No Headline Present

'' Yes, folks, it was a researcher for one of these programmes which

periodically decide that since they are networked, they ought to make an

occasional foray north of the Border to register some kind of coverage.

Summer is the season for these telephonic parasites who buzz around in

search of a seasonal story. Nothing much happens once the General Synod

is over, and after all, Scotland is supposed to be quite a picturesque

sort of place.

There is nothing more myopic than the coverage of religious affairs in

the London-based media. ''You have women priests in the Church of

Scotland, don't you?'' ''Cardinal Hume is head of the Roman Catholic

Church in Britain.'' ''The Episcopal Church -- that's part of the Church

of England, isn't it?'' It would be quite forgivable if some of the

people who say these things did not work in specialist areas dealing

with religious affairs. There is no point in complaining. It keeps us

humble, and what better attribute could one wish for religious types?

I am conscious of my own lack of diligence, having failed to attend

the General Synod of the Church of England last week in York. It

promised to be interesting. Having traumatised itself over women

priests, the CofE is now turning to the question of disestablishment,

fuelled by Bishop Colin Buchanan's recent book in favour, and by Prince

Charles's remarks in his television broadcast. Two seasoned Synod

observers were in no doubt that the cool complacency of the CofE has

been badly ruffled over the possibility of disestablishment and this

showed at the Synod.

''They reminded me of a three-year-old filly which had just caught its

first glimpse of a double-decker bus,'' remarked Robert Nowell who

writes for the Tablet and the Irish Times. My other colleague picked out

the speech by Michael Allison, the Tory MP who chairs the committee

which acts as liaison between the CofE and the House of Commons. The

HofC requires to approve any changes in the CofE's status and the thrust

of Allison's remarks was that if the CofE decided to go down the road of

disestablishment, it would find that Parliament would throw up a

road-block.

How Mr Allison can count on the support of the non-Anglican majority

of MPs whom he thinks would join forces to thwart something that most

fair-minded people agree is equitable and inevitable, puzzles me. The

time has gone when haughty disdain met arguments for disestablishment.

The time has also passed when complacent statements that the CofE was

the spiritual home of the ordinary Englishman (H. Montefiore) would

suffice to fill the moat around the castle. The arguments have become

more pressing to find a role for the Christian Churches within the state

which more reflects the reality of the ecumenical and multi-faith

situation. Prince Charles knows it and has given a courageous lead. I

suspect it will take a few years, but it will come.

If women priests have been replaced by disestablishment as the

dominant issue in the national Church south of the Border, what shall we

tell the researcher into the burning issue in Scotland? The news that

the CofS was beaten 9-6 by the CofE in the annual golf challenge has not

yet hit the headlines, although I gather that we have adopted the same

procedure for dealing with major defeats as our national football team

-- the manager (the Rev. Professor D. W .D. Shaw, chaplain of the R & A)

has fallen on his sword and been replaced by the Rev. J. Cairns.

Defeat has been turned to victory by the Rev. Helen Percy of Paisley

whose porcine pet, a Vietnamese pot-bellied pig, was the subject of

complaints to the presbytery by neighbours. The poor pig was exiled to a

farm, with visiting rights accorded to Miss Percy. However, she has

found herself a new parish in rural Angus where they are more tolerant

of unusual pets, and the pig and the preacher have been reunited.

This year's Orange Walk in Glasgow provided a hollow victory. (What

other kind is there for a march that commemorates a battle by banging a

drum?) Denied the opportunity to march along Clyde Street, which would

have taken them past archdiocesan RC HQ, by the City Fathers (the

councillors, that is, not the priests of the city), the frustrated

flautists waited until they passed the City Chambers before giving it

the big stick.

Perhaps such items do not quite justify headline news. So I will

invent a story (in the best journalistic traditions). It concerns an

open golf championship between the religious communities in Scotland.

The Orange Lodge team meet the Muslims in the final and everything goes

very well. The post-match buffet is organised by the Presbytery of

Paisley which roasts a pig confiscated from one of its ministers. The

Jewish, Muslim, and Sikh teams walk out in protest. The Free Church team

wants to drink orange juice and the Orange Order want to drink whisky

but are offended when the wrong denomination of whiskey is served. It

could only happen in the silly season . . . but the trouble is when

others see us from outside, it always seems to be the silly season.

* Owing to a technical error, Stewart Lamont's In Good Faith column

was omitted from Saturday's issue.