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New Book

MONARCHY, RELIGION AND THE STATE:
Civil religion in the UK, Canada, Australia and the Commonwealth

By Norman Bonney,
Manchester University Press, October 2013

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Monday 20 May 2013

Foreign power rules Scottish Church and exiles Cardinal


The Roman Catholic Church spokesman in Scotland for many years admits in the weekend press that the questionable actions of Cardinal Keith O'Brien, former supremo of the church who is now being sent to exile by the Vatican, could not be challenged in Scotland because no one in the Scottish Church had any authority to do so because those powers lay in Rome.

Perhaps the Church of Rome in Scotland might now exercise a 28 year vow of silence on lecturing the Scottish people on moral issues to balance the 28 years in office of the disgraced Cardinal when he was constantly in the news propagating the Church's moral views.

This whole episode demonstrates the flaw in the authoritarian government of a church through bishops. At least the current annual assembly of the Church of Scotland in the Mound illustrates a more democratic form of governance of a church. But why do these churches both seek privileged positions for themselves in our educational system and our public life from which to impose their doctrines on the population? Are their ideas not in themselves sufficiently persuasive to gain a following?

Letter in the Scotsman 20 May 2013