# Holy Smoke: Pope Leo one year on – a promising start? Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/best-of-the-spectator-45373/holy-smoke-pope-leo-one-year-on-a-promising-start Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/best-of-the-spectator-45373/holy-smoke-pope-leo-one-year-on-a-promising-start.md Podcast: [Best of the Spectator](https://stenobird.com/podcast/best-of-the-spectator-45373) Published: 2026-05-18T23:00:00+00:00 Episode link: https://shows.acast.com/best-of-the-spectator/episodes/holy-smoke-pope-leo-one-year-on-a-promising-start Audio file: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/68358fb5e1abc4be6b0308eb/e/6a1066ab55b99c7f890b5126/media.mp3?tk=eyJ0ayI6ImRlZmF1bHQiLCJhZHMiOnRydWUsInNwb25zIjp0cnVlLCJzdGF0dXMiOiJwdWJsaWMifQ==&sig=KjiGJdh-7ljSWGc78MOq3izkeE79HfGEa48AkWzVvoE Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/best-of-the-spectator-45373/episodes/holy-smoke-pope-leo-one-year-on-a-promising-start Duration seconds: 2259 ## Resource One year on from when Pope Leo became head of the Catholic church and he remains a bit of an enigma. Is he a Conservative or Liberal? What did we learn from his clash with Donald Trump? Damian Thompson is joined by editor of The Pillar Ed Condon and two Spectator favourites – Freddy Gray and Mary Wakefield. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/best-of-the-spectator-45373/episodes/holy-smoke-pope-leo-one-year-on-a-promising-start/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/best-of-the-spectator-45373/holy-smoke-pope-leo-one-year-on-a-promising-start.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.