INSTITUTIONAL PREJUDICE

A few years back there was a big fuss made over a commissioned report that stated that the police were ‘ institutionally racist.’ I always a had a problem with this. No matter how deeply engrained any prejudice has been practised against black, ethnic or whatever the current loosely defined term for what seems to be a vast infinite variety of people that have little more in common than appealing, if they so wish, to define themselves entirely by their racial background, there has never, to the best of my knowledge, been any laws specifically enacted to limit the freedoms of any group based on their ethnicity since those against the Jews in the 13th century. That is what can correctly be described as institutional.

There is only one group to which laws, some of which still remain in place, were enacted to prohibit their full engagement in the culture and organisation of this country and which were expressly to ensure that they had little to no influence on the institutions of this country, barred them from higher education, the professions and positions of political or military office, and that is Catholics. Until the fiercely resisted and only partial changes were made in the late 18th Century there were both religious and civic prohibitions on all Catholics. The Test Acts prevented Catholics from entering public office of any sort and, despite some minor modifications, remained on the statute book until 1828. Following the success of Daniel O’Connor in the County Clare election the then Prime Minister Robert Peel brought forward the Catholic Emancipation (Relief) Act of 1829 to avert Civil War. This brought down his government. Prior to this the Test Acts of 1673 and 1678 which stopped Catholics from sitting in government and required all civil and military officeholders to take Oaths of allegiance and supremacy and not take part in any way in the Catholic form of worship. This meant that in Ireland or England anything like full citizenship was impossible and was explicitly prejudicial to any Catholic having influence on local or national politics. No Catholic could sit in the Commons or the Lords with one exception made for the Duke of York, the future James II. The extent of this statutory prejudice can be seen by the fact that in 1788 when senior English Catholics signed a ’Protestation’ which denied papal temporal authority it only resulted in a partial easing of religious restrictions.

The Act of Settlement 1701 remains in place and prohibits the monarch from being or marrying a Catholic. This is due to be modified but not repealed. Certain offices remain excluded from the Catholic Emancipation Act, Regent, Lord Lieutenant and Chancellor. There has still never been a Catholic Chancellor of the exchequer since St. Thomas More.

These formal legal restraints were combined with the existence of the secret societies of Freemasonry, which also still exist, within the various institutions and which is specifically anti-Catholic and would have acted to further hinder the progress of any able and intelligent Catholic to take part in any influential organisation or make any significant cultural contribution without serious difficulties. It may be presenting itself as a harmless club currently but it remains a fact that membership of a Freemasons Lodge was almost compulsory to progress in most businesses, professions or the police well into the late 20th century in this country and yet it is impossible for a practicing Catholic to join this shadowy organisation without giving up their religion.

A good example of this marginality in a physical manifestation is the fact that there is only one Catholic church in the City of London and that is on the very eastern fringe and partly hidden behind shop fronts.  

Despite the legislation being dismantled the effects of this period of hundreds of years of being a proscribed religion, something that no Muslim or Jew has had imposed within the last three centuries, the resulting prejudice is very deeply engrained in this country’s culture and, I contest, remains so to a considerable degree.

Catholicism is still frequently portrayed in a negative and stereotypical manner, examples are very easy to find, ’Bread’ in the 1980’s, ’Father Ted’ in the 1990‘s, and currently in the endless offensive jokes that can still be aired by dim-witted ’alternative’ comedians about nuns, Catholics and their supposed attitudes and of course the Pope, never seen as offensive in same way jokes about race or other religions such as Judaism now are.

The burning of Guy Fawkes effigies and firework displays in ‘celebration’  around November 5th is explicitly anti-Catholic being particularly popular among the militant Protestant parts of Northern Ireland. Even the names of some fireworks are explicitly anti-Catholic, the Roman Candle, the Catherine Wheel, and a remarkably resilient and publicly funded institution as is the allegedly harmless ‘anti-establishment’ burning of an effigy of the Pope in Lewes each year, but hang on, the Pope is not the establishment in Sussex, lets be honest it is a plain expression of anti-Catholicism.

Understanding of the Catholic position has been further distorted by the highly partial and distorted version of events in Ireland and the so-called ’troubles.’ That the now almost extinguished violent reaction to deeply institutionalised and systemic prejudice arose from the denial of the entirely legitimate requests by Catholics in Northern Ireland for full Civil Rights has been buried in the mud of terrorist and counter - terrorist violence. The quite absurdly long investigation into the massacre in Derry and the apology eventually given did not undo the decades of destructive hatred and violent reaction that came out of that refusal to acknowledge the rights of the Catholic majority in Northern Ireland and the use of an occupying military force to preserve the status quo.

Most significantly, there is a notable lack of understanding of the significant achievements that have been made by Catholics and Catholic organisations in this country as well as there being a remaining widespread ignorance of the Catholic religion and its history, a deep seated hostility and prejudice towards it and a lack of recognition of the fact that it has preserved in this country despite all the attempts to prevent it, is remarkable in itself.

This country was once a Catholic country, that it is no longer and shall probably never be again was due to the will and force of one particular king and who sought to obliterate the Catholic institutions and replaced them with a state controlled church. This is fundamental. Since then there has been fostered a deliberate culture of anti-Catholicism using both the law and other more covert means.  There is no justification for any remaining legislation acting to prohibit Catholic involvement in any aspect of the organisation or culture of this country.

It is well past time that this country acknowledged this as an intrinsic and very significant part of its history and how its culture has evolved.