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_WORLD WATCH______________________________
________________Scotland_______________
Seeks moral public policies
Cardinal back in the headlines
Scotland’s Cardinal Thomas Winning has stepped back into the political arena with a move calculated to ensure that moral issues would be at center stage in the forthcoming general election campaign. Prime Minister Blair has announced that the general election will take place on June 7.
In a letter to Catholics throughout the country, the cardinal accused the current Labor administration of not doing enough to support marriage. Instead, he praised the Conservatives for vowing to restore the married couples’ allowance, which the government ended last year. Cardinal Winning said Labor had failed to offer “direct, practical support” to married couples—although he praised Prime Minister Tony Blair’s “encouraging words” about the importance of marriage.
A spokesman for the Catholic Church in Scotland told The Scotsman that the cardinal had made it clear in the letter that he was extremely unhappy with the decision to abolish the married couples’ allowance, which gave married couples a tax advantage. He said, “The letter made clear that we believe it is essential that we support marriage, particularly as the special status of marriage has been eroded by the abolition of the married couples’ allowance.”
In a public statement following up on his letter, Cardinal Winning said, “I think it is a little disappointing that only the Conservative Party took up our challenge to offer direct, practical support to marriage as such through the tax and benefit system.” But he added, “On the other hand, there were encouraging words from the Prime Minister and the Labor Party on the importance of marriage in our national life, together with a very welcome commitment to help families with young children.”
The cardinal said the Liberal Democrats had offered support to retirees while the Scottish National Party had made a “welcome pledge” to support better funding for marriage counseling.
“Sectarian” efforts to be banned?
Key issue is definition
Scotland’s parliament will be asked to outlaw the sectarianism which has caused so much Catholic-Protestant violence over the last 500 years.
Donald Gorrie, a member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP), plans to draft a bill which would make sectarian harassment a specific offense which could result in a jail term of up to seven years. Gorrie explained, “Sectarian harassment is as bad as racial harassment, and should come under the criminal law.”
The Liberal Democrat, who represents the Central Scotland region, has framed a draft bill modeled on a ban on racially aggravated harassment, which is incorporated in the 1998 Crime and Disorder Act. He said his interest in combating sectarianism had been “rekindled” by the bad publicity Scotland received in the Carfin Grotto affair: the controversy that arose in January over plans by the Irish Prime Minister to visit a Catholic shrine.
The difficulty confronting the legislator lies in the effort to define his terms. Gorrie said that sectarianism is “malice and ill will” toward one or more members of a church or religious group. But even the definition of religious groups might be difficult. Gorrie conceded: “The aim is to cover harassment of people who may not go to church, but take part in activities or support football teams which their opponents see as being derived from a religious group.”
Another argument against the proposed legislation is the fact that acts of violence and harassment are already punishable by law, regardless of the perpetrators’ motivations. Government ministers pointed out that sectarian offenses can already attract heavy penalties under the common law.