Smoke is devoted to more uplifting matters. I visited the ancient little church of Saints Cosmas and Damian on the edge of the Forum, which incorporates the remains of a pagan temple and a secular Roman basilica or meeting place. The contrast between the darkness of one and the light of the other had powerful theological significance for those R ..read more

Pope Francis's much-hyped 'synod on synodality' began in Rome this week and to say that it has got off to a rocky start is putting it mildly. On Monday, five leading conservative cardinals bounced Francis into making a highly ambiguous statement apparently opening the door to gay blessings. Meanwhile, and this subject is being played down by certain media outlets, allegations of sexual abuse surrounds one of the Pope's friends. The world-renowned mosaic artist Fr Marko Rupnik has been expelled from the Jesuits after women claimed he sexually abused them – but he remains a priest and for some r ..read more

Earlier this week, the Rome correspondent of the Times found himself mugging up on the history of Genghis Khan's Mongol Empire, and this is what he reported:  While the empire brought stability, it was created through the large-scale massacre of anyone who refused to submit to Mongol rule, leading to the death of millions. Mongol troops triggered famine in Iran by destroying ancient irrigation systems and catapulted diseased corpses into towns they besieged, a technique which reportedly introduced the Black Death into Europe. Why were the media suddenly writing about blood-crazed 13th-ce ..read more

King Charles III is the first British monarch to inherit a post-Christian kingdom. Less than half of his subjects identify themselves as Christian, and only about one in 20 adults in the UK go to church on Sundays. Since 1980 church attendance has more than halved – and that's broadly the situation in most of Western Europe.  In the traditionally God-fearing United States, in contrast, roughly 20 per cent of people are practising Christians. But there, too, the statistics now point to a steady decline in religious belief; the figures are worrying for American Protestants and catastrophic ..read more

Conservative Catholic critics of Pope Francis are referring to 2023 as his 'Year Zero' – a time of revolutionary upheaval initiated by an 86-year-old pontiff who feels liberated by the death of his predecessor Benedict XVI on New Year's Eve.  Events are moving fast. This October, the world's bishops will gather for a synod in which left-wing lay activists have been given an advisory vote by the Pope and permission to discuss ultra-sensitive topics such as women's ordination and blessings for same-sex couples.  It's true that Francis has rejected attempts by the ultra-progressive (a ..read more