The Pope is using his visit to the Czech Republic this week to call on the country's Catholic population to turn back to the Church. Loyalty to Catholicism appears to be declining in traditionally Catholic areas.

Attacks on the Christian minority in the remote Kandhamal area of India's Orissa state raises questions about the country's claim to be a secular state, says a new book.

Christians have moved from non-engagement to engagement in politics, says Simon Barrow, but often in domineering and selfish ways. To argue for church as alternative community is not to advocate either 'secularism' or 'religionism', but the recovery of authentic Christianity in a plural environment.

Bishop David Chillingworth has been elected Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church. In accepting, he said an open and secular society was one in which smaller churches could make a distinct and constructive contribution.

Secularist campaigners will be marching to the Italian Embassy in London today, in a demonstration coinciding with one in Rome against the Vatican's interventions in Italian, European and global politics.

Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali, who earlier caused anger by suggesting some Muslim communities were ‘no go areas’ has created a fresh argument by claiming that the collapse of a ‘Christian nation’ has left Britain in a moral vacuum.