Call for reform
Cardinal seeks change in Act of Settlement

Scotland’s Cardinal Thomas Winning has added his voice to the campaign for reform of the 1701 Act of Settlement which bans Catholics from ascending the British throne or marrying the monarch.

The cardinal said the law was a “grubby little secret” which “shames our nation” and which needed to be tackled “sooner rather than later.”

Writing in the Sunday Herald newspaper he said, “It seems to me that in politics, as in life, where there’s a will there’s a way. One need only recall the bruising debates over Clause Four, over hereditary peers’ voting rights and—dare I say it—over section 28, to recognize this.” He said the act “contains words of bigotry directed against those of a ‘popish’ persuasion which, if they were included in a TV program, would force the schedulers to broadcast it after the watershed.” He continued, “Yet three centuries on, the act remains on the statute book—untouched and almost forgotten were it not for the determination of a group of parliamentarians from all parties to push for change on this issue.”

Cardinal Winning said repeal of the act had never been the most pressing issue for Catholics, but there was widespread consensus in the Church that it had to be done. He wrote, “It is quite ludicrous to suggest that if a dashing young [Catholic] princess from Spain or Belgium or Luxembourg were to sweep Prince William off his feet and the young couple wished to marry, that somehow the British state would be brought to its knees.”

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