The Catholic Education Commission recently wrote to all Catholic heidies in Glasgow asking them to alert staff to a proposed motion for the Educational Institute of Scotland’s annual meeting in June.

The motion called for the “immediate abolition of an education employer’s right to enquire about a teacher’s religious affiliation”. It also demanded the removal of the Church’s veto over appointments. The letter helpfully gave details of the date, time and venue where a decision would be taken by the union’s local association, presumably hoping for a mass (sic) protest.

Alas the commission reckoned without the long-standing tradition of inquorate EIS gatherings in Glasgow. And so the motion was duly passed by the committee of management. Even the retention on its letterhead of the name of its late president, Cardinal Thomas Winning, was not enough to produce any divine intervention.