Catholics, the Queen, and Scouting

An eight-year-old Scottish Roman Catholic boy, backed (and perhaps also prodded?) by his mother, objects to the requirement that Scouts pledge allegiance to the Queen. I guess no one ever told this woman and her son that Catholics are supposed to obey the laws and accept the authority of the institutions of their country (a principle applicable to patriotic organizations like Scouting when one is a child), as long as such obedience is not contrary to the faith. There is nothing un-Catholic or sinful about loyalty to the Queen; in fact, if one is British, it is un-Catholic and sinful to refuse that loyalty. St. Thomas More and St. Edmund Campion, living at a time when the English monarchy really did persecute Catholics, went to their graves with more loyalty to the Crown than all too many present-day Catholics in Britain and the Commonwealth have shown their considerably milder sovereign.

Mrs. McVeigh finds the Act of Settlement, which excludes Catholics from the royal succession (but has no effect on ordinary Catholics who would not be in line anyway), incompatible with "modern multicultural values." Perhaps it is. But if so, then surely so is Roman Catholicism, from its decidedly non-pluralist claim to be the One True Church to its "discriminatory" restriction of the priesthood to men. It's unfortunate that since Vatican II so many Catholics apparently confuse their faith with modern egalitarian ideology which if carried to its logical conclusions would dissolve into meaninglessness all faiths--including Catholicism.

British Catholic blogger Damian Thompson agrees (via A Conservative Blog for Peace).