Morning Catholic must-reads: 14/02/12

Baroness Warsi, the chairman of the British Conservative Party, will say that “militant secularisation is taking hold of our societies” in a speech to the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy in Rome today.

Vatican spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi has said that if those leaking confidential curial documents think they can discourage the Pope from pursuing reforms “they’re wrong and they’re deluding themselves”.

The Vatican released the Pope’s Message for the 49th World Day of Prayer for Vocations yesterday (full text).

Historic sacred vessels belonging to the former Benedictine abbey at Ramsgate, Kent, will remain in Catholic hands after concerns that they might have been bought by secular collectors.

Bishop Hans-Jochen Jaschke of Hamburg has criticised a proposal to introduce Sharia courts in Germany.

Elizabeth Scalia argues that US President Barack Obama has abandoned his friends on the “Catholic Left”.

And Ross Douthat wonders whether the US “Catholic bishops in particular, and religious conservatives in general, have a strategy for the longer war”.