Nun

Sunday

Damian Thompson

Are you having a ‘nun girl summer’?

20 min listen

Why are young women suddenly fascinated by nuns? From ‘nun girl summer’ on TikTok to a wider ‘quiet revival’ of Christianity among Generation Z, the religious life appears to be enjoying an unexpected cultural moment. But is the attraction genuinely spiritual – or are young women simply drawn to the aesthetics, certainty and tranquillity of convent life? This week on Holy Smoke, Damian Thompson is joined by the Spectator's US assistant editor Margaret Mitchell and the Daily Mail’s Mimi Yates to discuss the unlikely appeal of nuns to Gen Z. They explore the joy and ‘slow living’ of convent life, the exhaustion of the attention economy and whether retreating into an all-female religious community offers an escape from modern dating and the 'manosphere'.

Are you having a 'nun girl summer'?

Thursday

Jeremy Clarke

The shadowy charisma of the Mater Dei sisters

From our UK edition

Catriona has a commission to paint the 17th-century façade of the chapel of St Joseph’s. She’d made a start when she decided that a foreground figure would lend greater interest and perspective to the composition. Following an email exchange, one of the nuns agreed to pose on the stony path leading up to the chapel for a photograph, from which Catriona would complete the work. At the appointed time she clanked the bell beside the pointed nunnery door. I was her out-of-breath photographer’s assistant. After two long minutes, the door opened and the youngest and prettiest of the seven sisters stepped from the cloister into the windy world.