Tag: England

In Britain, children will learn about humanism, in addition to other religions, in the Religious Education component of their curriculum.

A Christian who preached a hellfire sermon outside Debenhams in Colchester condemning homosexuality has been cleared of using threatening words or behaviour.

Thousands of people are expected to attend York Minster later as the relics of a 19th Century French nun arrive in the city.

Ignore the bells and the smells and the lovely Raphaels, the Pope’s visit to Britain is nothing to celebrate

Gordon Brown is ‘delighted’, David Cameron is ‘delighted’. I am ‘repelled’.

In his actions on child abuse and Aids, Joseph Ratzinger has colluded in the protection of paedophiles and the deaths of millions of Africans. As Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (Pope John Paul II’s chief enforcer), it was Ratzinger’s job to investigate the child abuse scandal that plagued the Catholic church for decades. And how did he do it? In May 2001 he wrote a confidential letter to Catholic bishops, ordering them not to notify the police – or anyone else – about the allegations, on pain of excommunication. He referred to a previous (confidential) Vatican document that ordered that investigations should be handled “in the most secretive way . . . restrained by a perpetual silence”. Excommunication is a joke to me, perhaps to you, but to a Catholic it means exclusion and perhaps hellfire – for trying to protect a child. Well, God is love.

Pope Benedict XVI will come to Britain next year, making the first state visit by a pontiff. He is expected to meet the Queen, the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, and may stay at Buckingham Palace.

The relics of Saint Therese de Lisieux go on display at the Catholic Church in Taunton, Somerset, as part of a tour of churches.

The British film Creation has been deemed too controversial for America. But questioning evolution is like questioning gravity

The new Archbishop of Westminster has launched an attack on secularists, warning that they threaten to undermine society in Britain.

Health surgeries post offices and day care centres should be put in churches under plans published in a report backed by Culture Secretary Andy Burnham. /// post offices

We are not going to understand the growth of creationism in modern England so long as we think of it as a primarily Christian phenomenon, or even a religious one.

£1m exhibition at Charles Darwin’s home marks bicentenary of his birth

Gift from Karl Marx, diaries, and manuscripts shed light on scientist’s life at English Heritage museum

While church attendances have been falling for years, these days the trend is for spirituality with no links to organised religion. Now the Church is on a mission to convert the so-called spiritual-but-not-religious, reports Jolyon Jenkins.

As a fresh bid is made to reform the Act of Settlement, BBC News looks at the history of the law that bans the monarch marrying a Catholic.