Update (July 1): Against opposition from the country's atheists, the Czech Republic's Constitutional Court has affirmed a plan for the Czech government to pay Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish groups over US$3 billion over the next 30 years. The government also has been ordered to return church property seized during the country's communist era. In a comment for the Prague Post, Czech politician Jan Babor called the previous arrangement "against the spirit of our Constitution, because a democratic secular state should not tie itself to any church."

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Churches in the Czech Republic will receive billions of dollars worth of seized property in return for finally becoming independent from the secular state's payroll.

Given that the Czech Republic is one of the most atheist nations on earth, the year-old proposal to return church properties seized by Communist leaders was fiercely contested. But the Czech parliament overcame previous vetoes and voted to approve ...

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