Damian Hinds told the Sunday Times he still wants to relax the rules that would control how faith schools choose their students.

This would see new faith schools no longer stopped from picking more than half of pupils based on their religion.

The Catholic Church has been a big critic of these rules, saying the cap must go. It was aimed at boosting diversity in classrooms, but, the Church went as far to refuse to open any new schools.

There is speculation as to whether the Government policy could spark a wave of new Christian schools opening.

The Catholic diocese of East Anglia is already planning to open eight new schools.

Helen Bates, its assistant director for schools service, told Premier News Hour why the Catholic Church opposed the 50 per cent cap.

“The Catholic bishops do not want to find themselves in a position where a Catholic child is a refused a place in Catholic school because a non-Catholic child has a greater priority for that place and that’s always a possibility with the 50 per cent cap.”

Although those opposed to the change believe removing the cap will encourage prejudice, Bates said she has not seen any evidence of that.

“We have seen no evidence of Catholic schools being segregated or exclusive at all, actually quite the opposite.”

The Accord Coalition for Inclusive Education has accused Hinds of failing in his duty to wider society.
Chair of the…

The announcement comes a matter of months after Francis warned priests of Nigeria’s southern Ahiara diocese that they would lose their jobs if they did not obey him and accept Peter Okpaleke as their bishop.

It was not clear how many of them obeyed within the 30-day deadline given by Francis to accept Bishop Okpaleke last June.

But on Monday, the Vatican announced that Bishop Okpaleke is resigning and that Francis has named Monsignor Lucius Iwejuru Ugorji as Ahiara’s temporary administrator.

Pope Benedict XVI had appointed Bishop Okpaleke to Ahiara in 2012, but the local clergy rejected him.

Ahiara is a very Catholic diocese of the Mbaise region, and its faithful objected to the appointment of an outsider from the Anambra region being imposed on them. The Mbaise had wanted one of their own and blocked access to the cathedral when Bishop Okpaleke was to be formally installed.

Instead, he was installed outside the diocese six months after he was appointed.

The case was a test of papal authority, and has echoes with another divisive appointment in the news concerning Chilean Bishop Juan Barros.

Bishop Barros has been rejected by many faithful and priests in southern Osorno, Chile, ever since Francis appointed him in 2015. They cite accusations by sexual abuse victims that Barros witnessed and ignored their abuse at the hands of Chile’s most notorious paedophile…

Drunken Andrew Littlefair, 50, called Islam a “disgusting disease” and said mosques should be burned down and Muslims should be wiped out in a series of posts over four hours.

The father-of-one said in one, published on the morning after the Borough Bridge attack in London: “Give me bullets for my gun, I will shoot every b****** one.”

He also said: “My granddad didn’t fight and die for this.”

Another read: “Go to the extreme and kill them all. Fire with fire.”

When someone complained about the messages which were free for anyone to read, he did not remove the posts, so she called the police.

Teesside Crown Court heard that did not prevent him from posting on a new account a false apology for being a “white Christian who has values for life”.

He added: “My views on this will nvr change sorry I am not!!!!”

Robert Mochrie, defending, described Littlefair as a “keyboard warrior” and said: “He doesn’t have the intelligence frankly to be able to express himself in a more careful way.”

He said the posts were “nothing more than utter stupidity, mumbling nonsense”.

However, Judge Simon Bourne-Arton QC disagreed, saying they were the racist postings of a vile individual.

He said the posts followed the two terror atrocities in Manchester and London which had caused outrage.

“They went to the very heart of our democracy, they were appalling events and of course they resulted in a…

Church Society, Reform UK and the Fellowship of the Word & Spirit (FWS) will join forces in ‘evangelical unity’.

In a statement Church Society’s Director, Rev Dr Lee Gatiss, said: “It is in the light of our shared Biblical, Reformed, Anglican faith and common goals that we have decided that the challenges of the present time require us to unite our efforts so that we are better placed to harness the energies of evangelicals in contending for the gospel.”

All three groups aim to encourage people through biblical ministry and want to contend for the gospel through a reformed Church of England. They make suggestions for bishops when appointments are available, try to promote the evangelical foundations of the Church of England and steer it away from increased liberalism.

Practically, they will merge into a new Church Society, with Reform UK and FWS encouraging their members to join together.

Rev Dr Lee Gatiss said on twitter: “This is the biggest thing to happen in the Anglican Evangelical world here for 25 years”.

“I rejoice greatly and am so grateful to God that Anglican Evangelicals are at last beginning to combine their strength to stand firm and contend together in the Church of England.”

This is my comment on the well-founded rumours that @ChurchSociety, @reformuk, and the Fellowship of Word & Spirit are joining forces. pic.twitter.com/FyPeolKUPV

— Lee Gatiss…