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All Episodes

Holy Smoke — 230 episodes

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Title
1

Are Mormons Christian?

2

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

3

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

4

One year of Pope Leo – a promising start?

5

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

6

Why has Trump picked a fight with the Pope?

7

How homosexuality has torn apart the United Methodist Church

8

How would you sell Christianity today? with Rory Sutherland

9

The truth about the quiet revival – with grounds for optimism

10

Prince William resets faith – as Sarah Mullally enthroned

11

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

12

Who is Sarah Mullally?

13

In defence of Christian monarchies

14

How Russia is waging Holy War in Ukraine

15

Is there any truth in the Christian revival?

16

Moltbook: has AI created its own religion?

17

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

18

The historic value of English churches – with Daniel Wilson

19

Iran: why theocracies survive – with Peter Frankopan

20

How transformative has 2025 been for Christianity?

21

Why religious societies succeed – with Rory Sutherland

22

How was Commercial Christmas born?

23

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

24

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

25

Have the culture wars gone spiritual?

26

Is the cult of St Edward the Confessor justified?

27

Is the Anglican Communion dead?

28

How did faith shape Thatcher?

29

What does it mean 'to forgive'?

30

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

31

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

32

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

33

Archbishop of Canterbury: who's on the shortlist?

34

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

35

Which are the 'Twelve Churches' that made Christianity?

36

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

37

How has John Henry Newman inspired Pope Leo XIV?

38

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

39

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

40

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

41

Why are young Christians returning to tradition?

42

A Jewish guide to arguing

43

Is God an Englishman?

44

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

45

Finding spiritual treasure in César Franck

46

Does Pope Leo XIV represent continuity or change?

47

Conclave: who is likely to succeed Francis?

48

What can we expect from the papal conclave?

49

Pope Francis dies – what will his legacy be?

50

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

51

Was Simeon of Jerusalem the first Christian in recorded history?

52

The tin ear of Justin Welby

53

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

54

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

55

Conclave – what really happens when a pope dies?

56

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

57

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

58

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

59

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

60

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

61

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

62

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

63

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

64

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

65

Should assisted dying be legalised?

66

Welby resigns: crisis at the Church of England

67

Did Christianity create secular humanism?

68

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

69

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

70

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

71

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

72

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

73

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

74

A Habsburg Archduke explains how not to be nasty on Twitter

75

Walsingham and the musical grief of the Reformation

76

Calm fire: the consolation of listening to Bruckner

77

The problem with cringe-making funerals

78

How the Church of England patronises African Christians

79

How much did Pope Francis know about Fr Marko Rupnik?

80

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

81

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

82

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

83

Raymond Arroyo on the joys of a Sinatra-style Christmas

84

The strange appeal of Integralism

85

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

86

The Pope, gay blessings and the Rupnik scandal

87

Genghis Khan and the Pope's summer of madness

88

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

89

Is 2023 Pope Francis's 'Year Zero'?

90

Escaping the atheist hell of North Korea

91

Inside the world's most vicious liturgy wars

92

Succession: five nightmares for the next pope

93

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

94

How Protestant is the Coronation?

95

Why didn't Beethoven go to Mass?

96

The battle over female Catholic priests has just begun

97

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

98

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

99

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

100

Why children need proper Christmas carols, not hideous agitprop

101

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

102

What are Church of England services really like?

103

Sixty years on, Vatican II turns nasty

104

The Catholic Church is falling apart at the seams

105

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

106

Is Pope Francis protecting a convicted sex abuser?

107

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

108

The Queen's powerful Christian faith

109

Why is the Church of England so obsessed with racism?

110

The Catholic Church's muddle over Roe vs Wade

111

A plan to rescue Christian art

112

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

113

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

114

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

115

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

116

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

117

How bureaucrats are suffocating the Church of England

118

Remembering my lovely sister

119

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

120

Why the Catholic Church is facing chaos this Christmas

121

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

122

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

123

Can C of E parishes stop bureaucrats wasting their money?

124

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

125

Joe Biden and the betrayal of religious freedom

126

Is the Catholic Church falling apart?

127

The plot against the Old Rite

128

The tyranny of bad hymns

129

The Christian mental health crisis

130

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

131

The last legacy of the Soviet Union

132

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

133

The Greek Orthodox ancestry of Prince Philip

134

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

135

The Passion chorale: the story of an extraordinary tune

136

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

137

Is Jordan Peterson about to move from Jung to Jesus?

138

Why should persecuted Christians trust Pope Francis?

139

Can the United States be transported back to Christendom?

140

Lockdown and the pandemic of loneliness

141

How the Vatican tried to suppress criticism of the new president

142

The death of the English parish

143

The problem of paranoia on the Catholic Right

144

Goodbye to Catholic Ireland

145

Beethoven’s spirituality: a conversation with Sir James MacMillan

146

Should devout Christians be scared of a Joe Biden presidency?

147

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

148

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

149

A charity that actually transforms lives: Team Domenica

150

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

151

The humiliation of Becciu and the return of Pell

152

Is it time for Christianity to go underground?

153

Westminster Cathedral and an act of spiritual vandalism

154

Are the Habsburgs evidence of Catholicism's relevance today?

155

The Vatican's sinister deal with Beijing

156

How a ‘biblically illiterate’ generation can discover Christian art

157

The woke new Archbishop of York

158

Who will be the next Pope?

159

The creepy doctrines of Black Lives Matter

160

Suicide by secularisation: how the churches are dying

161

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

162

Is this the dawn of a new totalitarianism?

163

Have the churches been betrayed by their bishops?

164

Cancer and life in lockdown

165

Unlock the churches!

166

Beethoven's victory over sickness and fear

167

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

168

Has the Vatican become a mouthpiece for Beijing?

169

Why the collapse of Christian Science should worry mainstream churches

170

Why the Pope said no to married priests

171

The strange journey of Europe’s ‘Christian’ Jews

172

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

173

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

174

Does the Church know how to deal with mental illness?

175

Eduardo Hiiboro Kussala: a different sort of bishop

176

Why the Vatican is more corrupt than ever

177

The strange religion of cryptocurrency

178

The Kremlin's persecution of Jews

179

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

180

The two time bombs threatening Pope Francis’s moral authority

181

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

182

How radical Islam taught the progressive left to blame the Jews

183

Does Boris Johnson have Christian values?

184

Why has big business become so woke?

185

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

186

Why are bishops so boring?

187

Gay smears and the Vatican’s sex abuse summit

188

My sister Carmel on her cancer and her faith

189

Is it a sin to be snobbish?

190

What has Pope Francis covered up?

191

The question of ethnicity that is dividing the Sikh community

192

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

193

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

194

Is the Catholic Church embracing homosexuality?

195

Why do we insist on worshipping the NHS?

196

Is RepealThe8th the end of the Irish Catholic church?

197

Why Anglicans and Catholics will never unite

198

The strange death of liberal American Christianity

199

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

200

Is this the beginning of the end for Pope Francis?

201

Is social media doing the Devil’s work?

202

'The Dictator Pope': Fact or fiction?

203

Bach and the art of finding God

204

Is Christianity being smothered by our patronising liberal elite?

205

The Joy of Sects: why weird religions matter

206

The Protestant passion of Queen Victoria

207

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

208

Is the Church of England dying in the countryside?

209

The knives are out for faith schools

210

Is Pope Francis turning into a bully?

211

Are Christians warming to gay marriage?

212

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

213

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

214

Why do women become Salafi Muslims?

215

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

216

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

217

Are you scared to talk about your faith at work?

218

Why Iraq's Christians feel betrayed by the secular West

219

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

220

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

221

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

222

Are evangelical Christians being sucked into the cult of Trump?

223

How mass immigration is turning London back into a religious city

224

Murdered Christians are 2016's least fashionable minority

225

Why do church leaders suck up to Marxist regimes?

226

Brexit, Trump and the pious rage of the liberal clergy

227

Sohrab Ahmari: Donald Trump and the Christian Right

228

Ravi Holy: Conspiracy theorist turned vicar

229

Is the Catholic Church changing its line on divorce?

230

Why is Islam persecuting atheists?