Holy Smoke

By The Spectator

The most important and controversial topics in world religion, thoroughly dissected by a range of high profile guests. Presented by Damian Thompson.

Hosted on Acast. See

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4.6

123123 ratings

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FAQs about Holy Smoke:

How many episodes does Holy Smoke have?

The podcast currently has 230 episodes available.

Holy Smoke episodes:

February 10, 2020 The strange journey of Europe’s ‘Christian’ Jews
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.
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31min
January 10, 2020 Has the Church of England surrendered to ‘soft socialism’?
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.
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23min
December 23, 2019 Why it's a sin to sneer at 1970s Christmas specials
With Dr Tim Stanley, journalist and historian.

Presented by Damian Thompson.
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24min
November 15, 2019 Does the Church know how to deal with mental illness?
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.
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38min
November 01, 2019 Eduardo Hiiboro Kussala: a different sort of bishop
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.
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17min
October 11, 2019 Why the Vatican is more corrupt than ever
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...
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26min
October 03, 2019 The strange religion of cryptocurrency
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.

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32min
September 20, 2019 The Kremlin's persecution of Jews
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.
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25min
September 02, 2019 Why liberals turn a blind eye to the global persecution of Christians
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.
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31min
August 16, 2019 The two time bombs threatening Pope Francis’s moral authority
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.
Become a Spectator subscriber today to access this podcast without adverts. Go to spectator.co.uk/adfree to find out more.

For more Spectator podcasts, go to spectator.co.uk/podcasts.

Contact us: [email protected]
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
...more
31min

FAQs about Holy Smoke:

How many episodes does Holy Smoke have?

The podcast currently has 230 episodes available.

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