The High Court’s ruling in favour of the charity Catholic Care on Wednesday may have implications far beyond the Dioceses of Leeds, Middlesbrough and Hallam to which it directly applies, and far beyond the issue of whether Catholic Care is obliged by law to consider gay couples as suitable adopters of children. If the obligation stands, the charity would either have to withdraw from adoption work or sever its formal links with the Catholic Church. But Mr Justice Briggs has told the Charity Commissioners that they were wrong, in refusing Catholic Care an exemption, not to take into account the public interest. Once that has been made a criterion, Catholic Care’s case for an exemption becomes much stronger, for its expertise in finding homes for hard-to-place children (of any faith) is clearly of public benefit.

This ruling, which was unexpected, raises the question of whether other Catholic children’s societies were too hasty in breaking their ties with the Church or in giving up their adoption work, and whether they received sound legal advice. They were no doubt guided by the fact that the Catholic Church lost the political ­battle to have such an exemption explicitly enshrined in law.

The judge has in effect ruled that the law does not quite have the effect the Government intended it to have. It remains to be seen whether ministers have the stomach – or the time, with a general election imminent – to go back to Parliament for an amendment. And the Charity Commission could still turn Catholic Care down, though in the light of the judge’s decision that would seem perverse. A far wiser course would be to look again at the whole issue of public funding for faith-based activities, which covers not just adoption work but church schools, and indeed any new relationship a future government might want to establish with non-governmental or “third sector” organisations like faith communities, in other areas of work ...

This is proving a long, cold winter for the Catholic Church in relation to the sexual abuse of children by clergy. Hard on the heels of the devastating Murphy report into sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of Dublin, similar cases are now coming to light elsewhere in Europe, especially in Germany. The possibility of a similar scandal in Spain is now being openly talked about there too, and child abuse allegations are ...

Although the main political parties are close in many areas of policy, the forthcoming general election is clearly regarded by the Catholic bishops of England and Wales as a watershed, and therefore as a suitable moment for some national stocktaking. Their pre-election statement “Choosing the Common Good”, published this week, paints a discouraging picture of the current state of society. It goes on to ...

It would be foolish to pretend there is no problem: Britain has the highest rate of sexually transmitted disease, abortion for under-21s and teenage pregnancy in Europe. Surveys show that three-quarters of teenagers think the sex education they receive at school is poor. In those circumstances, it is understandable that a government would want to lay down the law, which is what Secretary of State Ed Balls is trying ...

It was an unprecedented event in Catholic history. Pope Benedict XVI summoned the entire hierarchy of the Church in Ireland to Rome this week and publicly rebuked them. The sexual abuse of children by members of the clergy was “a heinous crime and grave sin”, he told them. In a statement afterwards, the Vatican made clear it was the Pope’s view that there was no doubt “that errors of judgement ...