An attack by the Pope on the Government’s Equality Bill sparked a major reaction in Britain this week, as outrage was expressed at the Vatican’s blatant attempt to interfere in this country’s domestic politics.

Secularists are alarmed at the news that the BBC’s piously Catholic Director General, Mark Thompson, has been in “high level discussions” at the Vatican about how the BBC will cover the Pope’s visit to Britain in September.

The NSS has now made an official complaint about Mrs Blair’s potentially discriminatory decision to the body that oversees judicial behaviour, the Office for Judicial Complaints.

The Catholic Church has yet again used a legal manoeuvre to try to delay payment of compensation to victims of a sex abuse at a Catholic-run children’s home in Market Weighton, near York.

A Catholic school in Shropshire has been issued with a “notice to improve” after receiving a damning report from Ofsted inspectors who gave it the lowest possible mark.

A new study in the United States shows that Catholic students who attend Catholic colleges and universities are more likely to move away from the faith than have their faith strengthened.

If you want to know how religion is gobbling up taxpayers’ money, take a look at this parliamentary question from last week in the House of Commons.

The National Secular Society has announced a large-scale campaign of protest against the state visit of the Pope to Britain in September.

The Conservative Party said this week that if it comes to power it will oversee the biggest expansion in the number of “faith schools” since the 19th century.

The religious lobby in the House of Lords inflicted three humiliating defeats on the Government on Monday over religious exemptions in the Equality Bill.