Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor used his erudite Corbishley Lecture this week to erect a breakwater against the incoming tide of aggressive secularism and atheism. His purpose was both to start a debate, he said, and to sound an alarm against the "new intolerance" that disputes the presence of religion in the public sphere. A new breed of secularists, increasingly visible in the media and in politics, seeks to deny even the right of religiously motivated people to serve their fellow human beings in ways dictated by their consciences. The cardinal is evidently still reflecting on the Catholic Church's recent failure to have itself exempted from legislation on homosexual equality. That legislation may force Catholic adoption agencies to close if they will not agree to treat homosexual couples in the same way as heterosexual couples, and the Church's position was rejected by the more strident secular politicians.

There is more than one straw in this particular wind. Recently in certain sections of the media the heaping of insults and abuse on religious believers has become almost routine. A common trait is to treat all who represent different religions the same, thereby laying at the door of venerable institutions of moderation and good sense, such as the mainstream Churches in Britain, all the prejudices seen to flow from Muslim extremism or American fundamentalism. Those same voices portray the campaign against the slave trade, commemorated this week, as a triumph for Enlightenment and humanistic values when in fact it was a triumph largely of Quakers, Methodists and Anglican Evangelicals. History is being rewritten to excise religion, helped by a level of ignorance of religion among the public that has reached disturbing proportions.

One danger is that this febrile and negative climate will lead to an alteration in the way that Parliament deals with religious voices. They will be treated as harmful to the common good and not fit to be heard ...

For weeks the Conservatives have subjected Gordon Brown, Chancellor of the Exchequer and likely next Prime Minister, to hard political pounding. An accompanying chorus of muttering has been heard on the Labour back benches, looking forward with dread rather than hope to his assuming the leadership of party and country in a few weeks' time. So far the desire of those MPs for a convincing rival candidate has failed ...

The Vatican's denunciation of certain works by the Jesuit theologian Jon Sobrino will be widely seen as a renewal of its campaign against liberation theology. He is one of its leading exponents. Nevertheless, the terms of the latest judgement differ significantly from previous actions against this theology in two respects. First, the grounds of disapproval, likely to seem somewhat arcane to secular commentators, ...

Planet Earth should in theory be capable of supporting life, including human life, for thousands of years to come - indeed, some estimates say millions. It all depends on the human race. Not long ago the greatest danger seemed to come from nuclear war between the superpowers. Now the major threat is environmental damage, particularly the heating up of the atmosphere owing  to the discharge into it of so-called ...

Cardinal William Levada, the new head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has yet to gain a reputation as either a hard man or a soft man. But on the basis of one of the most wide-ranging interviews he has given since his appointment last year - he was formerly Archbishop of San Francisco - he is certainly entitled to credit as an open-minded one. If his words (reported on page 27) indicate a general ...