King Charles got his big moment with Pope Leo (Bob) yesterday. The head of the Anglican Church prayed with the Holy See in the Sistine Chapel. The Queen Consort wore a mantilla and a ridiculous “crown of crows” headpiece. Pope Bob looked slightly amused and Midwestern about the whole thing, but he gave Chuck and Cam what they wanted and sent them on their way. At the end of the day, Charles has actually become what he always said he wanted to be: a defender of all faiths. His heir never had the same religious goals. By all accounts, William has little to no Christian faith, nor does he particularly care about embracing a multifaith society. His time as the head of the Church of England is going to be interesting, to say the least. Which brings me to this interesting piece in the Independent, published in the wake of Charles’s Vatican visit: “Charles has forged a holy bond with the Pope – but will William break it?” An excerpt:
As the King prayed with Pope Leo in the Sistine Chapel in an unprecedented display of Christian unity, I suspect some Vatican officials will have breathed a sigh of relief. At one time, there was considerable anxiety about what would happen when Charles came to the throne, and one senior Vatican official told me that they considered his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, to be the last Christian monarch. They had noted her own deep Christian faith and how seriously she took the monarch’s role of supreme governor of the Church of England.
No wonder then that, alongside the prayer service in the Sistine Chapel, the Vatican decided to give him what is called a spiritual honour: to be made a “confrater of the abbey of St Paul” at the papal Basilica of St Paul’s Outside The Walls, and installed in a special chair with his royal coat of arms. It will then be made available for the King and his successors to use when they are in Rome.
Charles III may well use it again, but William V? There is little sign that the Prince of Wales has much time for religion. Yes, he was “hatched and matched” in the Church of England, with his christening in the music room at Buckingham Palace and his wedding to Kate Middleton at Westminster Abbey watched by millions around the world. But there is little sign of engagement with religion other than those formal ceremonies.
One formal religious ceremony will soon start to loom over his life. His father’s reign will undoubtedly be much shorter than that of Elizabeth II, which is why clerics started talking about how William needed to start thinking about his own crowning as soon as his father’s coronation was over. I know of at least one clerical coronation expert who sent a detailed memo to William’s office about it, urging him to think about it as soon as possible.
The coronation has always been essentially a religious service, involving anointing and the receiving of Holy Communion, as well as the taking of oaths. Watching the 1952 ceremony and that in 2023, you can see that the key participant firmly believes in its Christian essence. It cannot be taken for granted that William will.
That matters not only for the Church of England, but for all of us. A monarch with a belief in something greater than themselves is, in effect, a signpost to that greater thing. Without it, it is much harder to see the monarchy having any profound purpose.
It’s not for me to judge QEII or Charles’s Christian faith, their faith is to be taken at face value, in my opinion. But it’s interesting to put all of the pieces together of their actions and behavior. Yes, Charles embraces Britain’s multifaith society more than any other monarch in Britain’s history. He also mistreated his first wife, committed adultery, got a divorce, and married one of his mistresses… all of which should be frowned upon as the head of a church. QEII’s personal life was much less sordid, but as we see now, she spent the last twenty years of her life covering up her son’s rampant criminal behavior. And then there’s Scooter King, the man of little faith, the rotten egg who wants to be known as Ruthless William. No sense of Christian charity – he’s much too lazy for charity – nor does he have any sense of Christian forgiveness. I genuinely wonder if British Anglicans are going to be totally fine with a king who will only commit to barely going through the motions of Christianity, and even then, he’s going to skip Easter.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.
