The price of liberty

Saturday, 8th November 2003

Adrian Hilton says that the Act of Settlement must not be repealed, because a Roman Catholic monarchy would destroy our religious and civil liberties

The Act therefore demands that the sovereign must ‘join in communion with the Church of England as by law established’. While earlier monarchs have come from Calvinist and Lutheran traditions and have not been prevented by their own Church discipline from receiving the Eucharist, the position of Rome is quite different. These difficulties do not emanate from the Church of England but from the Roman Catholic Church, which prohibits its adherents from receiving Holy Communion at Anglican services. To forbid an Anglican Eucharist to a Roman Catholic monarch who remains Supreme Governor of the Church of England is not only absurd but plainly regressive.

Further, since Rome does not recognise the Church of England as a Christian Church in the full and proper sense of that term, it does not recognise the Holy Orders of Anglican clergy, which Pope Leo XIII condemned as ‘absolutely null and utterly void’. The present Pope has reiterated this view. A Roman Catholic monarch who followed the teaching of the Mother Church would therefore have to regard the archbishops, bishops and clergy of the Church of England (and, incidentally, of the Church of Scotland) as lay people, lacking the ordained authority to preach and celebrate the sacraments. And further still, a Roman Catholic monarch would be unable to be crowned by the Archbishop of Canterbury. As long as the coronation service involves a priestly anointing, no ‘utterly void’ Anglican could administer it. Presumably a future Roman Catholic monarch would receive the crown from the Pope, and the wheel would have come full circle.

When talking of the Act being in contravention of human-rights legislation, it is easy to overlook the fact that no one is prevented by its terms from following whatever faith they wish, or marrying whomsoever they choose. The only restriction is in succeeding to the throne or continuing to occupy it, and this is no one’s ‘human right’. The United Kingdom is not alone in maintaining religious restrictions on its monarchy: Sweden and Denmark demand that their monarchs adhere to the Lutheran faith; the Netherlands stipulates that succession must be through the Protestant house of King William, Prince of Orange; and the constitutions of Spain and Belgium demand succession through strictly Roman Catholic houses.

One of the most interesting observations in this debate is that no mention is ever made of the fact that the ‘King of the Vatican’ must be a Roman Catholic. Certainly, as head of his Church, it seems perfectly reasonable to demand his adherence to the Catholic faith, but as a head of state, as he also is, the limitations are certainly an infringement of his human rights. In fact, in a further infringement, the King of the Vatican is not permitted to marry at all, let alone marry a Protestant.

When religious restrictions are lifted on the Papacy to permit a Protestant succession, then the time will have come to question whether the British sovereign, the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, may be a Roman Catholic or married to one. However vehement the ecumenical dialogue, I fear this may take quite some time.