Some advice for

Roseanna on how

to beat sectarianism

Three views

I thought Kenneth Roy's article (23 June) regarding Roseanna Cunningham's devoutness, and the media's infatuation with the adjective, was a well-balanced piece.
     I have also been reading the Scotsman's comments section on the story with interest and note that certain posters lay the blame for this sectarian situation with the proliferation of Catholic schools in Scotland, and the 'segregation and indoctrination of (Catholic) children at five years old'.
     Their proffered solution is to veto all Catholic schools, and integrate those pupils with existing non-denominatinal schools. They are under the impression that the sectarian blight on Scotland will have all but disappeared in less than a generation if this was to happen. It will take more than a generation for this problem to disappear (and not through the dissolution of Catholic schools either), as long as this type of poster is using such hyperbole and intolerance.
     What these people are alluding to is that they would like to see the disappearance of all things Catholic from Scotland, and this is what it would take to satisfy their extreme anti-Catholic hatred. And why stop at Catholics? Surely anyone who is different is a threat to their way of life?
     Catholic schools are not exclusively Catholic, as all religions are welcome, and I know Catholics who send their children to non-denominational schools. So there is already inclusivity in all Scottish schools. Most parents who are religious will want to instil in their children some sort of formal religious education from an early age, ie Sunday school. Why would a Catholic education be considered inculcation, but any other sort of religious training is good solid edification?
     This sort of rhetoric and misinformation breeds contempt and hatred and it is not taught in any Scottish schools, non-denominational or otherwise. It is taught in the home of the jingoist and the fascist, and this is where the change needs to come from. Newspapers like the Scottish Mail and the Scotsman comments section only help to fuel the flames of extremism in the home. A strong change in editorial direction in sensitive subjects like this would be a small step in the right direction. I don't see that happening in my lifetime, as sensationalism allegedly sells newspapers, no matter how damaging that might be.

Peter Campbell

It isn't the fact that Ms Cunningham is a Catholic which matters. I didn't know she was. The issue is how to treat the cancer. It starts in schools. Why do we continue to have separate religious-based education? Can no-one see that the bigotry starts there? It's a system which has outgrown its usefulness.
     The new laws (unnecesary and I am sorry, but singing the national anthem, despite verse two which no-one sings, offensive? – get real) will tackle the symptoms and no-one in politics is prepared to tackle the real issue. It's time to end religious-based education where we have separate schools. That's the cancer.

Donald Skinner-Reid

 

As the son of a miner turned Kirk minister and having been brought in an 'orange' village in the west-central coalfields I have seen my share of sectarianism. But I spent all my post-war, childhood summers with my French grandmother in the all-inclusive Catholic lifestyle of rural France captured in the iconic satire 'Clochemerle'.
     After university and some years in scientific research and commerce, I too entered the Kirk and served very happily as a parish minister in Broughty Ferry for 35 years. I have always had a great deal of affection for Alex Salmond and have even taken him seriously on occasion but I think he is making a mountain out of this sectarian molehill.
     The origin of the antagonism between the Protestants and Catholics in central Scotland had virtually nothing to do with religion and almost everything to do with economics. It was a constant complaint throughout the industrial areas of Scotland from the start of the 19th century that the Irish migrants were strikebreakers and depressed the wages. The situation was not helped by the greatest churchman of the age, Dr Thomas Chalmers, encouraging early industrialists to recruit black-leg labour in Ireland during strikes. This would cause outrage today but Chalmers, as able an economist as he was a cleric, was a high Tory and a man of his times with a deep dislike of the early trade unions.
     The violence and hatred were especially bad in the Lanarkshire coalfields and it would not be helpful to rehearse the starvation and desperation which existed in both camps. But the re-establishment of the Catholic hierarchy in Scotland by Pope Leo XIII at the beginning of his pontificate in 1878 did spark sectarian tensions within the Kirk. It reached its nadir in 1923 when the General Assembly massively endorsed the wholly reprehensible report 'The Menace of the Irish Race to our Scottish Nationality'. Such official attitudes only waned in the post-war period when the church saw what had resulted from Nazi eugenics and their dangerous warbling about a 'volk-kirche'.
     But it was not until 1986, after a bitter debate in the General Assembly, that some of us managed to have the Kirk repudiate the Westminster confession's abuse of Catholicism. In the years following, denominational tensions subsided and the Kirk and the Catholic Church became founder members of ecumenical bodies such as Churches Together. Relations between church leaders are now very cordial and, though communal tensions remain, they no longer affect jobs and are pretty much restricted to football supporters.
     In view of this, rushing through laws replete with unintended consequences to curb what a few thousand head-bangers shout at each other on Saturday seems rather excessive.

John Cameron