Peter Hitchens cannot see why anyone would want to invite the Pope to Britain in her current condition.
Perhaps because the Catholic vote decides the United Kingdom’s General Elections.
Think of all those marginal seats in the Midlands and the North West. Think of the fact that never voting SNP is an article of faith among Scots Catholics, who have no desire to go down the road of who is “really” Scots and who is not, and who more than note the SNP’s hostility to Catholic schools; this does no harm to Labour in the West of Scotland, and keeps several Lib Dems with tiny yet somehow permanent majorities in the Highlands and Islands.
Think of the very similar attitude, also mostly to Labour’s benefit, among Catholics in Wales, up to and including the current Secretary of State, the ardour of whose Unionism is comparable only to that of his Catholicism. Think of how, in a tight spot, the practising Catholic vote for the SDLP rather than for Sinn Fein (which, as much as anything else, is as hostile to the SNP to Catholic schools) could very well make the difference between a Labour majority and a hung Parliament. Think of how the Tories’ takeover of the UUP is being specifically aimed at those very many Catholics who support the Union in principle.
All in all, think on.
And not just about the United Kingdom. A disorganised but very discernible Catholic vote is also decisive, actually or potentially, in the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, just for a start.
In each of those countries, as in this one, there is the need to identify five policy priorities in each of the pro-life interest, the pro-family interest, the pro-worker interest, the anti-war interest, the Distributist interest, the Catholic interest in public service provision, the Catholic interest in foreign policy, the interest in defending the Christian heritage of that and other countries, and the interest corresponding to our own in maintaining the closest possible economic, social, cultural and political ties among the historic Kingdom of England (including the Principality of Wales), the historic Kingdom of Scotland, and the historic Kingdom of Ireland.
Against this, and against support for a community project identified within each parish throughout the country, candidates would be rated and those ratings made public in the run-up to each election.
The work is starting in the United Kingdom. Let it also start elsewhere, as a matter of the utmost urgency.
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I do not know why you keep going on about the "Catholic anti-SNP" vote.
ReplyDeleteIf that was the case then what about Roseanna Cunningham who is a devout Catholic and a former deputy leader of the SNP. She was made a minister the other week and is sponsoring private member's bill through Parliament to counter Margo MacDonald's pro-euthanasia bill.
Here is an interview of her by the Scottish Catholic observer:
http://www.scottishcatholicobserver.org.uk/features2111111.htm
Come to think of it, what about Catholic Linda Fabiani who was recently sacked as a minister.
And of course the late Cardinal Winning who was generally thought to be an SNP supporter. You cannot get much higher than that in Scotland.
To name some examples.
"I do not know why you keep going on about the "Catholic anti-SNP" vote"
ReplyDeleteBecause it is massively important.
"Roseanna Cunningham"
Altogether exceptional.
"Linda Fabiani"
Hangover from the previous lot, as I recall.
"the late Cardinal Winning who was generally thought to be an SNP supporter"
By whom? Wishful thinking there. He had no time for New Labour, but that was because he was Old Labour.
Largely Catholic Glasgow East voted SNP for the same reason that largely Catholic Crewe did so: the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, with an overtly pro-life Baptist SNP candidate in Glasgow East. (Catholics voting for Baptists on the life issue was how the American Religious Right started, of course)
But neither the SNP nor the Tories, as a party, offers a pro-life voice. So both results were aberrant.
I dont think theres any real evidence to suggest non practising Catholics vote Sinn Féin and practising Catholics vote SDLP.
ReplyDeleteIf that is the case it is probably more related to an Age Profile. For example Mass attendance in middle class South Belfast is much lower than in Fermanagh/South Tyrone.
S Belfast has a SDLP MP
FST has a SF MP.
There is an old cliche circa 1970 used to define the difference between the Marxist Official IRA and Provisional IRA.
Basically the Provisionals went to Mass once a week and the Officials went once a month.
One of the great joys of being a Catholic is going along to a Mass and finding a rather obnoxious person in the pew and we have to make rather intricate moves to avoid offering them a sign of peace at the appropriate moment in the liturgy.
Thus I have found myself near Gerry Adams.......and Anne Widdicombe.
Thankfully General Pinochet was never anywhere near me.
While Caitriona Ruane (SF Minister for Education AND a former Federation Cup Tennis Player) persues an anti Grammar School agenda, the fact is that the egalitarian SDLP broadly agrees.
While a seperate religious education system is usually quoted by English liberals as a contributory factor to sectarian politics its highly unlikely that Sinn Féin can be regarded as hostile to "Catholic" schools.
The 1998 Agreement copper fastens sectarianism. Sinn Féin has a vested interest in maintaining it.
Sinn Fein is so hostile to the Catholic Church that it is busily creating, at public expense, its own network of militantly secular Irish-language schools, directly in competition with the Catholic sector.
ReplyDeleteAnd Ruane's exclusion of Anglican, Presbyterian and Methodist clergy from their historic role in the running of schools is only the dry run for Sinn Fein's openly desired exclusion of the Catholic Church from education throughout Ireland.
Add in the total non-existence of any sort of Catholic intelligentsia in the Irish Republic, and the only hope of the Catholic schools in Northern Ireland is the Union.
And nothing, absolutely nothing at all, ever matters more than the Catholic schools.