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| Catholics and the British Monarchy Today | |||||||||||||||
| ��������� Throughout the history of the British Isles, and in deed all across Christian civilization, the Catholic Church has had a love-hate relationship with monarchy. Whether in Britain or on the continent, there had long been a struggle between the Church and the Crown as various monarchs attempted to subordinate the Church to their rule and insist that loyalty to a prince came before loyalty to the Church. In Britain this can be seen in numerous historical episodes, the most famous probably being when Pope Innocent III excommunicated King John for his overreaching and harassment of the Church or when Pope St Pius V excommunicated Queen Elizabeth I as an illegitimate and heretical tyrant. However, the Church has also recognized that the monarchy can be a great help and that monarchies are preferable in most cases to other forms of government. The ties between the Catholic Church and the British monarch run deep, illustrated quite vividly in the lives of royals such as St Edward the Martyr, St Margaret of Scotland, St Edmund the Martyr, St Edward the Confessor and others. | |||||||||||||||
| Naturally, there have been plenty of times when the Church and the monarchy have clashed and the cause of Church and Crown friendship has suffered in the historical retelling of such events because they are so dramatic. Everyone remembers the involvement of King Henry II in the murder of St Thomas Becket, the many anti-Catholic actions of King Henry VIII such as the executions of St Thomas More and St John Fisher or the death of St Edmund Campion at the hands of Queen Elizabeth I and so on. The spread of the Protestant revolt to Britain, first brought about by King Henry VIII, greatly changed things and ended the long period of tense friendship between Rome and the British monarchy. Under Henry VIII and his Protestant successors England effectively declared war on the Church and made being a Catholic synonymous with being a traitor. When Henry VIII, who had divorced his lawful wife, married his mistress and abolished the monasteries, persecuting clergy and religious and confiscating Church property the Catholics of England rebelled in what was known as the Pilgrimage of Grace. Even then though, after so much persecution, the King even separating the country from Rome and naming himself Supreme Head of the Church, the Pilgrims of Grace led by Robert Aske, did not desire to overthrow King Henry, but only to force him, for his own good as well as that of the kingdom, to dismiss his wicked ministers and repeal his destructive and unfair laws and policies. Even St Thomas More, who was beheaded by the king for refusing to go along with these changes, did not ever attack the right of the King to reign and went to his death, in his own words as, "The King?s faithful servant, but God's first". | |||||||||||||||
| Enough persecution, however, will drive even the most loyal to extremes on occasion, yet even when Catholics were turned against the monarchy it was only in the most extreme of cases. In Ireland, many forget, the people were rebelling in favor of the legitimate monarchs of the Stuart dynasty such as Charles II, who became Catholic on his death bed, and James II who was a staunch Catholic before the centuries of political and religious persecution at the hands of Britain succeeded in driving most into the republican camp. In Scotland, long after Calvinism had taken root, the very old fashioned highlands remained Catholic enclaves in many cases and likewise supported the Stuarts, who were Catholic, in the 15 and 45 restoration attempts. During the English Civil Wars the Catholics were overwhelming loyal to King Charles I, whose wife was the Catholic Queen Henrietta Maria. Yet, the Protestant history of Great Britain has been a difficult one for Catholics to reconcile with. It could be argued that Protestantism as a whole might have been crippled and withered on the vine were it not for British, particularly English support of Protestant movements in other countries. Yet, it is often forgotten, the same could also be said for Catholic France and their support of the Protestant Swedes in the Thirty Years War. There is no doubt though that even while Britain has full religious freedom today, and though Catholics are actually the largest practicing Christian group in the country, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland remains officially anti-Catholic. The English still celebrate Guy Fawkes Day, many Northern Irish Protestants still celebrate the victory of the Protestant Dutch Prince over the Catholic King in Ireland and it is still forbidden for any member of the Royal Family to become Catholic or marry a Catholic and maintain their legitimate rights of succession to the throne. It may seem outdated to many if not most Britons today, but that is still the law. | |||||||||||||||
| Despite this though, even since the Protestant takeover, Catholics have continuously played a role in the British Royal Family. Of course everyone remembers Queen Mary I who restored Catholicism in England during her reign but who has been given a very unfair and undeserved reputation by biased Protestant historians. Charles I, as has been said, was married to the Catholic Queen Henrietta Maria and did not enforce the laws against Catholics as his predecessors had, himself being a High Church Anglican which was somewhat too close too Catholicism for the comfort of many of his Protestant subjects. The next was King Charles II who stated privately that he believed Catholicism to be true but that it would not be prudent for him to say so publicly. Nonetheless he signed an agreement with King Louis XIV of France to restore Catholicism when the time was right, which it never was, and he converted on his deathbed. Charles II was also married to a devout Catholic, Catherine of Braganza from Portugal and among his many mistresses was the Duchess of Cleveland who converted to Catholicism later in life and the French Catholic Duchess of Portsmouth. He also secured the succession of his Catholic brother. That brother, King James II, was the last reigning British monarch who was Catholic and both of his wives had been Catholic; Anne Hyde, who was a convert like himself, and the Italian Princess Mary of Modena who bore him his Catholic son which sparked his overthrow. The fall of the Stuarts and their ultimate replacement by the House of Hanover led to another dry spell for Catholics in the Royal Family, but they did reemerge though at first in the less than honorable ways seen under Charles II. The person in question was Maria Fitzherbert, a Catholic, who was married to the Hanoverian King George IV though British law did not recognize the marriage. Even after George IV married again she continued to be his mistress until 1811. | |||||||||||||||
| At the end of the Hanoverian era, Queen Victoria demonstrated that the traditional enmity toward Catholicism was giving way with the general Catholic revival of her time. She had great love for Ireland, gave money to the Irish during the infamous Potato Famine and supported the Maynooth Grant. She was also friendly with the French Empire and welcomed the devoutly Catholic Empress Eugenie to Britain when she was exiled along with the Emperor Napoleon III following his downfall. Empress Eugenie was godmother to Princess Victoria Eugenie, who was named for her and her grandmother Queen Victoria, who eventually converted to Catholicism and married King Alfonso XIII of Spain. For many years the Dukes of Norfolk, not members of the Royal Family but of royal blood, have been the most prominent Catholics in the nobility of Britain but in recent times the most prominent Catholic converts of the Royal Family have been among the Kents. Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, a grandson of King George V, married Katharine Worsley in 1961. In 1994 the Duchess of Kent made news by converting to Catholicism, the first senior member of the Royal Family to do so since the end of the Stuart dynasty. Queen Elizabeth II approved of the conversion and since then there have been other conversions in the Kent family. In 1978 Prince Michael of Kent married the Catholic Baroness Marie-Christine von Reibnitz in Vienna, Austria. According to the law this meant that Prince Michael lost his rights of succession and Princess Michael, as she came to be called, has also caused her share of controversy, most of it irrelevant really, because of her honest and opinionated nature. In 2001 Lord Nicholas Windsor, son of Duchess Katherine of Kent, converted and was received into the Catholic Church. He accordingly lost his rights of succession and serves as Patron of the Society of King Charles the Martyr which honors the Stuart king who lost his head in the English Civil War. In 2006 he married Paola Doimi de Frankopan, also a Catholic, in the Vatican in Rome, possibly the first members of the British Royal Family ever to do so. His older brother, George Windsor Earl of St Andrews, married a Canadian Catholic, Sylvana Palma Tomaselli, now Countess of St Andrews, in 1988. This caused the Earl to lose his place in the succession. Since then, one of their children, Edward Windsor, Lord Downpatrick, converted to Catholicism in 2003 and likewise lost his rights of succession. He is, so far, the royal highest on the list of succession to lose his rights for becoming Catholic with Prince Michael the highest to lose his rights for marrying a Catholic. | |||||||||||||||
| It is a mark of the growing importance and freedom of Catholics in Britain that the Act of Settlement which bars Catholics and those married to them from the throne has become more open to debate. In Scotland, the late Cardinal Archbishop of Glasgow Thomas Winning openly denounced the act, calling it an insult to Roman Catholics. Likewise, the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, Cormac Murphy-O'Conner, complained of the unfairness of the act by stating that Prince William could legally marry a Hindu or a Buddhist or someone of any other religion or belief but still not a Roman Catholic. In 2005 Tory MP and opposition leader Michael Howard promised that he would look into revising the 1701 Act of Settlement if reelected to office. He won the election but so far no serious efforts have been made to revisit the issue of Catholics being banned from the succession. During the media coverage of these events it was claimed that both Queen Elizabeth II and the Prince of Wales would be in favor of amending the act, but of course those alleged remarks were private and cannot be verified though they are in keeping with the attitudes of both of them. For a majority of Britons, like the monarchy as a whole, the Catholics and the succession are not considered very important. This reflects a cooling on the formerly hypersensitive issue of Catholicism and the monarchy as other moral and political issues eclipsed the subject of Catholics living in a Protestant monarchy. In 1967 abortion became legal across the United Kingdom except for Northern Ireland where it remains one of the few issues Catholics and Protestants agree on. Some Catholics are also of the opinion that it is better to leave things as they are, accept their second class status and be glad that the UK is an officially Christian nation of any sort rather than risking the loss of the established church; purely symbolic though it may be. Efforts by individuals such as Tony O'Donahue in Canada (where there is no established church) to have the act overturned have not met with a great deal of sympathy even from Catholics. His motives have been questioned and his lawsuit against the Queen was thrown out of court and denied appeal. | |||||||||||||||
| Considering that the Queen, the Prince of Wales and his sons William and Harry are all Anglicans there is no probability in the foreseeable future of anyone actually losing the British Crown for being or marrying a Catholic. Other issues such as abortion and gay marriage have eclipsed the succession debate among most Catholics who consider their faith when making political decisions. Because of the status of the Royal Family most simply feel that there are other more important issues that should come first. Same sex civil unions have been legal in the UK for some time and the push for gay marriage is underway in the courts and the rise of Islamic radicalism in Britain are two of the political issues most devout Catholics consider more important than their relationship with the monarchy. Likewise, just as old Catholic missals included prayers for the monarch even though he or she was Protestant the attitudes of recent monarchs are a marked improvement from the old days in terms of their relationship with the Catholic Church. In recent decades the United Kingdom has established diplomatic relations with the Holy See and Queen Elizabeth II met with the late Pope John Paul II several times during his pontificate. When the debate does arise there are still those voices that cling to old bigotry against Catholics, however they are now, thankfully, a minority. In every day matters the monarchy and the Catholic Church have made their peace with each other and today Catholics are the largest Christian group in the country that regularly attends services. It seems that once the cruelest restrictions were lifted the Catholic Church was able to flourish, especially during the revival thanks to men like Cardinal Manning and Cardinal Newman, and even outshine the established Church of England. Secularism is a tremendous problem, but at least among those who take their faith seriously things are holding steady and even improving a little. Perhaps, one day, the kingdom once known across Europe as the Dowry of Mary will be able to return entirely to the faith and the Royal Family with her. | |||||||||||||||
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| King Charles II Edward Windsor, Lord Downpatrick Lady Anne Hyde King James II Katharine, Duchess of Kent Lord Nicholas Windsor (George Windsor, Earl of St Andrews married a Canadian Catholic, albeit one who had been divorced so is not in full communion in any event) Princess Michael of Kent The Duke of Norfolk (not a member of the royal family but certainly of royal descent) |
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| British Royal consorts and mistresses who were Catholic: Catherine of Braganza 1st Duchess of Cleveland The Duchess of Portsmouth Mary of Modena Maria Fitzherbert |
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| HM Queen Elizabeth II & HH Pope John Paul the Great | |||||||||||||||