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'Radical secularism' threatening Christianity in US, charges Pope

Pope Benedict XVI has urged bishops in the United States to galvanise Catholics in their country to fight against "powerful new cultural currents" that are threatening the Church's freedoms and are even "increasingly hostile to Christianity as such". The Pope's words came on 19 January in an address to a group of bishops making their five-yearly "ad limina" visits to Rome.

"It is imperative that the entire Catholic community in the United States come to realise the grave threats to the Church's public moral witness presented by a radical secularism which increasingly finds expression in the political and cultural spheres," he noted.

One day after the Pope issued the warning, the Health and Human Services Department of the Obama Administration finalised requirements that healthcare programmes that institutions give to employees must cover the costs of contraceptives, including the morning-after pill.

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