Catholicism

I’m fairly certain the Pope’s a Catholic but Andrew Cuomo is anyone’s guess. Barely had the Holy Father revised Church teaching to declare capital punishment ‘inadmissible’ than the New York Governor tweeted this: https://twitter.com/NYGovCuomo/status/1025026592479879170 The scion of the Cuomo dynasty — the Kennedys remade for radio — is battling Sex and the City star turned progressive heroine Cynthia Nixon for the Democrat nomination ahead of November’s gubernatorial election. Some tacking left never hurt anyone in a New York Democrat primary but, beyond that, this is pure gesture. The state appeals court struck down New York’s death penalty statute in 2004 and the execution chamber was shuttered in 2008.

It will come as no surprise that something in the news has Piers Morgan deeply troubled. For the past two days, Morgan has been incandescent over the Met Gala and its dress code. In a column for MailOnline he claims that, as a Catholic, he has become a victim of cultural appropriation due to fancy dress outfits worn to a party by celebrities.The Gala, a fixture of the New York social season at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is well known for the theme it sets, and this year it was ‘Heavenly Bodies’ - inspired by the Roman Catholic Church. The Gala was held to launch an exhibition of the same name. Dozens of items of religious clothing have been allowed out of the Vatican Archives to be seen by the public for the first time.Guests at the party took the dress code to heart.

The Met Gala is among the most iconic nights of the fashion calendar. Every year, A-list celebrities flock to New York City to attend the annual fundraiser for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute. There’s always a theme. This year it was, 'Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination.' Getting into the spirit of things, Rihanna took to the red carpet with a jewel-encrusted papal hat and robe, showing off lots of boob and leg. Olivia Munn wore a gold and sparkly 'chainmail dress' – inspired by the crusades, naturally. Actress Lena Waithe (don’t worry, I hadn’t heard of her either) showed up in a rainbow pride cape; a statement which, I'm sure, is considered quite radical in certain circles.

English country churches: everyone loves them, no one wants to actually pray in them. 'People have a massive sentimental attachment to the buildings, but they don't actually come to services,' says my guest on this week's Holy Smoke podcast, the Rev Ravi Holy. He's a country vicar in Wye, Kent, where he regularly attracts 150 worshippers in his main church – but, in the smaller churches he looks after, he's sometime confronted by just six people. Do listen to our incredibly frank conversation. Ravi is an ex-Pentecostalist, a liberal Catholic 'post-evangelical' who believes in the Resurrection but isn't too bothered if some of his flock don't. He's even conducted a funeral for an atheist with no reference to God in the service. (I put him on the spot about this.

Hannah Roberts, an English Catholic friend, was once telling me about her family’s long history in Yorkshire. She spoke with yearning of what she had back home and how painful it is to live so far away. I wondered aloud why she and her American husband had emigrated to the United States from that idyllic landscape, the homeland she loved. ‘Because we wanted our children to have a chance to grow up Catholic,’ she said. It’s not that she feared losing them to the Church of England — it’s that she feared them losing Christianity itself. She and her husband Chris, an academic theologian, are now raising their four young children in Philadelphia, a city with a historically large Catholic presence.

On this week's episode, we discuss the future of Christians as a minority group, consider whether Trump has found an ally in Britain, and dissect the 21st century phenomenon of the 'flake'. First, with Easter just around the corner, the fate of Christianity in an increasingly secular Britain came under scrutiny. In this week's magazine cover story, Rod Dreher advocates for 'the Benedict option', where Christian communities develop stronger personal identities. But Matthew Parris argues against this proposal, and they go head-to-head on the podcast. As Rod writes: "The collapse of religion in Britain has been perhaps the most striking feature of the last generation.