Capitol Hill. Tuesday, September 27, 20005 — The
final decommissioning of the IRA arsenal will
help reveal to the world what has always been at
the heart of the problem in Northern Ireland.

That is how the Capitol Hill-based Irish National
Caucus has reacted to the IRA initiative. Caucus
president, Father Sean Mc Manus, said: ” Northern
Ireland came into existence in 1920 for a twofold
reason — to ensure England would continue to
have a foothold on the island of Ireland, and to
ensure Unionist/Orange supremacy in the new
artificial state. In this way, British interests
were secured, and Catholic inequality
guaranteed”.

Fr. Mc Manus further explained: “The problem has
always been about the British Government
militarily backing up that sectarian,
undemocratic entity. Now that it appears, under
Tony Blair, the British government is no longer
interested in being identified with a sectarian
regime, there is a chance for the word to see
clearly the remaining problem: Unionist
reluctance to accept the concept of equality with
Catholics. That is now the issue, and there’s no
way of denying it.

“But Tony Blair must do something else”, Fr. Mc
Manus, emphasized to show his Government has
abandoned all sectarianism. ” He must immediately
remove the ‘ constitutional’ basis for all Orange
bigotry and sectarianism: the anti-Catholic
section of the Act of Settlement of 1700, which
is still in force today. Under this ridiculous,
but malicious, Act a Catholic is forbidden by law
to become the King or Queen, and that if the
Monarch converts to Catholicism or marries a
Catholic he/she forfeits the Throne and ” the
people are absolved of their allegiance”. That
would be similar to the U.S. Constitution having
a provision that would outlaw an African-American
becoming President or marrying a Black person.
And if the President were to marry a Black person
his election would be declared null and void by
the Constitution.

It is, therefore, this wretched Act of Settlement
that is ultimately behind all anti-Catholic
bigotry in Northern Ireland because it provides
Protestant /Orange extremists with motivation and
justification: If the very top law in England,
the Queen’s own law, declares Catholics cannot be
Monarch, therefore it follows Catholics are
inferior, and, therefore, cannot be equal to
Protestants”.

And the sad thing is that British Prime Minister
Tony Blair, until now, has blocked all efforts to
change this horribly anti-Catholic law because “
it would be too much paper work and too
expensive”!

Father Sean Mc Manus

President
Irish National Caucus
P.O. Box 15128
Capitol Hill
Washington, D.C. 20003-0849
202-544-0568