‘Catherine Pepinster is an English editor, historian, commentator and writer with a focus on theology, Catholic and Anglican ecumenism, church history, and religion and politics. She was the first female editor of The Tablet in the newspaper’s 176-year history. In 2017 she published the book The Keys and the Kingdom: The British and the Papacy from John Paul II to Francis.’ -Wikipedia.
Catherine also admits to being ‘mad about Brentford’.
On Saturday 9th April, the day before the home game against West Ham, she was invited to appear on ‘Thought for the Day’, the religious slot on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4. She is a regular on the programme but after two years of speaking from home this would be the first time she’d be back in the BBC studio. Catherine tweeted; ‘Looking forward to Palm Sunday -and football- and what they have in common’.
Once on air she said:’ At my club, Brentford, the manager and the players always walk around the pitch afterwards applauding the fans.The manager says the fans are vital to the match, they aren’t just passive spectators’. To hear how she connects that to a story from the bible listen here.
Religion Media Centre Briefing
Catherine has told the Religion Media Centre (38 minutes in) that she is a ‘devoted Brentford fan. ‘I have been for many years, since it was in League Two and climbed all the way up to the Premiership. It matters to me because it is very much my local team, I walk to the matches from where I live, and one of the things that’s fantastic about it is that it is a very old school club that still appeals to the local community.You see people in their red and white shirts walking across all the local parks to the matches, but its not old school in that when you look at who those people are its a very diverse group of people just as the local community is.It has space for us all in the stands and I think that’s a very important thing’. Catherine also stressed that despite Brentford now being in the Premier League fans had not been ‘priced out’.