Damian Thompson

In this week’s episode of Holy Smoke, I get to interview my personal heroine – my younger sister, Carmel Thompson. She was diagnosed with stage four ovarian cancer in November 2018. She’s now undergoing a second round of chemotherapy after coming out of remission. And she’s enjoying life. In our conversation she explains how the Coronavirus pandemic presents us with an opportunity to treasure the simple things in life – a lesson she learned the (very) hard way. She also talks about the two women saints who have given her strength – the ‘two Theresas’, St Thérèse of Lisieux and St Teresa of Avila. The drawing above is by the phenomenal Brazilian artist Ritchelly Oliveira (check out his Instagram account).

Harry Mount, the editor of The Oldie, is appalled that thanks to the coronavirus regulations, he can't seek spiritual comfort in any of Britain's glorious churches. And he's not a religious believer. Last week he wrote a short but withering piece on his magazine's website, with the headline 'Unlock the churches!' It began: At a time of national crisis, if only there were some big, empty buildings where people could go and reflect, in an atmosphere of beauty and calm. If only they were so big that you would automatically practise social distancing because there are so many chairs and so few people.Oh, hang on! Like magic, these buildings do exist in every village, town and city in the country.

Do you sense that something is missing in the churches' response to the coronavirus? No one can fault them for ignoring the dangers of spreading the virus: bishop after bishop has taken the difficult decision to suspend public worship, and offered sensible advice about precautionary measures their flocks can take. And, in many cases, that's about it. Indeed, many church leaders, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, sound more like health and safety officers than the successors to the apostles.

Last week, Pope Francis sent a message to Chinese Christians urging them to be 'true Christians and good citizens'. He didn't mention the growing persecution they face under President Xi's programme of sinicisation, despite the Vatican-China deal of 2018 under which Francis recognised China's puppet Catholic Church in return for state tolerance of 'underground' Catholics faithful to Rome. Conveniently for both sides, the text of the deal has never been made public. Essentially, the Pope kept his part of the deal while Xi has used it to try to force together the official and unofficial Chinese Catholic Churches under the umbrella of – it goes without saying – the Chinese Communist Party.

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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.