SPARE the rod and spoil the child – that’s what they used to say in the days when the young were seen as incorrigibly mischievous and often deliberately wicked. It’s a creed hard-wired into certain Christian groups, who believe that the wisdom of the Old Testament Book of Proverbs – a text composed by a committee of men more than two millennia ago – should still be applied today. It ought not, therefore, to come as such a surprise that the Catholic Church is opposing the forthcoming law to ban smacking children, a piece of legislation that puts the country ahead of the rest of the UK in humanitarian awareness.

Even so, it’s startling. Catholicism has always upheld the rights of the unborn child, considering them inalienable – more important, even, than the welfare of the mother-to-be, whatever her circumstances. For Catholics, abortion is effectively murder. It’s not a position I hold, but you would have to be heartless not to sympathise with the sentiment behind it. Yet to hit your child? Apparently, that’s okay.

According to Anthony Horan, Director of the Catholic Parliamentary Office, “it is not the role of the state to interfere in how parents go about building a strong relationship with their children, except in the most exceptional of cases.” A poll he cites shows 75 per cent thought it was up to a parent or guardian to decide whether to smack or not.

This will be the same public who, given their way, would reintroduce the death penalty. When it comes to legislation intended to create a more civilised and caring society, what the public thinks should not detract from the scientific evidence on which such a statute is based. The same goes for pressure groups, such as a church. Religious beliefs are a matter of abstract faith, not something that should impinge on the legal framework by which every citizen – Jewish, Muslim, Christian, druid or atheist – must abide.

Many who were brought up in the care of nuns and priests will have shuddered to hear the church protest. The misery memoir genre was spawned by revelations of the sadistic corporal punishment inflicted on pupils and inmates in some of the worst Catholic institutions. Long before the spectre of sexual abuse was raised, the unforgiving authoritarian regimes in some schools, orphanages and care homes was disturbing enough.

Not that the church was alone in beating its young charges into submission. It is painful to reflect that in the lifetime of most readers, it was perfectly legitimate for teachers to hit their pupils with a tawse or ruler. Some, as I recall, seemed to take pleasure in doing it, finding any excuse to open their drawer and reach for their weapon of choice.

We could be talking about the era of Dotheboys Hall, so distant does it now seem. Thankfully, attitudes to children and their education and care have changed beyond recognition. At the root of this new law, however, is the grim awareness that Scotland is still a violent society. If a generational cycle of abuse – not always viciously meant – is to end, then striking children has to stop. Hitting, pinching, or spanking is now known to cause behavioural and mental health problems in later years, evidence of which is found in every court and prison in the land.

The Catholic response to outlawing physical blows is particularly baffling since it flies in the face of the Christian injunction to be kind and gentle. Naturally, I doubt there is a parent or guardian who has not sometimes reacted angrily to a child’s dangerous or wilfully naughty behaviour. For 99 situations that can be dealt with calmly and rationally, there can be one where the temptation to shout, or slap the back of the legs, is almost overwhelming.

It is precisely on those occasions when chastisement is cruel, and could result in long-term psychological damage. It is then too that the word discipline is key. Of course children must learn how to behave, both to protect themselves from harm, and to fit into society. But the idea of discipline applies equally to the person with responsibility for a child. It takes self-control not to roar with rage, or cuff a toddler’s bottom, or utter a wounding word. Yet in the adult world, in the office, or shop or pub, we usually manage to keep a grip on our tempers, if only for fear of the consequences. If it were legal to hit another grown-up whenever they annoyed us, the roads would be clogged with ambulances. Why, then, is it hard to see that hitting a child, in any circumstances, is wrong?

Behind all discussion of appropriate chastisement lies the murky issue of power. Adults have it, and youngsters don’t. They are the vulnerable ones, even if that’s sometimes hard to remember, as they wind you up like a watch. The Catholic authorities’ distaste for being told how to act says much about its view of itself, and the power and the glory it thinks it deserves. Be that as it may, but surely it’s the meek who will inherit the earth?