Scottish Catholics anti-Henry VIII: it’s not a joke but the initiative of Alex Salmond, leader of the second most important political party in Scotland, the Scottish Nationalist Party, who has seconded the positions of the local Catholic Church and asked Tony Blair to repeal of “Act of Settlement”, the British law that prevents Catholics from becoming sovereigns of the United Kingdom and excludes from the throne even members of the royal family who decide to marry a Catholic. This law is a consequence of the Reformation of Henry VIII, over four hundred years ago, which stripped Catholics of civil rights: not until 1829 did Catholics re-acquire those rights. During a recent visit to the Parliament at Westminster, Cardinal Keith O’Brien, Scottish primate, asked politicians to consider the repeal of the law, which according to Salmond “represents a clear institutional discrimination against millions of our citizens and favours the division of society on the basis of religion”. “This law would not resist if it were to discriminate against another religion”, declared a spokesman of the Scottish Catholic bishops. Blair’s reply was not slow in coming: “the law – said a government spokesman – is in theory discriminatory but its abrogation is unnecessary since it has no effect on the role of Catholics in public life”.
