Religion Media Festival is in London today
Today’s the day – our Religion Media Festival is being held at Methodist Central Hall, Westminster, from 10.30 – 5pm, featuring the Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell; The Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis; Imam Qari Asim; and Zoe Franklin MP. Topics covered include artifical intelligence, social media influencers, reporting statistics, reporting religion, and what modern death rites tell us about changing religious ideas. The programme is listed here and tickets are available on the door.
Lord Lemos appointed as new Faith Minister – the tenth in 10 years
Lord Lemos has been appointed Faith Minister, just one month after the last one, Nesil Caliskan MP, was given the job. She remains a minister in the Department of Housing Communities and Local Government, and a spokesman said they will work together on issues around social cohesion. Lord Lemos is the tenth person to hold this role in ten years. In his career, he has set up a housing association and publishing company and has held many public service roles including chair of English Heritage. In 2024, he wrote “Childhood and Contemporary Catholicism” and last year he delivered the Catholic Union’s 2025 Craigmyle Lecture on “Catholicism for the Next Generation”.
He was appointed as a Lord in January 2025 and a minister in the Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government on 12 June. Days later he got the Faith Minister job. In the Lords on Wednesday 24 June, said his first job in this role was to visit Heaton Park synagogue in Manchester, alongside Nesil Caliskan. Lord Lemos was answering a question from Baroness Warsi on what the government intends to do to curb people, including foreign funders, who support groups and media outlets to spread anti-Muslim division. Lord Lemos said he took this seriously and asked for further information. In the session, he also said the government will appoint a special representative on anti-Muslim hostility and produce an annual report on extremism.
Pope Leo urges prayer for Venezuela as earthquake death toll rises
Pope Leo XIV invited people to pray for the people of Venezuela, where two earthquakes have flattened large areas and led to 1,450 reported deaths, with 50,000 people missing. In the Sunday Angelus, he also expressed his gratitude and support to the search and rescue teams on the ground, and appealed for international help. Aid agencies and churches have been giving information about the help they are offering and appealing for funds. World Vision has 300 employees in all the states and 2,000 churches and community volunteers. The Methodist church has sent a team including paramedics across the country to help. CAFOD is working with church partners in the region. TearFund is also working with partners and says there is “widespread emotional distress, psychological trauma, massive medical needs and huge numbers of people being displaced. At present, the country’s most urgent needs are highly specialised search and rescue teams, medical personnel and emergency health services”.
Trump’s religious liberty commission challenges separation of church and state
A draft report by the Religious Liberty Commission, an advisory group set up by President Trump, says the separation of church and state is a legal error and recommends more religious expression in the public square. The report says the founding fathers allowed for “believers and religious institutions to enrich every aspect of our civic life, including education, healthcare, charitable service, civic engagement, and the moral formation essential to self-government”. The idea of silencing religion in the separation of church and state is wrong. Among its many recommendations, it says the Johnson amendment forbidding religious groups from political activities should be withdrawn, there should be greater access to public money for faith-based agencies and wider publicity to challenge religious liberty violations. Critics say the report failed to adequately address anti-Muslim hatred. The Interfaith Alliance said the report represented “a wishlist of divisive, unpopular ideas far-right religious groups have pushed for years” and criticised the make-up of the board. Report is here
Demands for Lib Dem investigation into candidate’s deselection over Christian views
The Liberal Democrats are being urged to investigate and take action over the way David Campanale, an evangelical Christian, was forced out of his role as a prospective parliamentary candidate, because of his conservative views on same sex relationships. Tim Farron, LibDem MP and prominent Christian who resigned from the leadership after also being criticised for his beliefs, told The Telegraph that Camapanale had been mocked and abused and the party must prevent further discrimination against Christians over their beliefs. The former deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats, Sir Simon Hughes, is also seeking action for better procedures and practices in the party and is backing the Liberal Democrat Christian Fellowship executive officers’ request for an independent inquiry into David Campanele’s treatment and its implications. Campanale took the party to court where it admitted multiple counts of unlawful discrimination against him and agreed to pay damages. This week, the court will begin to determine the level of damages.
Archbishop’s stand on Palestinian Christians challenged as ‘Israelophobia’
The Archbishop of Canterbury’s recent comments on Palestinian Christians following her five day visit, has come under attack from Josh Wallis Simons, former editor of the Jewish Chronicle. Sarah Mullally, together with the Anglican Archbishop in Jerusalem Hosam Naoum, said they feared for the “long-term future of the indigenous Christian Palestinian presence in the Holy Land”, who faced an “existential challenge”. Writing in The Telegraph, Josh Wallis Simons said she had “lent her Anglican stamp to the wave of Israelophobia that engulfs us”. The plight of Arab Christians on the West Bank cannot, he said, be solely blamed on the Israelis, but partly on the repressive nature of the Palestinian regime in Ramallah. The greatest threat to Christians around the world is Islamist extremism, he said, and “if the Church is to be a beacon of truth rather than simply another means to whip up antisemitism, the Archbishop should loudly proclaim this”.
Untapped potential of Islamic Finance in the UK could ‘generate £2.5billion a year’
A report by the think tank Equi says the UK is uniquely placed to become the leading hub for Islamic Finance in the Western world. “Growth with Purpose: The Untapped Potential of Islamic Finance’ says the UK has the potential to generate £2.5bn a year for the UK economy – more than the £2.3bn expected from the Australia free trade deal. Islamic finance represents financial management and transactions that comply with Islamic rules and moral principles, including the prohibition of interest and of investing in industries such as gambling, alcohol, pornography and arms manufacturing. The research says the UK Islamic Finance sector is already estimated to be worth £6bn and is part of a global industry which has grown by over 20 per cent. The UK is home to 85 per cent of Europe’s Islamic finance assets. The findings are based on 31 interviews and a comparison of the responses to a survey conducted by Savanta, of 1,000 British Muslims to 2,000 of the general population.
Muslim leaders appeal for coordinated response to anti-Muslim hatred
The Guardian’s community correspondent, Aamna Mohdin, reports the views of British Muslim leaders that the scale of anti-Muslim hatred has not properly registered with the public and politicians. She says there is a growing sense of fear and frustration at the lack of a “coordinated response from the government, police, media and other institutions”. This is crystallised in the response to the multiple stabbings of Muslims in Edinburgh, with Shockat Adam MP asking the Prime Minister why a COBRA meeting had not been called. The article quotes Baroness Shaista Gohir, founder of the Muslim Women’s Network, saying ministers had become increasingly hesitant as Reform UK rose in the polls and she accused ministers of lacking courage to speak out. The government told The Guardian that ministers were taking decisive action to tackle anti-Muslim hatred, citing the agreement of a new definition of Islamophobia, money for mosque security and £4m for programmes tackling anti-Muslim hatred.
Britain’s most diverse literary festival returns to Bradford, ‘the face of the future’
The Bradford Literature Festival is back again, with organisers describing culture as a vital way of combatting increasing hate, growing division and polarisation. Running until 12 July, the festival brings together subjects ranging from world affairs, global and domestic politics to mysticism, psychology and children’s literature. Uniquely it also includes much programming around Islam, and that is intentional, according to the Festival’s CEO Syima Aslam. She told us that Bradford has one of the largest Muslim populations in the country, so Muslim life, thought and culture are part of the city’s everyday landscape: “Too often, Bradford is discussed through deficit or division, but the reality is far richer. To me, Bradford has always been the face of the future. It shows us what contemporary Britain looks like and what it might become”. The festival programme has a wide spectrum of experts, writers and thinkers “not because they are Muslim, but because they are brilliant contributors.” Read more in Maira Butt’s story here.
Dublin Dean tells of his role in the extraordinary retrieval of a saint’s stolen heart
As the Dean of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, prepares to leave for a new job in Italy, he has given an interview to The Times, with the extraordinary story of how the 800-year-old heart of St Laurence O’Toole, Dublin’s patron saint, was retrieved after being stolen from its wire cage in the cathedral in 2012. The Very Rev Dermot Dunne told how he received a mysterious phone call and was wired by the garda to meet an anonymous person, until it became too dangerous to continue. A detective pursued the case and six years later, the relic was returned in a Tesco’s bag, having been buried in Phoenix Park. Legend has it that the gang leader had a heart attack and believing this to be divine retribution, told the garda where it was. The relic is now secured in place with CCTV and an alarm sensor. The Dean is leaving after 18 years for a new job in Lake Como, Italy.
