No Government has the moral authority to dismantle the universally understood meaning of marriage.

To increase aid to the Pakistan government when religious freedom is not upheld is tantamount to an anti-Christian foreign policy.

There was no pomp and ceremony in connection with the birth of Jesus - rather the opposite: it took place in simplicity and in poverty.

In Scotland, Catholics have raised their voices against sectarianism and intolerance directed against the Church. Clearly, these actions show that freedom of religious expression, a basic human right, is not upheld in our midst as widely and as completely as it should be.

The church's teaching on marriage is unequivocal, it is uniquely, the union of a man and a woman and it is wrong that governments, politicians or parliaments should seek to alter or destroy that reality.

I hope that increasing numbers of Christians adopt the practice of wearing a cross in a simple and discreet way as a symbol of their beliefs.

Our Prime Minister, Gordon Brown has given the Government's support to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. It is difficult to imagine a single piece of legislation which, more comprehensively, attacks the sanctity and dignity of human life than this particular Bill.