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All Episodes

Holy Smoke — 237 episodes

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Title
1

How Project Spire will hurt England's parishes

2

Coffee House Shots: Britain's first Catholic PM

3

When Mary Calls: why Protestants are praying to the Mother of God

4

How religion shapes football

5

Was America meant to be a Christian nation?

6

The Pope & the SSPX: is this a permanent schism?

7

Pope Leo, Max Weber & the dark side of charisma

8

Are Mormons Christian?

9

Mexico, the Catholic Church & the rise of the cartel cults

10

Michael Gove on why the Pope's AI intervention shames our politicians

11

One year of Pope Leo – a promising start?

12

Is Pope Benedict’s Ordinariate for ex-Anglicans finally going to realise its potential?

13

Why has Trump picked a fight with the Pope?

14

How homosexuality has torn apart the United Methodist Church

15

How would you sell Christianity today? with Rory Sutherland

16

The truth about the quiet revival – with grounds for optimism

17

Prince William resets faith – as Sarah Mullally enthroned

18

Iran: why Shia Islam's tradition of martyrdom is key to understanding the conflict

19

Who is Sarah Mullally?

20

In defence of Christian monarchies

21

How Russia is waging Holy War in Ukraine

22

Is there any truth in the Christian revival?

23

Moltbook: has AI created its own religion?

24

Why did Pope Leo choose a 'safe pair of hands' for Westminster?

25

The historic value of English churches – with Daniel Wilson

26

Iran: why theocracies survive – with Peter Frankopan

27

How transformative has 2025 been for Christianity?

28

Why religious societies succeed – with Rory Sutherland

29

How was Commercial Christmas born?

30

Why is it left to Trump to highlight the persecution of Christians in Nigeria?

31

Why did the Danish PM call for a 'spiritual rearmament'?

32

Have the culture wars gone spiritual?

33

Is the cult of St Edward the Confessor justified?

34

Is the Anglican Communion dead?

35

How did faith shape Thatcher?

36

What does it mean 'to forgive'?

37

What can we expect from the first female Archbishop of Canterbury?

38

Reparations: the tyranny of imaginary guilt, with Nigel Biggar & Katie Lam

39

800 years on, why is Aquinas Gen Z’s favourite philosopher?

40

Archbishop of Canterbury: who's on the shortlist?

41

Why the canonisation of the first millennial saint is a cause to celebrate

42

Which are the 'Twelve Churches' that made Christianity?

43

From the Bible to Tolkien: the risks & rewards of collecting rare books

44

How has John Henry Newman inspired Pope Leo XIV?

45

Massacres in Syria & the Congo: why aren't Western elites drawing attention to religious persecution?

46

Recovering the Sacred with Michael Gove, Revd Marcus Walker, Dr Cosima Gillhammer and many more

47

It’s time for Pope Leo XIV to make some tough decisions

48

Why are young Christians returning to tradition?

49

A Jewish guide to arguing

50

Is God an Englishman?

51

The mystifying process – and problems – behind choosing the next Archbishop of Canterbury

52

Finding spiritual treasure in César Franck

53

Does Pope Leo XIV represent continuity or change?

54

Conclave: who is likely to succeed Francis?

55

What can we expect from the papal conclave?

56

Pope Francis dies – what will his legacy be?

57

Easter special: in praise of faithful dissent, a conversation with Nigel Biggar and Mary Wakefield

58

Was Simeon of Jerusalem the first Christian in recorded history?

59

The tin ear of Justin Welby

60

A sick Pope and a paralysed Vatican: who is actually running the Catholic Church?

61

Christianity, culture wars and J.D. Vance: a conversation with James Orr

62

Conclave – what really happens when a pope dies?

63

Holy War and Antichrist: The rise of extremist rhetoric inside the Russian Orthodox Church

64

Why militant atheists don’t understand religion: a conversation with Alister McGrath

65

Are Syrian Christians who speak the language of Jesus about to disappear after 2,000 years?

66

Could Trump 2.0. herald a new era of religious liberty in America?

67

Did Muslim leaders help conceal the grooming gangs scandal? A fierce exchange of views

68

How abuse scandals shattered the Church of England but were hidden by the Vatican

69

Why was C.S. Lewis such a killjoy at Christmas? A discussion with Alister McGrath

70

Is the end of Christendom nigh? with A.N. Wilson

71

Defender of the Faith: how have the King’s religious beliefs changed?

72

Should assisted dying be legalised?

73

Welby resigns: crisis at the Church of England

74

Did Christianity create secular humanism?

75

Sale of the century: why is the Kirk selling off hundreds of churches so cheaply?

76

The Pope announces 21 new cardinals. Is he trying to pack the conclave?

77

Could religious voters in the swing states decide the US election?

78

How pistols in St Paul’s Cathedral shaped the science of sound

79

Losing faith: will Labour’s VAT policy hit religious schools hardest?

80

From the archives: An atheist goes on a Christian pilgrimage. Why?

81

A Habsburg Archduke explains how not to be nasty on Twitter

82

Walsingham and the musical grief of the Reformation

83

Calm fire: the consolation of listening to Bruckner

84

The problem with cringe-making funerals

85

How the Church of England patronises African Christians

86

How much did Pope Francis know about Fr Marko Rupnik?

87

How liberal bishops are squeezing the life out of the Church of England

88

Does Trump have evangelical Christians to thank for his second coming?

89

Gay blessings and theological porn: why leading cardinals are distancing themselves from Pope Francis

90

Raymond Arroyo on the joys of a Sinatra-style Christmas

91

The strange appeal of Integralism

92

How light filled the first Roman Churches: a conversation with Dr Elizabeth Lev

93

The Pope, gay blessings and the Rupnik scandal

94

Genghis Khan and the Pope's summer of madness

95

The future of churchgoing in the West: why Protestants should worry and Catholics should panic

96

Is 2023 Pope Francis's 'Year Zero'?

97

Escaping the atheist hell of North Korea

98

Inside the world's most vicious liturgy wars

99

Succession: five nightmares for the next pope

100

The Vatican and the Mafia – why Italy can't seem to shake off organised crime

101

How Protestant is the Coronation?

102

Why didn't Beethoven go to Mass?

103

The battle over female Catholic priests has just begun

104

Is Abu Dhabi's multi-faith 'Abrahamic Family House' a beacon of hope or a creepy PR exercise?

105

The war over the Latin Mass escalates as the Vatican slides into chaos

106

Why Catholics are torn between the Church of Benedict and the Church of Francis

107

Why children need proper Christmas carols, not hideous agitprop

108

How ‘cancelled’ conservative Catholic priests are fighting to clear their names

109

What are Church of England services really like?

110

Sixty years on, Vatican II turns nasty

111

The Catholic Church is falling apart at the seams

112

Why has the West caved in to the progressive witch-finders?

113

Is Pope Francis protecting a convicted sex abuser?

114

Why the Pope's 'Synod on Synodality' has become a joke

115

The Queen's powerful Christian faith

116

Why is the Church of England so obsessed with racism?

117

The Catholic Church's muddle over Roe vs Wade

118

A plan to rescue Christian art

119

Monsignor Michael Nazir-Ali on his first Easter as a Catholic

120

It’s time the West saved Nigeria’s persecuted Christians

121

'I don't think we've gained anything' – Cardinal Pell on the Vatican and China

122

In Ukraine and China, a power-obsessed Vatican is betraying heroic Catholics

123

Does Putin think he's fighting a holy war to preserve Orthodox Russia?

124

How bureaucrats are suffocating the Church of England

125

Remembering my lovely sister

126

Why tradition is sacred: an interview with Archbishop Nikitas, leader of Britain’s Greek Orthodox Church

127

Why the Catholic Church is facing chaos this Christmas

128

Did a 'mafia' of liberal cardinals pressure Benedict to resign?

129

How Christians can fight the menace of university 'cancel culture'

130

Can C of E parishes stop bureaucrats wasting their money?

131

Has Pope Francis just thrown Joe Biden under the bus on abortion?

132

Joe Biden and the betrayal of religious freedom

133

Is the Catholic Church falling apart?

134

The plot against the Old Rite

135

The tyranny of bad hymns

136

The Christian mental health crisis

137

How Biden's cardinals are trying to shut down free discussion

138

The last legacy of the Soviet Union

139

The magical power of charisma – and why the Churches are ignoring it

140

The Greek Orthodox ancestry of Prince Philip

141

What the police's Good Friday disruption tells us about post-Christian Britain

142

The Passion chorale: the story of an extraordinary tune

143

The mystery of Pope Francis's infallibly good taste in classical music

144

Is Jordan Peterson about to move from Jung to Jesus?

145

Why should persecuted Christians trust Pope Francis?

146

Can the United States be transported back to Christendom?

147

Lockdown and the pandemic of loneliness

148

How the Vatican tried to suppress criticism of the new president

149

The death of the English parish

150

The problem of paranoia on the Catholic Right

151

Goodbye to Catholic Ireland

152

Beethoven’s spirituality: a conversation with Sir James MacMillan

153

Should devout Christians be scared of a Joe Biden presidency?

154

Why the fantasy narrative of the Vatican's McCarrick report is already falling apart

155

'If necessary I'll be arrested': the lockdown defying priest

156

A charity that actually transforms lives: Team Domenica

157

Is Pope Francis's Vatican turning into Richard Nixon's White House?

158

The humiliation of Becciu and the return of Pell

159

Is it time for Christianity to go underground?

160

Westminster Cathedral and an act of spiritual vandalism

161

Are the Habsburgs evidence of Catholicism's relevance today?

162

The Vatican's sinister deal with Beijing

163

How a ‘biblically illiterate’ generation can discover Christian art

164

The woke new Archbishop of York

165

Who will be the next Pope?

166

The creepy doctrines of Black Lives Matter

167

Suicide by secularisation: how the churches are dying

168

American Christianity will recover from the virus, but English churches are in big trouble

169

Is this the dawn of a new totalitarianism?

170

Have the churches been betrayed by their bishops?

171

Cancer and life in lockdown

172

Unlock the churches!

173

Beethoven's victory over sickness and fear

174

As we confront mortality, why do our bishops have so little to say?

175

Has the Vatican become a mouthpiece for Beijing?

176

Why the collapse of Christian Science should worry mainstream churches

177

Why the Pope said no to married priests

178

The strange journey of Europe’s ‘Christian’ Jews

179

Has the Church of England surrendered to ‘soft socialism’?

180

Why it's a sin to sneer at 1970s Christmas specials

181

Does the Church know how to deal with mental illness?

182

Eduardo Hiiboro Kussala: a different sort of bishop

183

Why the Vatican is more corrupt than ever

184

The strange religion of cryptocurrency

185

The Kremlin's persecution of Jews

186

Why liberals turn a blind eye to the global persecution of Christians

187

The two time bombs threatening Pope Francis’s moral authority

188

Lessons learned from Carl Beech and what they mean for Cardinal Pell

189

How radical Islam taught the progressive left to blame the Jews

190

Does Boris Johnson have Christian values?

191

Why has big business become so woke?

192

Why Bach's The St Matthew Passion speaks to all of us

193

Why are bishops so boring?

194

Gay smears and the Vatican’s sex abuse summit

195

My sister Carmel on her cancer and her faith

196

Is it a sin to be snobbish?

197

What has Pope Francis covered up?

198

The question of ethnicity that is dividing the Sikh community

199

Cardinal McCarrick, sex abuse and the shameful silence of the American bishops

200

An atheist goes on a Christian pilgrimage. What’s the point?

201

Is the Catholic Church embracing homosexuality?

202

Why do we insist on worshipping the NHS?

203

Is RepealThe8th the end of the Irish Catholic church?

204

Why Anglicans and Catholics will never unite

205

The strange death of liberal American Christianity

206

Why London’s universities are becoming scary places for Jewish students

207

Is this the beginning of the end for Pope Francis?

208

Is social media doing the Devil’s work?

209

'The Dictator Pope': Fact or fiction?

210

Bach and the art of finding God

211

Is Christianity being smothered by our patronising liberal elite?

212

The Joy of Sects: why weird religions matter

213

The Protestant passion of Queen Victoria

214

If Jesus was on Twitter, would the trolls attack him?

215

Is the Church of England dying in the countryside?

216

The knives are out for faith schools

217

Is Pope Francis turning into a bully?

218

Are Christians warming to gay marriage?

219

Is the British government about to be held hostage by head-banging biblical fundamentalists?

220

The Christian views of Theresa May and Tim Farron are way below the radar. And that's how they like it.

221

Why do women become Salafi Muslims?

222

Britain's loss of religious faith: how should we interpret shocking new statistics?

223

Pope is planning to retire, say allies – but only once he's appointed enough liberal cardinals

224

Are you scared to talk about your faith at work?

225

Why Iraq's Christians feel betrayed by the secular West

226

Are Christian MPs being silenced by the 'secular inquisition'?

227

The Queen is a true Christian leader. But what about Prince Charles?

228

Is Trump turning Islam into America’s ‘Great Satan’?

229

Are evangelical Christians being sucked into the cult of Trump?

230

How mass immigration is turning London back into a religious city

231

Murdered Christians are 2016's least fashionable minority

232

Why do church leaders suck up to Marxist regimes?

233

Brexit, Trump and the pious rage of the liberal clergy

234

Sohrab Ahmari: Donald Trump and the Christian Right

235

Ravi Holy: Conspiracy theorist turned vicar

236

Is the Catholic Church changing its line on divorce?

237

Why is Islam persecuting atheists?