A Scottish town has decided to put Christmas back into Christmas instead of calling it ‘Wintermas’.

New UK research suggest that faith schools are better at tackling extremism and promoting race relations than State run schools.

UK social services have been accused by a couple of "kidnapping" their nine week-old daughter for adoption.

The Civil Partnership Bill is set to be debated in the Dail next week, according to a statement from the Green Party.

The European Commission has begun legal action against the UK government over its employment law exemptions which allow church bodies to employ on the basis of their ethos.

A resolution insisting that EU member states protect freedom of conscience and religion has been adopted by EU foreign ministers, according to a report in the Irish Catholic.

The Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell, has accused a leading Australian human rights figure of attempting to “intimidate” Christians on moral issues.

The Catholic Church is the organisation most turned to by Irish people for emotional comfort and reassurance after spouses, partners, family and friends.

Two prominent Anglican bishops have urged Christians to turn back the tide of political correctness by wearing religious symbols during the Christmas period.

The transfer of control of certain secondary schools from orders to lay trusts does not mean the Church is getting out of education, a leading Bishop has said.

Fewer couples are separating in the High Court due to the credit crunch, according to leading family law barrister Gerry Durcan SC.

Austria's new civil union legislation will not allow same-sex couples to register their partnership in a ceremony at their local registry office.

The children of religious parents in the UK are being targeted in an anti-religion advertising campaign by the same humanist group that was behind atheist bus ads.

A leading gay rights campaigner in the UK believes that it may be appropriate to force Churches to host homosexual civil unions eventually.

The BBC has rejected demands from atheists that they should muscle in on Radio 4’s three-minute religious slot, Thought for the Day.

Lesbians make better parents than heterosexual couples, a senior Government parenting adviser has stated.

Proposals to give cohabiting couples in the UK the same rights as those who get married are "bad for commitment" and degrade relationships, according to the chairperson of one Britain's legal bodies.

Christians must influence EU policy by “getting involved on a day to day basis with its work”, former Taoiseach John Bruton has said.

Nearly 10 percent of children from broken families say that the process has left them suicidal, according to a new study. Other children involved in the process said they later sought solace in drink, drugs or crime.

The survey, carried out by London law firm Mishcon de Reya also showed that one in three children whose parents separated or divorced over the last 20 years said that they had lost contact permanently with their father.

According to the findings, tens of thousands of children a year in the UK are losing contact with their fathers because of “failing” family court system and disastrous custody arrangements.

Children involved in the process complained of feeling “isolated” and “used” while parents admitted having used children as “bargaining tools” against each other.

Lawyers said the study showed that the court system itself was making family break-up more acrimonious with children used as "pawns".

They warned that so-called “no fault” divorces were encouraging warring parents to channel their “bloodletting” into disputes over contact.

Opposition politicians said the poll presented an alarming picture of a system “in a mess” which was all too often leaving fathers “shut out”.

The poll of 4,000 parents and children was carried out to provide a snapshot of the workings of the family court system exactly 20 years after the implementation of the landmark 1989 Children Act.

It found that a third of children from broken families had been tempted by drink or drugs while as many as 10 per cent had later become involved in crime.

A quarter of the children said that they had been asked to lie to one parent by the other and 15 per cent said they had even been called on to “spy” for their mother or father.

Meanwhile half of parents polled admitted deliberately drawing out the legal process for maximum benefit and more than two thirds conceded that they had used their children as “bargaining tools”.

About 250,000 couples, both married and non-married, separate every year affecting 350,000 kids, according to the Department for Children Schools and Families.

“The adversarial nature of the system invites people to come and use the courts system as a punch up and the children get used as pawns," said Sandra Davis, head of family law at Mishcon de Reya.

“It polarises parents and it puts children in the middle of the antagonism.

“Some fathers back off because it is too painful to carry on litigating, they give up.”

Tim Loughton, the Tory Shadow children’s minister, said: “This is alarming evidence of the very detrimental impact it is having on the welfare of the children themselves.”

“Clearly, the court system is failing and is positively encouraging conflict - and continuing conflict.”

Iain Duncan Smith, the former Conservative leader and founder of the Centre for Social Justice, warned that young people were bearing the scars of a divorce “boom” and a resulting lack of father figures.

“It is a mess, it needs a complete overhaul," he said. "It is an organisation locked in secrecy and deeply unhelpful to the parents and the children and all too often able to exacerbate the problems that they are about to face.”

David Laws, the Liberal Democrat children’s spokesman, added: “In too many cases the children become caught up in the crossfire between two warring parties in a system which sometimes encourages the parents to take entrenched positions.”

Miss Davis called for compulsory mediation for parents hoping to use the divorce courts rather than the current ”tick box” exercise for those seeking legal aid.

But a spokesman for the Children’s Society said that compulsion “goes against everything we have learned from many, many years of experience”.

The report confirms findings from two major reports published last year which also highlighted the damaging impact of divorce on children.

The National Child Development Study concluded that divorce has “repercussions that reverberate through childhood and into adulthood”, and a report by the Good Childhood Inquiry warned that family breakdown was a major cause of harm to children’s mental health.

A subsequent survey of under-10s found that if they ruled the world, the first law they would make would be a ban on divorce.

Scientists have created and fertilised an egg with two biological mothers and one biological father, sparking ethical fears about babies grown from three-parent embryos.