In June, the pope invited dozens of artists to Rome for the 50th anniversary of the Vatican Museum’s contemporary art collection. Patricia Lockwood, the author of Priestdaddy and a contributing editor at the LRB, was one of them. She tells Tom more about the surreal experience and why irony, in the words of Pope Francis, is ‘a marvellous virtue’.

Find further reading on the episode page: lrb.me/popepod

Read John Lanchester’s pick from the archive: lrb.me/lanchesterpick

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Find out about the Colour Revolution exhibition at the Ashmolean Museum here:

https://www.ashmolean.org/exhibition/colour-revolution-victorian-art-fashion-design

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Patricia Lockwood on Meeting the Pope