The OSCE’s annual Human Dimension Implementation Meeting starts in Warsaw on 26 September. The EHF will be there again. We will arrive that night and intervene in the plenary session the following day (Tuesday 27 September) when the agenda in the morning covers freedom of conscience and related issues of concern to us. That evening we are running a side meeting on the theme: “How can Freedom of Religion and Belief be reconciled with Equality and Non-Discrimination in Democratic Societies?”

Last week, a group of individuals held a press conference on the steps of the Curia at Floriana to ask to have themselves formally stricken from the register of baptized Catholics – in other words self-excommunicated. Addressing the press conference were Andrew Galea, Reuben Zammit and Daniel Schembri. The group intends to organise a mass-excommunication event following the pattern of similar events that have taken place in Italy, Austria and Ireland.

Render unto Rome: the Secret Life of Money in the Catholic Church
(Jason Berry, Crown – Hardback £15.29 from Amazon)
Jason Berry is a Catholic investigative journalist whose previous claim to fame was his powerful exposé on child abuse in the church, Vows of Silence .

The Dutch parliament is on the point of passing a law that would end the slaughter of animals by ritual religious methods before they had been stunned or anaesthetised.

Both Jewish and Muslim proponents of halal and kosher meat say that religious rules do not permit the animals to be unconscious when they are killed.

The European Humanist Federation has just published the final report on the conference on Morality in a World without God that accompanied the General Assembly in Genova – see http://www.humanistfederation.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=512

The Malta Humanist Association's membership of the EHF was approved at this General Assembly.

Dear fellow-unbelievers,

A long-lost letter by Abraham Lincoln's confidante describes Lincoln as "a theist and a rationalist, denying all extraordinary, supernatural inspiration or revelation" Lincoln was never baptised, never joined a church but was reticent about his beliefs.

It seems that the "voluntary donation" that Church schools take from their students is not quite so voluntary after all. According to Labour MP Evarist Bartolo, students whose parents who do not make this "voluntary" donation are named and shamed in front of the entire school during assembly. Although this is being denied, several comments below the article are confirming this.
Source: The Times