{"id":23096,"date":"2025-02-13T22:01:13","date_gmt":"2025-02-13T22:01:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/new-law-to-lift-ban-on-catholics-in-church-of-scotland-role\/"},"modified":"2025-02-13T22:01:13","modified_gmt":"2025-02-13T22:01:13","slug":"new-law-to-lift-ban-on-catholics-in-church-of-scotland-role","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/new-law-to-lift-ban-on-catholics-in-church-of-scotland-role\/","title":{"rendered":"New law to lift ban on Catholics in Church of Scotland role"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\"IanIan Wallman<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Lady Elish Angiolini will become the first practising Catholic to hold the position of lord high commissioner of the Church of Scotland should legislation pass<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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A new bill lifting the ban on Catholics becoming the King’s representative at the Church of Scotland’s annual assembly has been introduced at the House of Commons.<\/p>\n

Lady Eilish Angiolini KC has been given the post of lord high commissioner of the church’s 2025 general assembly.<\/p>\n

However, the former lord advocate is a practicing Catholic and legally prohibited from holding the position under laws written in the 19th century.<\/p>\n

The Church of Scotland (Lord High Commissioner) Act 2025 would revoke that legislation and “make provision for persons of the Roman Catholic faith” to hold the role.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The general assembly has met almost every year since the protestant reformation of 1560.<\/p>\n

It meets to make laws and set agendas for the Kirk.<\/p>\n

The lord high commissioner acts as the sovereign’s representative at the event, and delivers the opening and closing speeches.<\/p>\n

The role is usually held by a prominent member of Scottish society, including King Charles himself in 2000.<\/p>\n

However, a provision in the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829 meant those of the Catholic faith were still barred from the position.<\/p>\n

The act allowed Catholics in the United Kingdom to retain their faith while serving in parliament and higher office.<\/p>\n

But it made an omission for the position of lord high commissioner.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

‘Goodwill and collaboration’<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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The new Bill, proposed by Labour MP Pat McFadden, will remove that provision in time for Lady Angiolini to take up the job in May.<\/p>\n

The cabinet office described her appointment as a “significant gesture of unity, goodwill and collaboration” between the Kirk and the Catholic Church in Scotland.<\/p>\n

Lady Angiolini, who was born in Glasgow’s Govan to a family of Irish Catholic descent, served as solicitor general under Jack McConnell between 2001 and 2006.<\/p>\n

She was later lord advocate from 2007 until 2011, when she was succeeded by Lord Mulholland.<\/p>\n

She described accepting the position as lord high commissioner as “a great honour” after being appointed to the role in December.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Andrew<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n
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History will be made in May when a practising Catholic processes up the steps and in to the General Assembly hall to take her place as lord high commissioner.<\/p>\n

Lady Elish Angioloni KC has been appointed as the King’s personal representative to the Kirk’s governing body.<\/p>\n

One hundred years ago, the idea of a female Catholic representing the Sovereign would have been unconscionable to the Kirk’s ruling elite.<\/p>\n

The atmosphere then was very different – in 1923 a report was presented to the Assembly entitled: ‘The Menace of the Irish Race to our Scottish Nationality’.<\/p>\n

Since then, strenuous ecumenical efforts have taken place to build bridges across the sectarian divide \u2013 and the new lord high commissioner exemplifies that.<\/p>\n

The highly respected Lady Angiolini (who’s also a knight of the thistle) is now firmly part of Scotland’s ‘establishment’ so her appointment is completely uncontroversial.<\/p>\n

There were louder grumblings in the Kirk when the former Conservative minister Lord Younger was appointed in 2001 due to his family’s links with the alcohol industry.<\/p>\n

Some rumours swirl at Westminster that no one had quite remembered that it was “illegal” to appoint a Catholic – hence today we see this hastily introduced “panic” legislation.<\/p>\n

That will, however, be enacted in time – allowing Lady Angiolini to take her place in Scottish history.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Ian Wallman Lady Elish Angiolini will become the first practising Catholic to hold the position of lord high commissioner of the Church of Scotland should legislation pass A new bill lifting the ban on Catholics becoming the King’s representative at the Church of Scotland’s annual assembly has been introduced at the House of Commons. Lady […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23097,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[546,5493,4966,2478,181,270,688],"class_list":["post-23096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-scotland","tag-ban","tag-catholics","tag-church","tag-law","tag-lift","tag-role","tag-scotland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23096"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23096\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23098,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23096\/revisions\/23098"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}