St Paul invited them to follow his celibate example I should like everyone to be like me but

St Paul invited them to follow his celibate example, "I should like everyone to be like me, but everyone has his own particular gifts" (1 Cor 7: 7). The long theology of celibacy was carefully considered and summarised by all the bishops of the world at the 1962-65 II Vatican Council. They noted that it has been highly regarded from earliest times because, for believers, a celibate priest is a particularly powerful sign of the great mysteries of the Church, redemption and the invisible life of grace, and also points to eternal life. Like most religions, its practitioners are predominantly women. Its first commandment is to get in touch with your inner self. Diana followed that commandment and, though she flirted with formal, established religion, she never really, as the Archbishop of Canterbury has indicated, had much time for it.Some see the new religion as Britain taking on a more Mediterranean, perhaps Catholic temperament, less hung up about feelings.

Most did not gather outside the Abbey and Kensington Palace to find God. They came together for a more internal exercise, to explore their all-important inner selves and feelings, an event prompted by the death of a woman who excelled in expressing her own emotions.This religion is the creed of the confessional society and has been developed by a priesthood of analysts, therapists, counsellors, agony aunts and psychobabblers. This is Diana's icon, representing a devotion to feeling, compassion and emotion But little mention of God. Diana's funeral showed post-Christian Britain out in force. Just as there was a gulf between the people and those in the Palace, the beliefs of many listening to the funeral from outside bore little resemblance to the faith of those within the church walls. People have a new religion.

We like an occasional moan about the English but the idea that this means a profound desire for self-government, beyond a talking shop in Edinburgh, is deeply wrong.. There have been flowers, messages and tears to mark Diana's death. But beyond Westminster Abbey and other churches, few Christian symbols have been on display. For every cross, you will find many more cards with hearts drawn in them. A turn-out of say 40 per cent, of which a majority votes "Yes, yes", won't be a ringing endorsement of anything except the status quo. Yet Thursday's legion of non-voters will be saying something intelligible, as will many of those voting "Yes, no" It goes like this. It's, "Do you care?" and it is going to be answered in terms of the numbers who turn out.Officially the size of the poll does not matter but politically of course it does.

Braveheart, an American film starring an Australian, gave Scots another chance to rake over the embers of their resentments. But the idea that you can build a politics let alone institutions on that old sentiment is ridiculous, as more and more Scots have recently come to see.Formally there are two questions being put to Scottish residents (how many commentators have fallen into the trap of saying Scots, forgetting that the English, Chinese, Indian and other residents of Scotland are of course enfranchised too) Actually there is another question. The answer, till recently, was that Labour's unradical collectivism cohered with the Scottish personality - with Labour you get more, but things do not have to change much, including the relationship with England. What the Scots have wanted is the fiscal and political status quo plus the chance to see a Braveheart or its cultural equivalent from time to time.