Holy Smoke

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Is 2023 Pope Francis's 'Year Zero'? Jul 25, 2023

Show notes

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 (and ultra-empty) German church to pursue a liberal Protestant agenda without reference to Rome. That's not surprising: one largely unreported feature of this pontificate is an extreme concentration of power in the papal office. Any alterations to Church teaching and pastoral practice will be initiated by Francis alone – and he has a distinctive modus operandi. Rather than proposing specific changes, he rarely misses an opportunity to undermine the historic guardians of orthodoxy.
Now he has taken a dramatic and irreversible step. In the past, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, now renamed the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, has had the job of protecting the Church from heresy and other theological misjudgements. But at the beginning of July the Pope handed control of this doctrinal watchdog to his Argentinian protégé Archbishop (soon to be Cardinal) Victor Manuel Fernandez. And he did so with the instruction that Fernandez should shift its emphasis from rooting out error to more creative endeavours.
Fernandez needed no encouragement. Even before taking office, he has mothballed a ban on same-sex blessings that was issued as recently as 2021 and was assumed to have Francis's full support. In an interview marking his appointment, Fernandez said that 'if a blessing is given in such a way that it does not cause that confusion [i.e., does not appear to be a gay wedding], it will have to be analysed and confirmed.'
What on earth does that mean? You can see why Fernandez's appointment has alarmed conservative Catholics more than anything else Francis has done, and that includes his notoriously savage restrictions on the celebration of the Latin Mass. The Pope himself describes it as a 'turning point'.
In this week's Holy Smoke I discuss the possible consequences with the moral theologian Fr Alexander Lucie-Smith. He shares my view that an earthquake has hit the Catholic Church – but he also asks: given the indifference of so many Catholics to matters of doctrine, have they even noticed?

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Escaping the atheist hell of North Korea Jul 07, 2023

Show notes

For 75 years, the most anti-Christian regime in modern history has thrown its citizens into prison camps if they are suspected of the slightest dissent. Ten per cent of people live in modern slavery; perhaps 200,000 are behind bars. I'm talking about North Korea, of course – a regime even more abhorrent than Stalinist Russia, but which attracts suspiciously little attention from Western governments and churches unless they feel threatened by its nuclear arsenal.
My guest in this episode of Holy Smoke is Timothy Cho, a Christian human rights activist who escaped from North Korea. Even as a child, he was sentenced to forced labour for the crime of watching a James Bond film. In school he was subjected to hysterical anti-Christian propaganda, but found his faith when he was thrown into a Chinese jail. (North Korean refugees are routinely rounded up by Beijing, which then returns them to the Kim family's giant prison camp.)
Listen to his extraordinary testimony, and then ask yourself: why are Western governments so relaxed about the human rights abuses of this diabolical regime?

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Inside the world's most vicious liturgy wars Jun 23, 2023

Show notes

In the ancient Syro-Malabar Church of south India, clergy who try to change the liturgy do so at their peril. At St Mary’s Cathedral Basilica in Ernakulam last December, a long-standing dispute over whether the priest should face the people led to scenes in which protestors attacked clergy in the middle of the service, sending the sacred vessels crashing to the ground. As a result, the cathedral was closed – and remains so, six months later.
This liturgy war is a hideous embarrassment for the Vatican, because the Syro-Malabar Church is the second largest Eastern Church in Communion with Rome. Traditionally dated back to St Thomas the Apostle's mission to India, it has four millions members worldwide. Members are known for their missionary zeal – the Syro-Malabars are one of the few thriving Catholic communities in Britain – but also passions that in the last few years have spilled over into violence, allegations of corruption and hunger strikes. At the root of the dispute is an attempt by Rome to impose a uniform liturgy on congregations that bitterly disagree about whether the priest should face East or West during the Holy Qurbana, the Syro-Malabar name for the Mass. Bishops have been burned in effigy.
My guest in this episode of Holy Smoke is Luke Coppen, senior correspondent of the Pillar and one the few journalists outside India who has been following the escalation of the Christian world's most spectacular liturgy war. If you thought the Vatican's attempt to crush the Latin Mass was a nasty business, just wait until you hear what Luke has to say about the situation in India, which the Pope seems powerless to control.

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Succession: five nightmares for the next pope May 30, 2023

Show notes

A charming octogenarian who plays ruthless games with the people who think they're going to succeed him: I reckon Logan Roy would have recognised a kindred spirit in Pope Francis, despite their diametrically opposed politics. Like many of you, I'm heartbroken that Succession has come to an end – but if you're missing the back-stabbing melodrama then you could always start following the real-life struggle to shape the Catholic Church after Francis. Plenty of cardinals would like to swap their red cassocks for a white one. But, as I suggest in this episode of Holy Smoke, whoever eventually takes the job will have to confront at least five nightmare situations, most of them created by the camera-friendly but privately ferocious current occupant of the See of Peter.

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The Vatican and the Mafia – why Italy can't seem to shake off organised crime May 26, 2023

Show notes

The Sicilian Mafia is one of the most murderously amoral organisations on the planet – yet babyishly sentimental when it comes to Italian peasant Catholicism. And, like other branches of Italian organised crime, questions exist over whether they have allies in the Vatican, some of whose senior officials are as keen on money-laundering as the Mafia, only not so good at covering their traces.
The relationship between the hitmen and the hierarchy casts an exotic shadow over a new series of thrillers by Alexander Lucie-Smith, the first of which, The Chemist of Catania, has just been published. To quote A.N. Wilson, Lucie-Smith's plots are fast and his characters unforgettable. 'Menace, suspense, lust, love and fear all enliven his narrative. I can see him becoming a real cult author.'
Some scenes describe acts of stomach-churning depravity. Others display a surprising degree of theological literacy – surprising, that is, if you don't know that the author is a Catholic moral theologian and hard-working parish priest of Arundel and Brighton. I hope you enjoy our conversation and buy Father's book. But be warned: page 95 is not for the faint-hearted.

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How Protestant is the Coronation? May 05, 2023

Show notes

The Coronation in Westminster Abbey is the only occasion at which our monarch declares himself or herself to be a Protestant, thus ensuring that no Catholic can sit on the throne of the United Kingdom. Yet, paradoxically, the Coronation is the only English Royal ceremony which is replete with Catholic symbolism – the King will even wear robes whose origins lie in the vestments of the Catholic clergy. My guest in this episode of Holy Smoke – the historian Dr Francis Young of Oxford University – explains how this strange anomaly came about and why, for example, profoundly Protestant monarchs (and they included our late Queen) felt it necessary to take part in a distinctly un-Protestant ceremony. How Protestant is King Charles III? As Francis explains, that question is surprisingly difficult to explain. His comments are quite gripping. If you want to understand the unique ceremonial in the Abbey, and the changes His Majesty has made to it, then you really need to listen to this episode.

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Why didn't Beethoven go to Mass? Apr 14, 2023

Show notes

Ludwig van Beethoven had a profound faith in God. He was born and raised a Catholic and on his deathbed he asked to receive the Last Rites. He told the priest, 'I thank you, ghostly sir – you have brought me comfort.' One of his closest friends, Archduke Rudolf of Austria, was made a cardinal (before being ordained priest and bishop, something inconceivable today). To mark Rudolf's enthronement as Archbishop of Olomouc in 1819, Beethoven wrote a great Mass, and took such trouble over the setting of the Latin words that he delivered the work three years late. Yet, so far as we know, not once did the adult Beethoven actually attend a church service. Why? Norman Lebrecht, my guest on this episode of Holy Smoke, offers an explanation in his magnificent new book Why Beethoven: A Phenomenon in 100 Pieces.

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The battle over female Catholic priests has just begun Mar 31, 2023

Show notes

This week we heard the unfamiliar sound of one of the Catholic Church's most influential cardinals turning the handle of a door that has remained firmly shut for 2,000 years. It's marked 'Catholic women priests', a development – such is the pace of chaotic change under this pontificate – that is now a real long-term possibility. Pope Francis says he's against this innovation, but he relentlessly promotes bishops who favour it. Until now, they've been discreet about their views. Now, to use a fashionable cliché, they're saying the quiet bit out loud. As I point out in this episode of Holy Smoke, Catholic conservatives are confident that women will not – indeed, cannot – be ordained to the Catholic priesthood. Unfortunately for them, not just favoured cardinals but a majority of Mass-goers in the West think differently.

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Is Abu Dhabi's multi-faith 'Abrahamic Family House' a beacon of hope or a creepy PR exercise? Mar 17, 2023

Show notes

The Abrahamic Family House is the name for three giant concrete cubes – a church, a mosque and a synagogue – that have just officially opened their doors in Abu Dhabi. The project is the fruit of a controversial agreement signed there in 2019 by Pope Francis and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Ahmad Al-Tayyeb, that disturbed many Christians with its statement that the existence of separate religions is God's will. But it's a spectacular coup for the government of the United Arab Emirates and will no doubt reassure expats that there's freedom of religion in the UAE. In fact, I wonder how many of them are even aware that 'apostasy' – for example, a Muslim converting to Christianity – remains a capital offence in the Emirates.
But is this sort of carping justified? Since Sharia was adopted by the UAE in 1978, no one has actually been executed for apostasy. And surely the big story here is that Jews, for so long the targets of Muslim anti-semitism, are now welcome to practise their religion in an officially Islamic country. The synagogue of the Abrahamic Family House is the first purpose-built Jewish house of worship to open its doors in the Arab world since the 1930s. There's no doubt that the UAE is moving quickly in the direction of religious toleration, and perhaps we shouldn't be too worried by the boilerplate multi-faith jargon emanating from the pompously named 'Higher Community of Human Fraternity' that presides over the Abrahamic Family House.
In this episode of Holy Smoke I weigh the pros and cons of this lavish project with Nathan Eckersley, who's joining the podcast as our new researcher. He's excited by the Abrahamic Family House. I think the jury's still out and I remain to be convinced that the concept of 'Abrahamic faiths' is anything more than an irritating fiction. But listen for yourself.

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The war over the Latin Mass escalates as the Vatican slides into chaos Feb 24, 2023

Show notes

Cardinal Arthur Roche, the Pope's famously ambitious liturgy chief, has stepped up his campaign against the Traditional Latin Mass, which he's been trying to suppress ever since he was Bishop of Leeds 15 years ago. This week he persuaded Francis to back his ruling that the ancient Mass can only be celebrated in parish churches with his permission – thus taking the decision out of the hands of the world's bishops, many of whom are furious at being undermined in this way.
Traditionalists are in despair; they aren't optimistic, to put it mildly, that 'Uncle Arthur' will grant permission and they fear there is worse to come. In this week's Holy Smoke I talk to moral theologian and parish priest Fr Alexander Lucie-Smith about the mounting chaos in the Vatican. He says these sort of manoeuvres remind him of the last days of Pope John Paul II, when over- mighty cural chiefs took advantage of the pontiff's advanced age and poor health to wage turf wars.
The Catholic Church, he argues, is turning inwards, waging a pointless war over liturgy and wasting time on a meaningless 'Synod on Synodality' instead of addressing the catastrophic fall in Mass attendance, especially in Latin America and Europe. It's a powerful interview; don't miss it.

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