BRITAIN'S new prime minister Gordon Brown is facing calls to repeal laws that bar Catholics from taking the throne, after failing to tackle the controversy surrounding his constitutional reform program.Officials close to one of Britain's most senior Catholics, Cardinal Keith O'Brien, said he would demand the 300-year-old Act of Settlement to be repealed or substantially redrafted when the pair next meet.
Cardinal O'Brien, whose diocese includes Mr Brown's constituency, was deeply disappointed that the act had not been looked at, and said it "constitutes state-sponsored sectarianism" because it barred a Catholic from becoming monarch, and the monarch from converting to Catholicism or marrying a Catholic.
Critics of the act, which is widely regarded as being a clear breach of the Human Rights Act, were surprised that it was ignored by the Prime Minister on Tuesday.
Downing Street sources said Mr Brown was lobbied on the Act of Settlement but opted to concentrate first on the relationship between Parliament and the executive.
Catholic MPs believe the act's discriminatory measures are likely to be revoked in the future.
One backbencher said he was told recently that the Prince of Wales and the Queen were "not unsympathetic".
It is thought that pressure for reform is being resisted by civil servants and Government lawyers, who warn that repealing the act would be extremely complex, and include unpicking legislation affecting Commonwealth countries and reforming other major pieces of constitutional legislation.
English Catholic leaders also argue that recent legislation, such as barring Catholic adoption and fostering agencies from refusing to place children with homosexuals, was more discriminatory against their faith.
Senior Labour MPs believe privately the Catholic position has been weakened by public attacks on the Labour Government from several Scottish Catholic bishops in the run-up to May's Scottish parliamentary elections.
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