IN the era of cancellation and contrived outrage it was only a matter of time before they came for the Orangemen. It’s actually astonishing how this wizened old institution has survived all the cultural pogroms of the last few years.

In the absence of anything that could reasonably be said to have improved the lives of Scots our governing classes have turned to banning and forbidding stuff instead: cheap alcohol; unpleasant words and thoughts; biological sex. And if you want to protest about any of this outside the offices of the people who make these laws then you’ll need to watch your step too, because only state-sanctioned protests are permissible in the vicinity of Holyrood, despite the fact that we built the place and pay for the public servants who buzz about inside it.

The Grand Orange Lodge of Scotland is now in the crosshairs of Scotland’s culture warriors because one of its former senior office-bearers has been chosen to represent Scottish Labour in May’s council elections. Henry Dunbar is seeking election to North Lanarkshire Council for the Airdrie North ward. This news has been greeted with almost universal revulsion in the salons of the new Scottish enlightenment. There have even been calls for Anas Sarwar, leader of Scottish Labour, to resign for having permitted this unspeakable development. Behave yourselves.

Mr Dunbar has an impressive CV in the realm of religio-cultural super-identity. Not only has he been a Grand Master of the Orange Order in Scotland he was elected the first-ever Imperial President of the global movement, making him the most senior Orangeman in the world. This really ought to have been a proud moment for Scotland. It’s not often that one of our own gets to sit at the head of any top table in a global organisation. I feel that some sort of civic recognition of Mr Dunbar’s achievement should have been made.

Perhaps it’s the nomenclature that’s the problem here. Grand-Master, Grand Orange Lodge and Imperial President can leave you feeling a bit edgy in smart and enlightened 21st century Scotland. Perhaps if Mr Dunbar had been named a cultural ambassador for delivering outcomes in the global reformed faith alliance in an atmosphere of mutual understanding we’d all have been more comfortable with him seeking the votes of the good citizens of Airdrie North.

Perhaps the Grand Orange Order should have moved with the times and undergone a re-branding exercise. Instead though, it stubbornly clings to the wording on the original tin. It refuses to yield and insists on describing itself as the “oldest and biggest Protestant fraternity in Scotland”. This is the sort of description that you feel ought to be followed by that kenspeckle social media locution GIRFUY. There’s no fence-sitting going on here and no room for any misunderstandings.

Other faith fraternities are also available in this diverse and tolerant wee land but ‘Protestant’ in the context of the Orange Order is a bit, you know … problematic.

For much of its existence in Scotland the Orange Order, in defending the Protestant faith, has been anti-Catholic in character. Until recently, it held this in common with just about every other significant public and private organisation in Scotland. And the UK still won’t permit its royal family to be led by a Catholic.

In recent years though, the Orange Order has sought to divest itself of its former, overt anti-Catholicism. You’ll still see remnants of it in the Orange parades which proliferate in west-central Scotland – and there probably still needs to be a continuing conversation about these – but this is the death rattle of old suspicions and fears and not, you feel, truly indicative of a genuine anti-Catholic threat.

It’s occasionally an eyesore and can be offensive but if you want to see where genuine and deep-rooted anti-Catholicism and anti-faith attitudes are fostered and disseminated you’re looking in the wrong place. It’s in those chi-chi emporiums where Scotland’s liberal intellectual classes go to sip their artisan coffees where genuine anti-Catholicism, dressed up as something boutique and sedate, is to be found.

This is where conversations about proscribing Catholic schools take place under the intellectually barren concept of “a plague on both their houses”. It’s in these places where they talk about banning rogue displays of Christianity. Already they are discussing ways of using the grim madness of gender cultism to target faith institutions.

The Orange Order represents a significant strain of working-class Protestantism which has been marginalised and reviled within its own land. All the old pillars of their communities have been crumbling: the modernising Church of Scotland; a deeply reactionary and irrelevant Conservative Party run by fill-your-boots graspers and the mortally-wounded royal family. The Orange Lodge – for better or for worse – has kept faith with them and gives them a sense of belonging in a country where the word ‘Protestant’ like ‘Wee Frees’ is not really considered fit to be spoken in polite company.

It makes sense for the Scottish Labour Party, which has lost many working-class Catholics to the independence cause, to reach out to this constituency, many of whom are uncomfortable identifying with the forces of Conservatism. Their lived-experience of poverty, multi-deprivation, addiction and early death is as valid as any other group who live and work in these places.

Some of those among my fellow Catholics who felt they ought to be outraged by Labour’s selection of Henry Dunbar did so from the comfort of influential and well-paid positions in Scottish life. In getting there they could reasonably claim to have overcome widespread institutional discrimination. They won all their own personal cultural battles.

Their faith and political ethics proclaim the virtues of forgiveness and compassion; of reconciling with old enemies. This was at the root of Nelson Mandela’s cultural and spiritual reconstruction of South Africa. The historic inequalities the Catholic community suffered in Scotland simply don’t compare with that which black people endured in the apartheid era.

It’s not an option to reach out and accept in good faith the inclusion of people like Henry Dunbar in Scottish public life; it’s our Christian duty. Some of us Catholics probably identify more with him than with the wretched little cultural elites and their fake virtue which disfigure modern Scotland.

Our columns are a platform for writers to express their opinions. They do not necessarily represent the views of The Herald.