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Holy Smoke
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 acast.com/privacy for more information.
240 episodes tracked Similar shows
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Are you having a 'nun girl summer'?
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Plastic Parsons: why Quentin Letts fears for the parish church
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Wandering bishops, rival popes & schismatic churches
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How Project Spire will hurt England's parishes
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Coffee House Shots: Britain's first Catholic PM
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When Mary Calls: why Protestants are praying to the Mother of God
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How religion shapes football
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Was America meant to be a Christian nation?
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The Pope & the SSPX: is this a permanent schism?
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Pope Leo, Max Weber & the dark side of charisma
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Are Mormons Christian?
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Mexico, the Catholic Church & the rise of the cartel cults
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Michael Gove on why the Pope's AI intervention shames our politicians
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One year of Pope Leo – a promising start?
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Is Pope Benedict’s Ordinariate for ex-Anglicans finally going to realise its potential?
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Why has Trump picked a fight with the Pope?
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How homosexuality has torn apart the United Methodist Church
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How would you sell Christianity today? with Rory Sutherland
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The truth about the quiet revival – with grounds for optimism
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Prince William resets faith – as Sarah Mullally enthroned
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Iran: why Shia Islam's tradition of martyrdom is key to understanding the conflict
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Who is Sarah Mullally?
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In defence of Christian monarchies
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How Russia is waging Holy War in Ukraine
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Is there any truth in the Christian revival?
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Moltbook: has AI created its own religion?
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Why did Pope Leo choose a 'safe pair of hands' for Westminster?
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The historic value of English churches – with Daniel Wilson
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Iran: why theocracies survive – with Peter Frankopan
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How transformative has 2025 been for Christianity?
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Why religious societies succeed – with Rory Sutherland
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How was Commercial Christmas born?
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Why is it left to Trump to highlight the persecution of Christians in Nigeria?
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Why did the Danish PM call for a 'spiritual rearmament'?
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Have the culture wars gone spiritual?
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Is the cult of St Edward the Confessor justified?
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Is the Anglican Communion dead?
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How did faith shape Thatcher?
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What does it mean 'to forgive'?
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What can we expect from the first female Archbishop of Canterbury?
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Reparations: the tyranny of imaginary guilt, with Nigel Biggar & Katie Lam
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800 years on, why is Aquinas Gen Z’s favourite philosopher?
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Archbishop of Canterbury: who's on the shortlist?
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Why the canonisation of the first millennial saint is a cause to celebrate
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Which are the 'Twelve Churches' that made Christianity?
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From the Bible to Tolkien: the risks & rewards of collecting rare books
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How has John Henry Newman inspired Pope Leo XIV?
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Massacres in Syria & the Congo: why aren't Western elites drawing attention to religious persecution?
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Recovering the Sacred with Michael Gove, Revd Marcus Walker, Dr Cosima Gillhammer and many more
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It’s time for Pope Leo XIV to make some tough decisions
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Why are young Christians returning to tradition?
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A Jewish guide to arguing
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Is God an Englishman?
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The mystifying process – and problems – behind choosing the next Archbishop of Canterbury
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Finding spiritual treasure in César Franck
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Does Pope Leo XIV represent continuity or change?
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Conclave: who is likely to succeed Francis?
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What can we expect from the papal conclave?
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Pope Francis dies – what will his legacy be?
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Easter special: in praise of faithful dissent, a conversation with Nigel Biggar and Mary Wakefield
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Was Simeon of Jerusalem the first Christian in recorded history?
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The tin ear of Justin Welby
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A sick Pope and a paralysed Vatican: who is actually running the Catholic Church?
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Christianity, culture wars and J.D. Vance: a conversation with James Orr
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Conclave – what really happens when a pope dies?
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Holy War and Antichrist: The rise of extremist rhetoric inside the Russian Orthodox Church
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Why militant atheists don’t understand religion: a conversation with Alister McGrath
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Are Syrian Christians who speak the language of Jesus about to disappear after 2,000 years?
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Could Trump 2.0. herald a new era of religious liberty in America?
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Did Muslim leaders help conceal the grooming gangs scandal? A fierce exchange of views
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How abuse scandals shattered the Church of England but were hidden by the Vatican
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Why was C.S. Lewis such a killjoy at Christmas? A discussion with Alister McGrath
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Is the end of Christendom nigh? with A.N. Wilson
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Defender of the Faith: how have the King’s religious beliefs changed?
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Should assisted dying be legalised?
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Welby resigns: crisis at the Church of England
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Did Christianity create secular humanism?
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Sale of the century: why is the Kirk selling off hundreds of churches so cheaply?
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The Pope announces 21 new cardinals. Is he trying to pack the conclave?
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Could religious voters in the swing states decide the US election?
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How pistols in St Paul’s Cathedral shaped the science of sound
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Losing faith: will Labour’s VAT policy hit religious schools hardest?
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From the archives: An atheist goes on a Christian pilgrimage. Why?
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A Habsburg Archduke explains how not to be nasty on Twitter
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Walsingham and the musical grief of the Reformation
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Calm fire: the consolation of listening to Bruckner
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The problem with cringe-making funerals
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How the Church of England patronises African Christians
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How much did Pope Francis know about Fr Marko Rupnik?
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How liberal bishops are squeezing the life out of the Church of England
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Does Trump have evangelical Christians to thank for his second coming?
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Gay blessings and theological porn: why leading cardinals are distancing themselves from Pope Francis
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Raymond Arroyo on the joys of a Sinatra-style Christmas
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The strange appeal of Integralism
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How light filled the first Roman Churches: a conversation with Dr Elizabeth Lev
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The Pope, gay blessings and the Rupnik scandal
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Genghis Khan and the Pope's summer of madness
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The future of churchgoing in the West: why Protestants should worry and Catholics should panic
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Is 2023 Pope Francis's 'Year Zero'?
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Escaping the atheist hell of North Korea
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Inside the world's most vicious liturgy wars
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Succession: five nightmares for the next pope
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The Vatican and the Mafia – why Italy can't seem to shake off organised crime
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How Protestant is the Coronation?
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Why didn't Beethoven go to Mass?
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The battle over female Catholic priests has just begun
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Is Abu Dhabi's multi-faith 'Abrahamic Family House' a beacon of hope or a creepy PR exercise?
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The war over the Latin Mass escalates as the Vatican slides into chaos
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Why Catholics are torn between the Church of Benedict and the Church of Francis
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Why children need proper Christmas carols, not hideous agitprop
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How ‘cancelled’ conservative Catholic priests are fighting to clear their names
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What are Church of England services really like?
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Sixty years on, Vatican II turns nasty
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The Catholic Church is falling apart at the seams
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Why has the West caved in to the progressive witch-finders?
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Is Pope Francis protecting a convicted sex abuser?
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Why the Pope's 'Synod on Synodality' has become a joke
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The Queen's powerful Christian faith
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Why is the Church of England so obsessed with racism?
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The Catholic Church's muddle over Roe vs Wade
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A plan to rescue Christian art
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Monsignor Michael Nazir-Ali on his first Easter as a Catholic
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It’s time the West saved Nigeria’s persecuted Christians
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'I don't think we've gained anything' – Cardinal Pell on the Vatican and China
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In Ukraine and China, a power-obsessed Vatican is betraying heroic Catholics
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Does Putin think he's fighting a holy war to preserve Orthodox Russia?
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How bureaucrats are suffocating the Church of England
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Remembering my lovely sister
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Why tradition is sacred: an interview with Archbishop Nikitas, leader of Britain’s Greek Orthodox Church
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Why the Catholic Church is facing chaos this Christmas
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Did a 'mafia' of liberal cardinals pressure Benedict to resign?
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How Christians can fight the menace of university 'cancel culture'
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Can C of E parishes stop bureaucrats wasting their money?
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Has Pope Francis just thrown Joe Biden under the bus on abortion?
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Joe Biden and the betrayal of religious freedom
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Is the Catholic Church falling apart?
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The plot against the Old Rite
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The tyranny of bad hymns
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The Christian mental health crisis
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How Biden's cardinals are trying to shut down free discussion
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The last legacy of the Soviet Union
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The magical power of charisma – and why the Churches are ignoring it
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The Greek Orthodox ancestry of Prince Philip
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What the police's Good Friday disruption tells us about post-Christian Britain
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The Passion chorale: the story of an extraordinary tune
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The mystery of Pope Francis's infallibly good taste in classical music
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Is Jordan Peterson about to move from Jung to Jesus?
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Why should persecuted Christians trust Pope Francis?
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Can the United States be transported back to Christendom?
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Lockdown and the pandemic of loneliness
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How the Vatican tried to suppress criticism of the new president
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The death of the English parish
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The problem of paranoia on the Catholic Right
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Goodbye to Catholic Ireland
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Beethoven’s spirituality: a conversation with Sir James MacMillan
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Should devout Christians be scared of a Joe Biden presidency?
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Why the fantasy narrative of the Vatican's McCarrick report is already falling apart
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'If necessary I'll be arrested': the lockdown defying priest
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A charity that actually transforms lives: Team Domenica
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Is Pope Francis's Vatican turning into Richard Nixon's White House?
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The humiliation of Becciu and the return of Pell
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Is it time for Christianity to go underground?
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Westminster Cathedral and an act of spiritual vandalism
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Are the Habsburgs evidence of Catholicism's relevance today?
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The Vatican's sinister deal with Beijing
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How a ‘biblically illiterate’ generation can discover Christian art
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The woke new Archbishop of York
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Who will be the next Pope?
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The creepy doctrines of Black Lives Matter
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Suicide by secularisation: how the churches are dying
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American Christianity will recover from the virus, but English churches are in big trouble
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Is this the dawn of a new totalitarianism?
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Have the churches been betrayed by their bishops?
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Cancer and life in lockdown
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Unlock the churches!
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Beethoven's victory over sickness and fear
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As we confront mortality, why do our bishops have so little to say?
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Has the Vatican become a mouthpiece for Beijing?
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Why the collapse of Christian Science should worry mainstream churches
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Why the Pope said no to married priests
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The strange journey of Europe’s ‘Christian’ Jews
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Has the Church of England surrendered to ‘soft socialism’?
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Why it's a sin to sneer at 1970s Christmas specials
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Does the Church know how to deal with mental illness?
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Eduardo Hiiboro Kussala: a different sort of bishop
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Why the Vatican is more corrupt than ever
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The strange religion of cryptocurrency
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The Kremlin's persecution of Jews
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Why liberals turn a blind eye to the global persecution of Christians
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The two time bombs threatening Pope Francis’s moral authority
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Lessons learned from Carl Beech and what they mean for Cardinal Pell
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How radical Islam taught the progressive left to blame the Jews
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Does Boris Johnson have Christian values?
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11m ·
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Why has big business become so woke?
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17m ·
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Why Bach's The St Matthew Passion speaks to all of us
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19m ·
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Why are bishops so boring?
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16m ·
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Gay smears and the Vatican’s sex abuse summit
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My sister Carmel on her cancer and her faith
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Is it a sin to be snobbish?
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What has Pope Francis covered up?
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21m ·
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The question of ethnicity that is dividing the Sikh community
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Cardinal McCarrick, sex abuse and the shameful silence of the American bishops
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An atheist goes on a Christian pilgrimage. What’s the point?
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Is the Catholic Church embracing homosexuality?
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24m ·
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Why do we insist on worshipping the NHS?
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14m ·
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Is RepealThe8th the end of the Irish Catholic church?
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Why Anglicans and Catholics will never unite
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The strange death of liberal American Christianity
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Why London’s universities are becoming scary places for Jewish students
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Is this the beginning of the end for Pope Francis?
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Is social media doing the Devil’s work?
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'The Dictator Pope': Fact or fiction?
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Bach and the art of finding God
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Is Christianity being smothered by our patronising liberal elite?
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The Joy of Sects: why weird religions matter
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The Protestant passion of Queen Victoria
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If Jesus was on Twitter, would the trolls attack him?
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Is the Church of England dying in the countryside?
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The knives are out for faith schools
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Is Pope Francis turning into a bully?
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Are Christians warming to gay marriage?
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Is the British government about to be held hostage by head-banging biblical fundamentalists?
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The Christian views of Theresa May and Tim Farron are way below the radar. And that's how they like it.
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Why do women become Salafi Muslims?
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Britain's loss of religious faith: how should we interpret shocking new statistics?
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Pope is planning to retire, say allies – but only once he's appointed enough liberal cardinals
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Are you scared to talk about your faith at work?
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Why Iraq's Christians feel betrayed by the secular West
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Are Christian MPs being silenced by the 'secular inquisition'?
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The Queen is a true Christian leader. But what about Prince Charles?
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Is Trump turning Islam into America’s ‘Great Satan’?
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Are evangelical Christians being sucked into the cult of Trump?
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How mass immigration is turning London back into a religious city
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Murdered Christians are 2016's least fashionable minority
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Why do church leaders suck up to Marxist regimes?
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Brexit, Trump and the pious rage of the liberal clergy
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Sohrab Ahmari: Donald Trump and the Christian Right
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Ravi Holy: Conspiracy theorist turned vicar
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13m ·
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Is the Catholic Church changing its line on divorce?
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13m ·
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Why is Islam persecuting atheists?
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