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Does a Grande Pumpkin Spice Latte Really Belong in a Worship Service?
A burning question for our time
In the 2019 film The Two Popes, there is a scene with the following exchange between Pope Benedict XVI (played by Anthony Hopkins) and Jorge Bergoglio, the future Pope Francis (played by Jonathan Pryce):
Cardinal Bergoglio: You know the story, the… the two seminarians who… who liked to smoke?
Pope Benedict: No.
Cardinal Bergoglio: So, the first one, he goes to his spiritual director, and he says, “Father, is it permitted to smoke while praying?” And the director says, “No. No, of course not.”
Pope Benedict: Of course not.
Cardinal Bergoglio: So, the second one, he was a Jesuit. He says to his friend, “Brother, you’re just asking the wrong question.”
Pope Benedict: Ah
Cardinal Bergoglio: So he goes to the director, then he says, “Father, is it permitted to pray while smoking?”
It’s a humorous exchange, and one that I thought of when I read about a recent tweet from Minnesota pastor John Piper that, for some reason, went viral. On September 30, Piper posted this on X (the platform formerly known as Twitter that makes me think of Prince every time I type this…
