This is Spectator Radio and you're listening to Holy Smoke with Damien Thompson.

Welcome to Holy Smoke, the Spectator's Religion podcast.

I'm Damian Thompson.

I'm Damian Thompson. Is it a sin to be snobbish? Is it a sin to be snobbish? Should you feel guilty if you knife someone from a party?

And why are so many clergymen desperate social climbers? I'm here to discuss these important questions

with the moral theologian Father Alexander Lucy Smith and with the spectators Lara Prendergast.

I don't know about you guys, but I go to a number of religious events, Christian events.

They might be Catholic or evangelical or high under Icy of E,

in which everybody just happens to be well connected or rich or both and useful.

And the clergy there name drop like dowagers, which is a little hard to reconcile with the message of the gospel, isn't it, Father?

Absolutely. One of the things is, you know, you can judge a person by who they hang out with, can't you?

And I think, you know, the great saints of the Catholic Church have all been people who've hung out with the lowest of the low, people like Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

I remember once when I, I hate to name drop, when I met Mother Teresa of Calcutta, it was me, Mother Teresa, and two or three thousand other people in the room. And Mother Teresa said, when you get to heaven, you're in for a huge shock because you'll find that all the people

you expected to be in heaven won't be there, but you'll be surrounded by the street people of

Calcutta. Now, there was a cardinal standing next to Mother Teresa when she said this,

and the expression on his face was a picture. He was horrified. This pop man had spent his entire life social climbing, no doubt.

He'd got to be a cardinal.

And yet he, in that one moment, a saint was telling him that it wasted his life.

Well, that's a lovely message, Father.

And by the way, I'll always be grateful to you for introducing me to Jill, Duchess of Hamilton, our late friend.

That's true.

With huge relish.

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