Church of England still reject the monarch marrying Catholics
It’s hard to believe that the Church of England is still in the dark ages of bigotry! An article in The Telegraph states that a group of Bishops are going to fight Government plans to allow the monarch to marry a Catholic. Part of the article is below.
The Bishop of Leicester, the Rt Rev Tim Stevens, who leads the 26 bishops who sit in the House of Lords, tells The Sunday Telegraph that David Cameron’s policy to end Britain’s 300-year-old succession laws risks overturning the Church’s constitutional role.
Bishop Stevens also defended the bishops’ recent political opposition to several Government reforms and said that they were watching draft legislation carefully for measures that could disadvantage particularly poor or vulnerable people.
He argued that the Prime Minister’s plans to repeal the ban on the monarch being married to a Catholic posed a serious potential risk. Currently the Queen is required to take on the role of Supreme Governor of the Church of England — making it the established Church. But the bishops said that it would be impossible for a Catholic monarch to have that role.
If Mr Cameron’s reforms were passed it would be possible for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s firstborn child to marry a Catholic and still ascend the throne. If that monarch had a child, he or she would have to be brought up as a Catholic under the rules of the Roman Catholic Church. [Note: the Catholic Church should change her rules.]
Bishop Stevens, convener of the Lords Spiritual, said that they would vote against Mr Cameron’s measure to amend the Act of Settlement if Rome did not relax its rules. There is no sign of Rome doing so.
The Anglican Church has opened wide the doors for the ordination of women and gays, to the chagrin of many of their members, but are unwilling to allow the monarch to marry a Catholic. In fact, they are even willing to perform weddings between people of the same sex, but unwilling to allow a natural marriage of the monarch to a Catholic. I think the Bishops of England need to look at their history. Roman Catholic until they broke with Rome over a King who wanted to live in sin.
Read the whole Telegraph story here.
Ha ha, they think we still want the throne. And the Lords Spiritual…..if only we would change our beliefs and “practices” to be more inclusive of women and the homosexual lifestyle. What if the Anglicans keep the throne and we keep our “practices”? Yes, I believe that would work.