Damian Thompson

A Pennsylvania grand jury report released last night has revealed that the Catholic Church in six dioceses systematically and sneakily covered up sexual abuse by priests on a horrifying scale. The American Church has now been plunged into the worst crisis in its history. The 884-report comes less than a month after the revelation that ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, former Archbishop of Washington DC, was a compulsive predator. His serial molestation of seminarians was an open secret, and cannot possibly have come as a surprise to some of his friends in the US hierarchy. The grand jury report – which examined only a tiny fraction of America’s nearly 200 dioceses – has set off an explosion of rage from US Catholics on social media, including many priests.

The young writer Guy Stagg threw in his job a few years ago to undertake a pilgrimage to Jerusalem via Rome - choosing a hazardous medieval route across the Alps. It nearly killed him: at one stage, trying to cross a broken bridge in Switzerland, he ended up partially submerged in the water, held up only by his rucksack. His new book The Crossway grippingly describes his solitary journey. He was a pilgrim, not just a traveller, he insists - despite still being an atheist at the end of it. On this week’s Holy Smoke podcast, Guy explains why that makes sense to him. And I also take the opportunity to ask Harry Mount, editor of The Oldie, why he’s irresistibly drawn to church buildings while remaining an unbeliever - albeit an agnostic rather than an atheist.

A solution ‘must be found’ in order to halt the Trump administration’s policy of separating migrant children from their families, according to an American cardinal. That’s hardly news, you may say: the US conference of bishops is united in outrage at this cruel practice. But the cardinal I’m quoting is Raymond Leo Burke, former Archbishop of St Louis, a theological and political conservative who is the closest thing the president has to an ally in the American hierarchy. Cardinal Burke therefore finds himself in an unfamiliar place: on the same side of the fence as the man who sacked him from a top-ranking post in the Vatican, Pope Francis.

Only one pope in the history of the Catholic Church could have uttered the following words: ‘Juan Carlos, that you are gay does not matter. God made you like this and loves you like this and I don’t care. The pope loves you like this. You have to be happy with who you are.’ Speaking to a gay Chilean victim of clerical sex abuse last month, Pope Francis – yes, you guessed it – appeared to press the 'delete' button on the Church's teaching that homosexuality is 'intrinsically disordered'. As I say in this week's Spectator, the Vatican hasn't denied Juan Carlos Cruz's account of the conversation. So, even if Francis didn't use precisely those words, he's happy for them to be out there. Homosexuality was the subject that reduced the Anglican Communion to rubble.

Nigel Lawson once wrote that 'the National Health Service is the closest thing the English have to a religion'. It's a justly celebrated line because it rings so true – though the second half of the sentence, even more uncomfortably true, is invariably left out: '... with those who practise in it regarding themselves as a priesthood'. This summer, adherents of our national quasi-religion are marking the 70th anniversary of its foundation by St Aneurin Bevan. The ceremonies – less preposterous but just as intense as Danny Boyle's tribute to the NHS in Britain's Olympic opening ceremony – have the unqualified blessing of our actual religions.

There was never going to be a happy ending to the story of Alfie Evans, the 23-month-old boy treated at Alder Hey hospital, Liverpool, for an undiagnosed neurological condition that destroyed his brain. But somehow the British establishment has contrived to make a tragic situation worse – to the point where large swathes of European and American public opinion are convinced that this terminally ill child and his parents have been the victims of a grotesque injustice. Whether that is the case will remain a matter of opinion: the medical and ethical questions raised by Alfie's plight are not easily resolved. Alder Hey's specialists were quite certain that there was no hope of saving him.

Last week The Spectator published a fascinating and mischievous piece by Ysenda Maxtone Graham entitled 'A tale of two Sarahs: the cuddly bishop vs the terrifying cardinal'. The first Sarah is Sarah Mullally, who is just about to take office as the first woman Bishop of London; she's a former nurse – indeed, the former Chief Nursing Officer and therefore Dame Sarah Mullally in her own right. But Hattie Jacques she ain't: she's friendly and 'inclusive' – i.e. fluent in churchspeak waffle after only two years as a suffragan bishop. The second is Cardinal Robert Sarah (pronounced Sar-AH), African-born Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship.

Fake news is dangerous because it uses 'distorted data' to manipulate the public, Pope Francis warned us in January. Well, he should know. Yesterday it emerged that his press office doctored a photograph of a letter from Benedict XVI in which the Pope Emeritus apparently praised some new books containing Francis's collected writings. Benedict wrote that the books reveal 'the interior continuity between the two pontificates, with all the differences in style and temperament'. But he added that he hadn't read them. The blogger Sandro Magister, an indefatigable critic of Francis, noticed the Vatican's sleight of hand and the Associated Press followed up the story.

Five years ago, the name of the Pope was announced from the balcony of St Peter's and I was given less than an hour by the Daily Telegraph to write an article about a man I knew virtually nothing about. Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, the Jesuit archbishop of Buenos Aires, had been fairly low down on the list of candidates acceptable to liberals – i.e. someone not in the mould of Benedict XVI. Sure enough, the new Pope Francis appeared wearing a plain white mozzetta or shoulder-cape; the BBC reported that he'd refused to put on the ermine-trimmed red velvet number sported by his predecessors, declaring that 'the carnival is over'. Actually, the carnival was just beginning: we were treated to one gesture after another of high-profile humility.

Twitter brings out a mean streak in some people that can take the breath away. And I should know. I was re-reading my old tweets the other day and thinking: good God, if this was my actual conversation at a dinner party I’d have to get my coat - remember the bloke in The Fast Show? - right after the soup. In the new Holy Smoke podcast, I’m joined by Harry Mount, Lara Prendergast and Freddy Gray to discuss the warping of our personalities by social media. Also, the complete failure of religious leaders to address the moral dilemmas it throws at us every day: bishops, being hopeless at Twitter and Facebook themselves, ignore them, preferring to lecture us on the finer points of government welfare and immigration policies. It’s a no-holds-barred conversation.