In recent years, advocacy around religious liberty has become closely associated with America’s religious right. For conservative Christians, standing up for freedom of religion often means defending bakers who don’t want to make cakes for queer weddings or business owners who don’t want to pay for contraception coverage.

For Scott Warren, a 37-year-old geography teacher from Ajo, Arizona, freedom of religion means making sure migrants crossing a treacherous stretch of desert along the U.S.-Mexico border don’t die of dehydration.

Last week, a federal judge acknowledged in a ruling that Warren has a legal right to put these religious beliefs into practice. Experts say the decision is one of the first times that progressive religious beliefs related to immigration have been protected this way ― highlighting the fact that conservative Christians don’t have a monopoly on the right to religious liberty.

For the past two years, Warren has been fighting federal misdemeanor charges for leaving water, food and other supplies for migrants in the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge. Activists with No More Deaths, a Unitarian Universalist ministry that Warren volunteers for, say dozens of migrants have died crossing this stretch of desert along the border.

A PRIEST, foregoing the unsteady truce between the clergy and Christmas mass goers, which involves pretending that he recognises everyone in attendance, has confirmed that it was ‘nice of you fuckin’ sin-soaked heathens to show up I suppose’.

Spitting on the floor in their general direction, Fr. Willy Macken told parishioners of St. Declan’s church that they are ‘free to take the piss by putting your best Holy heads on’ but that he then reserved the right to ‘call out the fuckers who wouldn’t know a prayer of the fateful if it bit them in the arse’.

“Some of you are clearly just here, dressed up to the nines so that your ex girlfriend or boyfriend can catch sight of you and think ‘oh, fuck I miss them’ but you know what, fuck the lot of yous,” Fr. Macken added, deviating from Pope Francis’s Vatican approved Christmas mass script.

Fr. Macken, keenly aware of the fact that almost everyone in attendance had lost interest in the mass once he mentioned Jesus, religion and general holiness, rushed through his service as he confessed to having ‘about as much interest in this charade as you future Hell dwellers’.

The British Armed Forces has officially recognised its first registered Satanist, a newspaper reports.

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Former Tory minister Ann Widdecombe said she was "utterly shocked" by the Royal Navy's decision.

"Satanism is wrong. Obviously the private beliefs of individuals anywhere, including the armed forces, are their own affair but I hope it doesn't spread."

She added: "The Navy should not permit Satanist practices on board its ships.

Wednesday night's episode of South Park took on the systematic cover up of child molestation in the Catholic Church. When Butters develops a friendship with Father Maxi from the local church and goes missing, the Cardinals from Denver assume it's another abusive scandal and travel to South Park to cover it up.

In response, the Catholic League—a religious advocacy group—has released a baffling statement about the episode, calling the South Park creators "cowards." As a statement from the organization's president Bill Donohue reads:

This is absolutely absurd. The disgusting and blatant homophobia of the statement aside, Donohue is simply saying, "actually, our priests are rapists, not pedophiles."

The Catholic Church still has to pay the State more than half of the compensation money it promised to give for victims of physical and sexual abuse.

The Joint Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee heard this morning that while €480m had been promised, only €227m had actually been paid out.

Correspondence from the Department of Education showed that a further €253m was outstanding.

The chair of the PAC, Sean Fleming, said the balance should be paid as it was "money due to the State".

As the embattled Archbishop of Washington, Cardinal Donald Wuerl, addressed the Catholic Church's clergy sexual abuse scandal on Sunday, one Catholic yelled "Shame on you!" while another turned her back on Wuerl in protest.

Wuerl, who faces accusations that he mishandled clergy sexual misconduct while he was a bishop in Pittsburgh, addressed Washington's Annunciation Catholic Church, where the cardinal was installing a new pastor. In a short speech after the Mass, Wuerl asked the 200 or so people in the congregation to forgive his "errors in judgment" and "inadequacies."

Wuerl also urged the parish to pray for and remain loyal to Pope Francis, as "increasingly it is clear that he is the object of considerable animosity."

As Wuerl mentioned the Pope, Brian Garfield, who was sitting in the middle of the church, stood and yelled "Shame on you!" and quickly walked out.