Alastair Campbell, the Prime Minister's former press secretary, once famously said: "We don't do God," expressing a common view that religion and politics do not mix. Certainly today, Britain often seems a markedly secular country. Strident voices can regularly be heard denouncing religion.

But according to research published this week by the newly established religious think tank, Theos, the British are not as hostile to religion as the media might think. Rather, most people believe that religion is a force for good and should play an important part in national life. In a joint foreword to the Theos report, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, and Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor say that those who want religion removed from national life are themselves guilty of an intolerant position. "Religiously inspired public engagement need not be sectarian and in fact can be radically inclusive," they write. The report itself argues that religion will play an increasingly crucial role in society, because of growing interest in religion's part in promoting happiness and well-being. As if right on cue, the same day that the report was published religious leaders of many faiths gathered to back the launch of a new system of raising money for health care in the developing world. Chancellor Gordon Brown's International Finance Facility (IFF) will raise £2.1 billion for an immunisation programme to protect 500 million children from the poorest countries against polio, diphtheria and other devastating diseases. Religious leaders came on board after the Pope, who was represented by Cardinal Martino at the launch, agreed to buy the first IFF "aid bond".

It is the first time that the Vatican had made a gesture of this type, but Mr Brown's courting of the Holy See started in 2004, when he spoke at a conference in Rome urging other European countries to back the IFF. His visit there, and the launch this week, shows that Mr ...

To the delight of environmentalists, global warming has been catapulted to the top of the domestic political agenda by the publication of the massive and authoritative Stern Report. Now Al Gore, no less, has been assigned to take the report's message to America, where refusal to take the threat of climate change seriously is the single most important reason the world has so far failed to come to grips with the ...

The Government has found itself with a scrap on its hands it clearly never bargained for, as the Catholic Church flexes its political muscles to thwart a plan rightly seen as an attack on the very principle of Catholic schools. The Archbishop of Birmingham, Vincent Nichols, has written to every head teacher pointing out the importance of contacting local MPs to show how widespread is the consternation in the Catholic ...

The Catholic community in Britain is entering a difficult period in its relations with wider society. The background cultural climate is becoming less friendly - Matthew Arnold's "long withdrawing roar" of the sea of faith seems to have been replaced by a surging incoming tide of antagonistic secularism, at least among some decision makers and commentators. For them "faith" signifies either ...

Hostility and rejection based on religion are part of the history of the Catholic community in Great Britain. It was in living memory, for instance, that nuns in the streets of Britain could expect to be insulted, jostled or even stoned. There is therefore a strong strand of sympathy among Catholics for Muslims experiencing something similar today, particularly in relation to the current controversy over Muslim women ...