Before entering the world of comedy, Katy Brand studied theology at Keble College, Oxford. And while she went up to university a Christian, she said later that studying the subject made her a non-believer.
Pope Francis, it seems, has given her pause for thought.
“I don’t think I’m alone in this but I’ve got a bit of a crush on the new Pope,” she announced to gasps of surprise on BBC Radio 4’s The News Quiz last weekend. The satirical review discussed the Vatican questionnaire in preparation for the Synod on the Family that includes contraception and same-sex marriage among its topics.
Referring to the questionnaire and the possible creation of female cardinals, the 34-year-old comedian said she thought Pope Francis was “doing some really quite incredible things” and getting “back to basics” by trying to give women a central role in the Church.
14 November 2013, The Tablet
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Thinking about your interesting article made me think that perhaps part of the church's 'cultural chasm' could be a slow burning attitude that has quietly distanced the church and its institutions from the raw realities of family life.
In religions which seem to be keeping their children in their faiths well, the home is the locus of many of the most important and holy rituals - traditional Jewish families celebrate the sabbath most deeply at home so far as I know, while sikhs have the teaching of Guru Nanak, that families are the ones who feed the itinerant holy monks, and so are places of spiritual significance and grace.
In the Church, much emphasis has been put on the culture of the centre and the cleric - the vatican as the seat of the church, priests and bishops as the true representatives, indeed sometimes the only ones who understand the teaching... and so the gulf between family and church widens.
Francis admires how the poor are brought close to God through popular rituals, etc, perhaps he is trying to address the same problem. while we see the church as something other than God's people, sinners, and our imperfect families and homes, it will appear as an institution, distant and clunky as institutions always are, reconciling the church and families- is rekindling the spirit and warmth of the people of God and the traditions.
How this affects the synod and its meeting of celibate cardinals, in the biggest centre of clerical majesty remains to be seen...