Madam, – Andrew Abbott’s attempt to equate the laws governing eligibility for head of state in the UK with those in the Vatican is something of a stretch (March 23rd). The Vatican City state is a theocratic monarchy that exists solely to house the hierarchy of the Catholic Church. It has just more than 800 citizens, all of whom are Catholic, and most of whom are senior members of the clergy. In short, it is highly unlikely that any of its citizens has a problem with the fact that its head of state must be Catholic.
The situation in the UK is different on many levels. UK law does not simply state that the monarch must be a Protestant, it goes on to specifically prohibit “Papists or persons marrying a Papist” from holding office. This latter part of the law makes it abundantly clear that the motive behind it was discrimination against Catholics, above all else. It is nothing short of extraordinary that such a law still exists in a supposedly democratic, multicultural country. To make it all the more incredible, Protestants now account for less than 30 per cent of the British population (see the 2007 British Social Attitudes Survey).
This archaic, discriminatory law is particularly relevant to relations between the UK and Ireland, given that a significant proportion of Catholics in the UK today are Irish or have Irish heritage. While changing the law would probably make little difference in practice, it would at least indicate that the UK has finally moved away from open discrimination against Catholics. On the other hand, retention of this law sends precisely the opposite message. As such, I wholeheartedly agree with Paul Linehan (March 22nd) that this issue should be raised with the queen during her forthcoming visit to Ireland. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – The “sectarian nature of the state” deplored by Paul Linehan (March 22nd), in regard to the royal succession in Britain, is based upon every monarch being head of the Church of England. The original law dates back to the Bill of Rights 1689 and was “sectarian”, but only against James II and his children.
As none of the recent monarchs have been excluded by the law, it is hard to say who is being discriminated against. There are other heads of state who have to be members of a specific religion, for example the Papacy and the House of Saud, and so we must resist the temptation to compare the perfection of the 1937 Constitution to those of other less fortunate countries. – Yours, etc,