Is the writing on the wall for religious education?

IN 1918, the Scottish Roman Catholic hierarchy either made a pact with the Devil or planted one of the longest-fused timebombs in history. I'll leave it to readers to choose which. In that year, the largely impoverished sector of 226 voluntary Roman Catholic schools was transferred to the control of local authorities, then bodies much more influenced by the Presbyterian Church of Scotland than now.

There have always been rumours about the politics of the transfer. Some say that Scottish Catholics opposed it but were nudged towards it by Rome, which could see no other way of obtaining adequate public funding for the schools. It is not clear why ...