Preview: "The Defender of the Faith" and "King Charles the Martyr"

Just before the hosts and the engineer of Son Rise Morning Show went off to their summer vacation after the Independence Day Holiday, I mentioned to Anna Mitchell how King Charles III has announced a slight change in his approach to being the Supreme Governor of the Church of England and Defender of the Faith. So she thought we should talk about that on Monday, July 13 during our regular Son Rise Morning Show segment, and I also looked at John Keble's The Christian Year poems, and found one about another King Charles--Charles I of England, Scotland and Wales, under the title of "King Charles the Martyr."

The change or addition to King Charles III's role in the Church of England was announced in "the Sovereign Grant Report 2025-26, and expands on the monarch’s responsibilities compared with last year’s version." According to this website:

The previous report described the King simply as the “Head of the Church of England and Defender of the Faith.” The latest edition adds a broader emphasis on religious inclusion, stating: “His Majesty is Supreme Governor of the Church of England and protects the space for Faith within the multi-faith nation.”

The revised wording reflects King Charles’ long-standing commitment to interfaith dialogue, a cause he has championed since his time as Prince of Wales. Throughout his public life, the King has regularly engaged with representatives of Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, Orthodox and other religious communities in the UK and overseas, often speaking about cooperation among the Abrahamic faiths.

In 2023 before his May 6 Coronation, we talked about the Coronation Oaths that Charles would take--with some history about the changes in the Oath regarding the Catholic Church.

The website above reminds us:

Before his coronation in 2023, there had been speculation that Charles might adopt the title “Defender of Faith” rather than the traditional “Defender of the Faith,” signalling a broader commitment to all religions. However, he ultimately retained the historic title used by previous British monarchs.

Gavin Ashenden, former Anglican bishop and Chaplain to Queen Elizabeth II from 2008 to 2017, who became a Catholic in 2019, thinks that Charles III has relinquished his title as "Defender of the Faith", meaning of the Anglican Church, its doctrine, the Thirty-Nine Articles, etc. 

I'm not so sure since the Church of England has in several ways followed the spirit of the age, and may be occupying that "space" already (Carl Trueman in the article cited below has the same idea), and has been in decline in members and attendance for some years. Ashenden also comments on what the "space" or nexus of a "multi-faith nation" is and who occupies it (noting that Muslims might not accept such a space!) Is the monarch going to engage in ecumenical dialogue or just go to different religious events? Ashenden comments on the possibility of abdication, but who in Parliament would require it? Does it matter to the people of England?

Carl Trueman also notes in "No Faith Worth Defending" for First Things that multi-culturalism is the only way for the people of England to view religion, because the nation "no longer has any understanding of what religion is and why it is important." Or, as Saint John Henry Newman said in his biglietto speech on May 12, 1879, describing the phenomenon of the spirit of liberalism in religion (the anti-dogmatic principle) and its "doctrines" (!):

Revealed religion is not a truth, but a sentiment and a taste; not an objective fact, not miraculous; and it is the right of each individual to make it say just what strikes his fancy. Devotion is not necessarily founded on faith. Men may go to Protestant Churches and to Catholic, may get good from both and belong to neither. They may fraternise together in spiritual thoughts and feelings, without having any views at all of doctrine in common, or seeing the need of them. Since, then, religion is so personal a peculiarity and so private a possession, we must of necessity ignore it in the intercourse of man with man. If a man puts on a new religion every morning, what is that to you? It is as impertinent to think about a man's religion as about his sources of income or his management of his family. Religion is in no sense the bond of society.

And what does this mean for Catholics in England? Does it really matter to them what the monarch's role is in the official Anglican Church? May this change lead to more Anglicans converting and joining the Anglican Ordinariate?

So we'll discuss these issues on Monday, July 13, and I look forward to Anna's or Matt's thoughts.

In contrast--we probably won't have any time to discuss this at all!--some members of the Church of English--the highest High Church Anglicans!--reverence King Charles I as a martyr of the Faith (a Defender of the Anglican Faith to the end). Lord Nicholas Windsor (a convert to Catholicism like his mother, the late Duchess of Kent) wrote this introduction on the Society of King Charles the Martyr's homepage:

“May I welcome you to these web-pages of The Society of King Charles the Martyr with the hope that you will find their contents interesting and informative. Although a small society we remain very active and lively in providing a fitting organisation to keep the memory of the life and death of King Charles. It was the Blessed John Henry Newman who recalled the Church to remember ‘our own Saint Charles’ and John Keble who wrote, ‘It is as natural that the Church of England should keep this day [30th January] as it is that Christ’s Universal Church should keep Saint Stephen’s martyrdom.’ In the King’s personal piety, devotion and support of the Church, his ecumenical understanding (far advanced for his day), his patronage of the Arts in the service of God, his inspiration of the Christian classic, Eikon Basilike and of course his martyrdom, we have much to REMEMBER and be thankful for.”

(Obviously before Newman's canonization!) Lord Nicholas Windsor is "the first male blood royal to become Catholic since Charles II [on his deathbed]" and of course, he was removed from the succession rolls.

And here is Keble's poem for the martyr king's feast:

King Charles the Martyr.

This is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully. 1 St. Peter ii. 19.

Praise to our pardoning God! though silent now
   The thunders of the deep prophetic sky,
Though in our sight no powers of darkness bow
   Before th’ Apostles’ glorious company;

The Martyrs’ noble army still is ours,
   Far in the North our fallen days have seen
How in her woe this tenderest spirit towers
   For Jesus’ sake in agony serene.

Praise to our God! not cottage hearths alone,
   And shades impervious to the proud world’s glare,
Such witness yield; a monarch from his throne
   Springs to his Cross and finds his glory there.

Yes: whereso’er one trace of thee is found,
   As in the Sacred Land, the shadows fall:
With beating hearts we roam the haunted ground,
   Lone battle-field, or crumbling prison hall.

And there are aching solitary breasts,
   Whose widowed walk with thought of thee is cheered
Our own, our royal Saint: thy memory rests
   On many a prayer, the more for thee endeared.

True son of our dear Mother+, early taught
   With her to worship and for her to die,
Nursed in her aisles to more than kingly thought,
   Oft in her solemn hours we dream thee nigh.

For thou didst love to trace her daily lore,
   And where we look for comfort or for calm,
Over the self-same lines to bend, and pour
   Thy heart with hers in some victorious psalm.

And well did she thy loyal love repay;
   When all forsook, her Angels still were nigh,
Chained and bereft, and on thy funeral way,
   Straight to the Cross she turned thy dying eye

And yearly now, before the Martyrs’ King,
   For thee she offers her maternal tears,
Calls us, like thee, to His dear feet to cling,
   And bury in His wounds our earthly fears.

The Angels hear, and there is mirth in Heaven,*
   Fit prelude of the joy, when spirits won
Like those to patient Faith, shall rise forgiven,
   And at their Saviour’s knees thy bright example own.

+Mother=the Church of England I think (not the Blessed Virgin Mary)

*"There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth." (St. Luke 15:10)

Image Source (Public Domain): The Eikon Basilike, a purported spiritual autobiography attributed to Charles I, published days after his execution.

Bill Introduced to Disestablish the Church of England!

You might remember earlier this year that the Oaths that King Charles III took upholding the Church of England and his place as the Defender of the Faith were important issues during his Coronation on May 6: 

Archbishop of Canterbury: Will you to the utmost of your power maintain the Laws of God and the true profession of the Gospel?

Will you to the utmost of your power maintain in the United Kingdom the Protestant Reformed Religion established by law? Will you maintain and preserve inviolably the settlement of the Church of England, and the doctrine, worship, discipline, and government thereof, as by law established in England?

And will you preserve unto the Bishops and Clergy of England, and to the Churches there committed to their charge, all such rights and privileges as by law do or shall appertain to them or any of them?

The King: All this I promise to do. The things which I have here before promised I will perform and keep. So help me God.

Archbishop of Canterbury: Your Majesty, are you willing to make, subscribe and declare to the statutory Accession Declaration Oath?

The King: I am willing. The King: I Charles do solemnly and sincerely in the presence of God profess, testify, and declare that I am a faithful Protestant, and that I will, according to the true intent of the enactments which secure the Protestant succession to the Throne, uphold and maintain the said enactments to the best of my powers according to law.

But before making these promises and taking this Oath, King Charles heard the Archbishop of Canterbury add an important caveat, recognizing the sovereign's obligation to "seek to foster an environment in which people of all faiths and beliefs may live freely."

Just recently, on December 6 (St. Nicholas's Day!), however, a Bill has been proposed in Parliament that would change all that: 

A bill backed by the National Secular Society [NSS] to disestablish the Church of England has been introduced in parliament.

The private member's bill, proposed by Liberal Democrat peer Paul Scriven with assistance from the NSS, was presented in the House of Lords today.

The bill makes provision for the separation of church and state by removing the Church of England's established status, abolishing the automatic right of bishops to seats in the Lords and removing the monarch's title "Defender of the Faith and Supreme Governor of the Church of England".

It would also give the Church full independence over its doctrine, liturgy, and clergy, while ecclesiastical law and courts would cease to have any legal jurisdiction. The regulation of notaries would also be transferred from the Archbishop of Canterbury to the Lord Chancellor.

If you go to the official website, you can see the progress of the Bill as it moves through the House of Lords and the House of Commons to the final stages and Royal Assent. 

Will King Charles III give his Royal Assent? Can he refuse?

In 2017, PBS Masterpiece presented a film adaptation of Mark Bartlett's King Charles III in which the king considers opposing an Act of Parliament--he does not refuse his Royal Assent but he enters and Prorogues Parliament (out of turn)!

Here's an online conversation about whether or not a King can refuse Royal Assent and what it would mean.

As of this writing, I do not find any reaction or statement from the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, who visited the House of Lords on December 8 for a debate on "Love Matters", focused on support for families.

The real question is, of course, what would passage of such an Act, with Royal Assent, mean for Christianity in England? 

Also: What would it mean for the Catholic Church in England? and What will the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster say about this Bill? Vincent Cardinal Nichols attended the Coronation and the Catholic Bishops Conference issued a statement and official prayer for King Charles III. 

I did not see anything currently on the Westminster website, nor on The Tablet or Catholic Herald websites. 

Something to watch for!

Photo: The late Monsignor William Carr and I walking toward Westminster Abbey; my late husband Mark took the picture. (C) Stephanie A. Mann 2023; All Rights Reserved.

Edward VII and the Catholic Church

 

My frequent correspondent Edward Short, whose books about Newman and abortion I have reviewed on my blog and elsewhere, reviewed The Heir Apparent: A Life of Edward VII, the Playboy Prince for The Weekly Standard. In it, he comments:

One corollary of Bertie’s continental savoir-faire was his marked distaste for many of his compatriots’ prejudices, especially their anti-Semitism and anti-Catholicism. At the same time, he was adamant about respecting the different traditions of his subjects: When his first sea lord, Admiral Fisher, marveled at his concern for the health of the socialist firebrand Keir Hardie, Bertie responded, “You don’t understand me. I am the King of all the people.”

Edward VII, according to some other sources, had several Catholic and Jewish friends, and demonstrated both some interest in Catholicism and some good common sense about Anglican-Catholic relations. He attended a Requiem Mass for the King of Portugal, Carlos I, after his assassination in 1908, at the Portuguese Embassy Chapel. The Archbishop of Westminster, Francis Bourne, seated the King and Queen Alexandra rather prominently in the chapel and the Protestant Alliance said that Edward VII had violated his coronation oath to the Defender of the (Protestant) Faith.

Both The Telegraph and The Catholic Herald published stories in the lead up to Pope Benedict XVI's state visit to Scotland and England about Edward VII even being received into the Catholic Church of his deathbed, like Charles II. From The Telegraph:

Edward was known for his Catholic sympathies. He had tried to change the Coronation service to keep out anti-Catholic remarks. As Prince of Wales, he had visited Pope Pius IX three times. When guests at Marlborough House were unwell, Fr Forster would bring the Sacrament to them, and the Prince would meet him at the door, conducting him upstairs with lighted tapers to the sick-room.

More detail from The Catholic Herald:

What about King Edward VII? We certainly know that he had strong Catholic sympathies. He expressed his detestation of the Protestant declaration in the coronation service, involving an oath against Transubstantiation. He was a champion of Catholic equality and attended many Masses, where it is reported that “he would stand in the sanctuary following every detail, missal in hand, with attention, veneration, and respect”. Moreover, he had no particular friends among the Anglican bishops, but was a close friend of the famous Catholic preacher Fr Bernard Vaughan SJ; also, of Henry Duke of Norfolk, and of such as the Abbot of Tepl and the Marquess de Soverall.

As Prince of Wales he visited Pope Pius IX three times and later became the first English king since the Plantagenets to cross the threshold of the papal palace in Rome to visit Leo XIII. He gave money for the upkeep of at least one Catholic church and the last big religious function he attended was the Blessed Sacrament procession at Lourdes, where he entered the grotto and apparently prayed at La Roque church. . . .

Well, Paul Cambon, the French ambassador at the time of the King’s death, was summoned by Queen Alexandra to pay a final friendly visit to the King as he lay dying, and noticed a Catholic priest leaving his bedside. According to Gerard Noel, the former editor of The Catholic Herald, Cambon noted in his memoirs that he knew the priest by sight, but not by name.

There is evidence that the priest may have been Fr Forster himself. A member of the same family, Dr Lavinia Braun-Davenport, has stated that in her family tradition she was “brought up with the knowledge that my grandmother’s great uncle, Fr Cyril Forster, had converted the King of England to Catholicism on his deathbed”. The king was Edward VII. The suggestion is that Fr Forster was taken by Sir Ernest Cassel, a close friend of the King and a Catholic convert himself (from Judaism), to see the sovereign as he lay dying. It is claimed that Edward there accepted the Catholic faith. There seems to be no doubt that Fr Forster was one of the King’s visitors on his last day. Dr Braun-Davenport’s grandmother left a note saying that Edward’s conversion was “a ‘family secret’ – the Old Rake’s Repentance”!

Interesting and intriguing . . .

Archbishop Justin Welby on Baptism and Buddhism

From The Washington Post:

Some day, Prince George Alexander Louis of Cambridge will become the leader of the Church of England.

First, he needed to become a Christian.

When the newest member of Great Britain’s royal family was christened on Wednesday, he didn’t just become the country’s newest Anglican, he also secured his place in line with all British monarchs as the future head of Church of England.

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, administering the sacrament to the royal baby, capitalizing on the interest in the “hugely important moment” of George’s baptism in a well-timed YouTube video that explains the religious and political significance at play.

For Anglicans in Britain, church is sometimes synonymous with state. This means that the reigning monarch, today Queen Elizabeth, holds official roles as “Defender of the Faith” and “Supreme Governor of the Church of England.” As the future king, George will be responsible for a number of religious duties that are largely symbolic but also rich with history and theology. These duties date back to the 16th century with King Henry VIII’s break with the Catholic Church. The English Reformation lives.

Yeah, right: The English Reformation lives. More on that idea below.

But the Archbishop's theology of the Baptism seems to be lacking, because after emphasizing Baptism as the means for becoming part of the Christian family, mentioning the symbolism of the water and the Sign of the Cross, the next day he said that Prince George could easily become a Buddhist!

(Indeed, his comments about Baptism are not as clear as the Thirty-Nine Articles: "Baptism is not only a sign of profession, and mark of difference, whereby Christian men are discerned from others that be not christened, but it is also a sign of Regeneration or New-Birth, whereby, as by an instrument, they that receive Baptism rightly are grafted into the Church; the promises of the forgiveness of sin, and of our adoption to be the sons of God by the Holy Ghost, are visibly signed and sealed, Faith is confirmed, and Grace increased by virtue of prayer unto God.
The Baptism of young Children is in any wise to be retained in the Church, as most agreeable with the institution of Christ.")

From The Daily Mail:

The Archbishop of Canterbury says he has no objection to Prince George converting to Buddhism.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby, speaking one day after he led the christening of the future Supreme Governor of the Church of England, said the prince is ‘perfectly entitled’ to change his religion should he so choose.

The remark is likely to alarm traditionalists. However, it is in keeping with Prince Charles’s oft-repeated claim that he wants to be seen as ‘Defender of Faiths’ instead of ‘Defender of the Faith’, to reflect Britain’s multicultural society.

The remarkable statement came just 24 hours after he conducted the young prince’s christening at the Chapel Royal in St James’s Palace.

Indeed, the Archbishop had chosen in his address to urge George’s parents and godparents to help the future monarch ‘make sure he knows who Jesus is’, imploring: ‘Speak of him, read stories about him. Introduce him in prayer.’

His latest comments will concern many within the Church, who consider the Archbishop to be a leader who seeks to be ‘all things to all men’.

Isn't that last part part of the problem? At any rate, according to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Prince George can learn all about Jesus, how much Jesus loves him, what Jesus did to redeem him, how Jesus promises him eternal life--and then turn away from that love and grace and follow the Buddha?

So, to be clear:

"Your Grace, may Prince George decide to become a Buddhist and be the Head of the Anglican Church and the Defender of the Faith?"

"Of course . . ."

"Your Grace, may Prince George decide to become a Catholic and be the Head of the Anglican Church and Defender of the Faith?"

"No, of course not."

If the English Reformation lives, it lives only as Erastian Anti-Catholicism. All things to all men, except Catholics, of course--except for Confession. The Archbishop likes that.

Marriage and Succession in the House of Windsor

Queen Elizabeth II is ready for her summer holiday at Balmoral and there were news reports last week that she hopes her grandson William's baby comes soon, because she's leaving per the schedule whether the baby had arrived or not (the Duchess of Cambridge is in labor as of Monday, July 22):

It seems Queen Elizabeth II is getting a bit impatient as she waits in a rare British heat wave for the birth of her third great-grandchild. The queen said Wednesday she hopes the former Kate Middleton gives birth soon. Asked by a schoolgirl at a public event whether she was hoping for a boy or a girl, the queen said, "I don't think I mind. I would very much like it to arrive. I'm going on holiday." The queen is shortly expected to begin her annual summer holiday in Scotland. Prince William and his wife are expecting the birth of their first child, who will be third in line to the throne. The baby is due in mid-July. William and Kate say they do not know the baby's gender.

There were also news reports last week that Queen Elizabeth II had signed the law passed by Parliament legalizing so-called same-sex marriage:

With little fanfare or controversy, Britain announced Wednesday that Queen Elizabeth II -- hardly a social radical -- had signed into law a bill legalizing same-sex marriages in England and Wales. . . . .

Official word that the queen had approved the bill drew cheers in the usually sedate House of Commons. [Has that reporter not seen the Prime Minister facing questions in the House of Commons? "Usually sedate"?]

Queen Elizabeth II may not be a social radical, but she has struck at the root of royal succession by approving such a law. She has also forecasted the continued decline of the Church of England as a leader of society. As the Supreme Governor of the Church of England and the Defender of the Faith, Queen Elizabeth II has indeed pulled the three legs of religious authority out from under the Church of England--Scripture, Tradition, and Reason (not that it wasn't already horribly wobbly).

Scripture and Tradition, and even The Book of Common Prayer, have always and everywhere defined marriage as between a man and a woman--so she has ignored that authority.

She cannot have thought this through--royal succession has always depended on the marital virtue of the man and woman procreating the heir (at least when they were procreating the heir) so that the legitimacy of the heir was certain and absolute. With so-called same sex marriage, that assurance is gone; since reason assures us that two men or two women cannot conceive a child according to nature. A royal same sex "married" couple producing an heir must resort to some form of surrogacy.

She might as well go on holiday--and stay there. Thank God, again, for the Anglican Ordinariate. Our Lady of Walsingham, pray for us.

The Next English Coronation: Ecumenical and Diverse?

As The Telegraph proclaims: it will be "A coronation for OUR Times":

There are some things you just don’t talk about, and the crowning of the next king is one of them. It would be “impolite” to start planning a coronation while the existing monarch is still alive, I was told last week by one of those who may be involved when the time comes. Quite right, too. As the Queen prepares to celebrate the 60th anniversary of her Coronation on June 2 1953, it is to be hoped that she will go on and on. But that’s not to say that those concerned have neglected to think about what might come next. . . .

[Talking about the next coronation, to Henry VIII especially, could be thought of as the same thing as talking about the death of the monarch--sometimes in bad taste, sometimes liable to get your head separated from the rest of your body.]

The Sunday Telegraph has learned of a major shift in attitude within the leadership of the Church, towards allowing the representatives of other faiths to participate in a coronation service for the first time. This would be a dramatic break with tradition, as the coronation has been an exclusively Christian event for 1,000 years. In the past, any such move was strongly opposed by the Church of England. There is now, however, a recognition that the next coronation will have to reflect the spiritual diversity of modern Britain in some way.

The ethnic and cultural make-up of the country has changed greatly since 1953, when the ceremony reflected the long-established notion of Britain as a nation under one God. Sixty years later, Her Majesty reigns over a nation with many gods. There are still 33 million people who call themselves Christian (including Roman Catholics, who were not represented in the service in 1953). There are also 2.7 million Muslims, 817,000 Hindus and 263,000 Jews, and many others. . . .

Dr Robert Morris of the Constitution Unit at University College, London said that:

“Essentially, the last Coronation was a straight rerun of what had gone before, over the centuries. It was an Anglican Christian service. No Popery allowed, etc. The only alteration was that the Moderator of the Church of Scotland was allowed to come on and present a Bible to the Queen. That was a big thing in 1953. The Archbishop of Canterbury refused to give space to any of the other churches, let alone faiths. So they have a long way to go.”

Some of the language of the ceremony is laid down in law, such as the Coronation Oath Act of 1689, which says the monarch must swear to uphold the Protestant faith. However, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s website says “the form and order of the service are ancient in origin but not immutable”.

The new Archbishop, the Most Rev Justin Welby, showed his willingness to tweak tradition in March when he changed his enthronement at Canterbury Cathedral into an inauguration without many people noticing. He will write the service when the time comes, but not without help.

The recent changes in the Succession, allowing those in line to marry a Catholic, and the first born female to succeed ahead of any brothers born later, were earth-shattering enough to the Anglican establishment. These proposals are producing Lisbon-like earthquakes:

There will be, says Dr Morris, a case for simplifying the Christian ceremony and supplementing it with other events. “There is a question of how the monarch should be seen to relate ceremonially, not only to his Anglican subjects, but also the rest of the population. There is a case for considering a series of essentially secular ceremonies, in which the monarch shows himself for acclamation to the rest of the population.”

It would also put great strain on the ties between Church, State and Crown, some of which have snapped or are snapping already. To the Church, however, there is another precious dimension to the coronation. One senior figure described it to me this week as an ordination, an act of setting someone apart for a sacred purpose.

Unusually, perhaps, in terms of her predecessors, Queen Elizabeth came to her Coronation as a woman of deep personal faith. That continues to be the case, although she is certainly not uncomfortable in multi-faith services. It was Her Majesty who reminded the Church of England in a remarkable speech last year that it is not just there to serve Christians.

“Its role is not to defend Anglicanism to the exclusion of other religions,” she said. “Instead, the Church has a duty to protect the free practice of all faiths in this country.”
(Image source: wikipedia commons.)

The Supreme Head of the Church of England Abdicates in 1936

Yesterday was the 75th anniversary of King Edward VIII's abdication, as Once I Was a Clever Boy reminded us:

Seventy five years ago today there occured the abdication of King Edward VIII. At the time it was a profound shock to Britain and her Empire, and remains a subject of fascination, and an event with a continuing legacy for the monarchy.

Both Crown and subjects were fortunate in that King George VI and Queen Elizabeth were to prove so faithful and conscientious in the exercise of kingship, and to have transmitted that tradition to the Queen and through her to the next generations.

It is interesting that the current heir to the throne in England is in exactly the same position as Edward VIII was--married to a divorced woman with a surviving husband (Charles, the Prince of Wales was divorced from Diana before her death, of course). In the 1930's it was thought impossible for the Defender of the Faith and the Supreme Head of the Church of England to be married to a divorcee (TWICE divorced in the case of Wallis Simpson, in fact), but now it is no obstacle.

More on the New British Succession

I reported the news Saturday: the Commonwealth accepted new rules of succesion for the British monarchy. I also mentioned that allowing the monarch or heir to marry a Catholic was opposed earlier this year by the Church of England (and some believed Queen Elizabeth II herself)--I did not mention that many Catholics had actually been opposed to this change, and still are.

On the one hand, the Archbishop of Westminster commented that "while the Church of England is the established Church," it is "not unreasonable to expect the head of the Church of England should be an Anglican."

. . . The question being asked by some today is what religion the children of an Anglican-Catholic royal wedding would be raised in? The Catholic Church’s Code of Canon Law (Canon 1125) only permits a mixed marriage where the Catholic party makes "a sincere promise to do all in his or her power in order that all the children be baptized and brought up in the Catholic Church."

Archbishop Nichols said such a scenario "would be a very difficult situation indeed," but stressed that he did not "think we should try to pre-judge" it because "it’s not even a practical possibility at the moment; it’s a theoretical possibility."

He told BBC News that the Catholic Church’s practice of "sitting down with Catholics who are marrying outside of the Catholic community and trying to see how the marriage will develop" was "actually quite subtle" and "quite advanced."

He explained that if and when the hypothetical case ever arose, the Church would talk to the Catholic party "about the duty and expectation of the Catholic to give their best endeavors within the unity and harmony of the marriage to bring up their children Catholic."

But Archbishop Nichols added that having that discussion "does not guarantee that the children in every mixed marriage are brought up Catholic."

He explained that no guarantees can be given because the non-Catholic party "is not required to give any explicit undertaking about what they will do," while the Catholic party is only expected to do "their best." Read the rest here.

On the other hand, Father Alexander Lucie-Smith in The Catholic Herald is utterly opposed, noting that this change will lead to the secularization of the monarchy:

Again, on the religious question: at present the monarchy is a professedly Anglican institution, as it has been since the time of William and Mary and Queen Anne. That settlement was arrived at with great difficulty, to put it mildly. The sadly unsuccessful risings of 1715 and 1745 would have changed that settlement, but they failed. But what they failed to achieve David Cameron now intends to do by means of parliamentary legislation. But I do not think the consequences of this action have been considered. Had the patriots of 1715 or 1745 been successful, we would have had a Catholic monarchy, perhaps. Cameron’s reforms will give us a monarchy that is Anglican purely by default, but which might in future generations be Catholic, Hindu or Baptist; but which will most likely be none of the above. In other words, by removing the religious qualification, Cameron is effectively opening the monarchy up to secularisation. And why? Because he wants to abolish the last legal disqualification under which Catholic suffer? There is no evidence of that. Rather it seems to be a largely meaningless piece of political posturing, a desire to look ‘modern’. But this is one piece of political vanity for which future generations may pay a high price.

The British constitution is the great work of time: an organic whole that has grown slowly over the centuries, and as such susceptible to be damaged by ill-thought out changes that are not in continuity with the past. Mr Cameron, please leave it alone!

I admit to great sympathy with Father's view--but I also think the Christian aspects of the British Monarchy right now are only valid because of Elizabeth II herself, which exposes another problem. She has been a decent and hard-working Christian monarch, but she has been able to do nothing to stem the tide of secularization that has taken place in the United Kingdom thus far. She does not have the power and authority her predecessor of that name had to name bishops and enforce discipline. Elizabeth II may have the titles of Defender of the Faith and Supreme Head of the Church of England, but she has no opportunity to exercise any authority.

William Oddie posts his opinion here.