Scottish Catholic Observer

While Catholics in Scotland celebrate the most important event in the Christian calendar—the Risen Lord at Easter—and the Faithful throughout the world prepare for the Beatification of Pope John Paul II on Sunday, that joy is mixed with sadness here in Scotland over anti-Catholic bigotry and aggressive secularism.

Cardinal Keith O’Brien’s revelations about receiving a bullet by letter with the message ‘no surrender’ ahead of Pope Benedict XVI’s visit last year comes on the back of news that three prominent lay Catholics were targeted by sectarian letter bombs over their connection to or support of Celtic Football Club ahead of the Old Firm game on Easter Sunday.

In his Easter homily, Cardinal O’Brien told worshippers that Christianity had been marginalised more than ever in modern times.

“There are those who would try to destroy our Christian heritage and culture and take God from the public square,” he said.

“Religion must not be taken from the public square.”

In his comment article this week, Gerald Warner looks at the new film on the Cristero War and says it is ‘an episode of which Catholics should be conscious as we enter a new era of persecution.’

He goes on to say that history proves: “Catholics have the moral right to defend themselves in a just war.”

However, as Fr Michael Canny in Derry points out this week, defending our Faith ‘cannot be done by force, that it can only be done by convincing people and through the democratic process.’

Democracy is something Catholics here in Scotland can play an active role in at the polls for the Scottish Parliament on May 5 but there is overwhelming evidence that we have a long way to go both nationally and at UK level.

For even as Cardinal O’Brien prepares to join senior Catholic clergymen from England and Wales for the Royal Wedding this week, another battle brews over the Act of Settlement which prevents the British monarch from marrying a Catholic. Although successive Westminster Governments, Labour and now the coalition, have looked into altering the act it remains on the statute books as a painful reminder of historical prejudice against Catholics, the repercussions of which we appear to still be dealing with today.