The premise is fun but the details are so offensively wrong that only someone ignorant of any of the underpinnings of the premises would find it entertaining.
1. There is no Catholic Diocese of Gloucester. Roman Catholic dioceses, freshly overlaid over the historical dioceses appropriated by the Church of England, did not use the same names. The diocesan authority over Gloucester is the Bishop of Clifton.
2. The suffragan bishop of Clifton would not wear a cardinal's red. He would wear purple trim, as did Flambeau in his impersonation of the Irish bishop he kidnapped.
3. The Catholic diocese of Clifton does not have a bishop's palace. The Church of England diocese of Gloucester does not have a bishop's palace resembling the building shown. A small point but, again, the lazy confusions of the Catholic and Anglican holdings is of primary consideration to those people enduring the long-fought religious battles of the UK.
4. No local inspector - doesn't "Gloucester" have its own police force? - would treat two cardinals with the disdain and rudeness the little mustached fool did.
5. No African family has held inheritable curial positions in the Vatican since the 1700s. To suggest so is an offense to the discriminatory history of the Roman church.
6. No cardinal in the past and up to the 1950s was the son of circus performers. There were sons of farmers and merchants and other lower socio-economic people, but the stigma against performers never let up to that time. Of course.
7. Treating Catholic cardinals and bishops as avaricious buffoons would seem to be a traditional form of fun, but the lowness of the treatment of the characters in the script was an affront to the actual deadliness and careful aim of such prelates.
8. Father Brown kissed the rings of the cardinals but not the ring of the diocesan bishop to whom her owes his first allegiance in terms of hierarchy among those present.
9. The Pontifical Swiss Guards would not be assigned to guard a gift sent by the pope to the queen. So silly.
10. For that matter, the pope would not bestow such an item as the episode's historically significant jeweled cross to the queen, or to anyone, for that matter. Another type of gift, and perhaps one fitting his ecumenical respect for her role as the Defender of the Faith in her country, but not this one. Absurd. It would not be his to give, whatever his "right" as pope to dispose as he would. Because Pacelli - Pope Pius XII - wouldn't do such a thing. It is unlikely any "gift" was sent for a coronation. Personal items have been given by popes to the queen when they've met. John Paul II gave her an ancient book, I believe. Among the items given to her and Philip and for her family when she met Francis was an orb made of lapis lazuli with a silver St. Edward's cross. Not the same.
11. I'll also add that the constant reference to "Lady Felicia" is gratuitously incorrect as well. As noted in this episode, she is the Countess of Montague, also using the surname Montague, and the only appropriate form of address for her as the wife of an earl is "Lady Montague." A countess, even one like Felicia, would not "grant" people the chance to call her "Lady First Name," which denotes completely different statuses. Why? Not out of hauteur but because it is not her right to do so. She does, however, have the right to tell people to call her by her name, "Felicia," which seems more friendly than the incorrect and cobbled "Lady Felicia."
12. Last, the laziest and most egregious issue with the show in terms of its treatment of religion is the near-complete absence of the Church of England. Brown's domain seems to be 100% Catholic. No fellow pastor/rector in the Church of England appears. A medieval (at its source) church portray's Brown's parish church, of an age and prospect held by NO Catholic church in the kingdom, save one or two in the Diocese of Westminster. Waving a and and making anti-Catholic history AND the presence of the Anglican faith in the countryside makes for more of a fantasy than this sometimes cold-blooded cozy mystery series, which bears no semblance of Chesteron's characters and plots, would seem to want to intend.
All the players are first rate, even if they are ill-served by their scripts and often by their direction. And Nancy Carroll is one of the most appealing and smart actresses at work now. Her absence from the show is a great loss.
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