PARIS, Dec 20 (Reuters) – The Vatican has come out in first
place in a long-awaited draw to expand the Internet address
system with new domain names that go beyond the usual .com, .org
or .net endings.

ICANN, the corporation that oversees the Internet address
system, announced this week the domain name .catholic written in
Chinese characters will be the first bid it considers in a
drive to expand and reorganise sites on the World Wide Web.

By Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor

(Reuters) – People with no religious affiliation make up the third-largest global group in a new study of the size of the world’s faiths, placing after Christians and Muslims and just before Hindus.

The study, based on extensive data for the year 2010, also showed Islam and Hinduism are the faiths mostly likely to expand in the future while Jews have the weakest growth prospects.

PARIS (Reuters) – Supporters of same-sex marriage and adoption marched through Paris on Sunday to back the French government’s planned reform and counter unexpectedly strong opposition from conservative and religious groups.

Police said about 60,000 demonstrators turned out, fewer than the 100,000 who protested last month against the law due to be passed by mid-2013. Paris’s gay mayor Bertrand Delanoe joined the march along with several other left-wing politicians.

By Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor

(Reuters) – Britain looks set to legalize same-sex marriages in the next year or two but legal safeguards it will add to protect the Church of England from having to conduct them may not survive the expected court challenges to them.

Presenting the government’s proposals on Tuesday, Culture Secretary Maria Miller promised that a “quadruple lock” of legal safeguards would bar any judge from forcing the Church to perform the gay nuptials that its leadership opposes.

PARIS (Reuters) – France will deport foreign-born imams and disband radical faith-based groups, including hardline traditionalist Catholics, if a new surveillance policy signals they suffer a “religious pathology” and could become violent.

A French Islamist shooting spree last March that killed three soldiers and four Jews showed how quickly religiously radicalized people could turn to force, Interior Minister Manuel Valls told a conference on the official policy of secularism.