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Welcome to Holy Smoke, the Spectator's Religion podcast. I'm Damien Thompson.

This week we're talking about the way that the notorious council culture that's gripping British universities

seems determined to silence Christian wishes above all.

There was a shocking example of this a few weeks ago at the University of Nottingham,

which is rapidly becoming synonymous with threats to free speech.

The Catholic Diocese of Nottingham nominated Father David Palmer

as Catholic chaplain of the University, whereupon the authorities attempted to cancel his appointment.

The reason, some students might be upset by his Catholic views on abortion. Eventually Notting the University had to back down,

not, I think, as a result of pressure from Father Palmer's rather feeble bishop, but because

the media started taking an interest. And one of the reasons that happened was that

Father Palmer was being helped by the Alliance defending freedom, a religious advocacy organisation founded in the United States

whose UK director, Ryan Christopher, joins me today.

Ryan, I want to talk about the broader implications of Council Culture on British universities

and the targeting of Christians, and also the government's new legislation intended to reinstate free speech in higher education.

But first, since you work closely on the case, I'd like to ask you about the University of Nottingham's attempt to slam its gates in the face of Father Palmer.

Father David Palmer was appointed by his bishop, the Bishop of Nottingham, the

Catholic bishop, to be the chaplain for Catholic students at the University of Nottingham.

And, yeah, historically, that's how it worked. The bishop proposed the priest. He wanted to be

chaplain. The university said, yeah, okay, great, that's fine.

But that wasn't the case with Father David. And in fact, what Father David found was that he was

being put through a series of, in effect, interviews in a way that previous chaplains hadn't.

...