Michael Fry: Integrated church and state still makes sense

It's time for those who want the Act of Settlement repealed to think the matter through to its undesirable conclusion

SUPPOSE it could be shown that, of the competing religious minorities in this country, the Roman Catholic Church was now bigger than the Church of Scotland. It would be hard to show this, because in an age of flagging observance, the concept of membership in a church has become so fuzzy: is the person who turns up only for granny's funeral to be counted on a par with the regular worshipper and communicant?

But there are academics who estimate Papes and Prods are now about at par in numbers, with the Papes if anything a bit ahead. So what? Given how a majority of Scots seem set and content in their atheism, agnosticism or indifference - and are not much morally the worse for that - the relative position of the religious minorities may appear to be of no interest. Yet the parity does raise a piquant question: should the Church of Scotland remain the established church?

I do not go to any church, but I would still say yes. As a historian, I am impressed by the way the Kirk has been so intertwined with Scotland's troubled history ever since 1560. And I am a conservative (small c nowadays) so I do not believe national institutions should be altered, let alone degraded, at a whim.

But beyond these personal predilections I see one good reason for having an established Church, and for making it a Presbyterian one. It offers the consolations of religion, for those who want them, to the entire population, through a nationwide network of parishes maintained against the odds. It christens, marries and buries people who otherwise lend it no support. It admits to communion anybody feeling ready to take it. All these things are what in my view an established church should do.

Catholicism as the alternative just does not offer the same level of service. It is a universal church, not an established church, and has no particular responsibility to this or any other national community. It admits to its sacraments only baptised and confirmed members. It is quite within its rights to do this, and I see why it does. But it would turn Scots away in situations where the Kirk would not.

After all, Tony Blair was turned away from Catholic communion when he tried to take it before his conversion. I know that was in England but England is where I want to get, though in this detail it is the same as Scotland. The difference lies in the fact that the established Church of Scotland is otherwise separate from the state: through the General Assembly, it runs itself without secular interference. But in England church and state are integrated. The monarch is supreme governor of the Church of England and bishops sit in Parliament, which legislates for the church.That has been the position since Henry VIII's Reformation, but it took a long time for the position to be stabilised. Stability was achieved in the Act of Settlement of 1701. Through their political and religious twistings and turnings the kings or queens, rather than the people, of England had been the cause of the instability. The Act solved that problem by specifying a Protestant succession to the throne, including a ban on marriage with Catholics.

Today it is forgotten how many other problems the Act of Settlement solved. It can be taken to mark the point where the English - soon followed by the Scots, who got the Act by virtue of the Union of 1707 - stopped killing on religious grounds. For a couple of centuries they had been inflicting death and destruction on one another, only at the end to finish up in much the same position as they had started: with an integrated Protestant church and state.

We have had enough of this, the English then declared, setting off their great tradition of undogmatic pragmatism. Never again, they concluded: we will set in stone the state of affairs at this point we have reached, imperfect in theory but workable in practice. The result was the Act of Settlement.

Englishmen at the turn of the 18th century were made of more sensible stuff than Englishmen at the turn of the 21st century. Then they were concerned with what would best work. Now they are concerned with abstract rights and imagined injustice. It is hard anyway to see what else may be driving the quixotic agitation for repeal of the Act. This can only have been taken up by people unable or unwilling to think things through, Nick Clegg at their head.

Let me think things through for him. About the year 2040 the daughter of Prince William and Princess Catherine, who takes precedence in the succession over three younger sons, wants to marry a Catholic boy.

Now the Act of Settlement has been repealed, she can. Children of the marriage will be brought up as Catholics, because that is what Rome's canon law requires. At some time in the 22nd century the British monarchy will then become a Catholic monarchy and stay that way, since the same canon law will apply in each succeeding generation.

What happens to the Church of England? Its supreme governor is the monarch, now a Catholic bound by the teachings of Rome. In matters of faith and morals Canterbury already deviates far from them, and I imagine by the 22nd century the gap will widen.Do we reach the point where, as actually happened with Baudouin of Belgium, the monarch abdicates for a day rather than give royal assent to a law on abortion in conflict with his Catholic faith? A new British constitution sustained by Belgian antics would be the true abortion.

The existing constitutional theory, admittedly battered and anyway making an exception of Scotland, posits a sovereign United Kingdom under a king or queen in Parliament who is head of both state and church. Sovereignty over the state is already impugned from Brussels. Is sovereignty over the church to be impugned from Rome? Repeal of the Act of Settlement would reduce the constitution to nonsense.

One way out might be to disestablish the Church of England, though that can surely not be done without its consent. I would disapprove anyway, on the same grounds as I would oppose disestablishment of the Church of Scotland. Both churches have come to say something essential about their nations, whether the reckless idealism and stern steadfastness of the Presbyterians or the gentle tolerance and bumbling eccentricity of the Anglicans.

They are worth more than all the political correctness in the world.