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The Pope and the Vatican’s record on child abuse have been challenged today at the United Nations. Both were criticised with unprecedented candour at the UN Human Rights Council by Keith Porteous Wood, Executive Director of the National Secular Society.
The Vatican likes to claim that there are over a billion “Catholics” around the world. But just how many of them are really “Catholic” in any meaningful sense of the word?
Lillian Ladele, the Islington registrar who refused to officiate at civil partnerships because of her religious beliefs, has failed in her attempt to take her case to the Supreme Court.
A Sheffield woman has been denied contraception by a pharmacist who claimed it was against her religion to fulfil the doctor’s prescription for the pills.
The Prime Minister has announced that NSS Honorary Associate Baroness (Glenys) Kinnock will take on a new role leading the Government’s work to tackle violence against women overseas.
A West Yorkshire adoption agency, Catholic Care, will choose to close rather than place at-risk children with gay couples, a High Court judge heard.
The (UK’s) House of Lords has adopted an amendment paving the way for caste discrimination to be made illegal.
Last month the English Heritage Lottery Fund announced that it would give £15.7 million to support the upkeep and repair of religious buildings around the country.
Just when the Vatican thought it had shrugged off the Irish child abuse scandal (as it has done so many other scandals), another horror story emerges in the Pope’s native Germany.
The Commissioner for Human Rights at the Council of Europe, Thomas Hammarberg, has issued a guidance note saying that prohibition of the burqa and the niqab would not liberate oppressed women, but might instead lead to their further alienation in European societies.
