{"id":2785,"date":"2008-09-24T22:45:00","date_gmt":"2008-09-24T22:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2008\/09\/could-england-again-have-a-catholic-king.html"},"modified":"2008-09-24T22:45:00","modified_gmt":"2008-09-24T22:45:00","slug":"could-england-again-have-a-catholic-king","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/09\/could-england-again-have-a-catholic-king.html","title":{"rendered":"Could England again have a Catholic king?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In what could be a historic development, Great Britain may be poised to make dramatic changes to the most famous monarchy on earth. <\/p>\n

From AFP<\/a>: <\/p>\n

The British government is drawing up plans to end a 300-year-old exclusion of Catholics from the line of succession, as well as ending the priority given to male heirs, according to a newspaper report.<\/p>\n

The Labour government would introduce the necessary legislation after the next election, according to The Guardian, which has long petitioned for a change in the law that critics have condemned as discriminatory.<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s office declined to comment, although Secretary of State for Justice Jack Straw said in March that the government was “certainly ready to consider” reviewing the “antiquated” ban on Catholic monarchs.<\/p>\n

Rules laid out in the Bill of Rights 1688, the Act of Settlement 1700 and the Act of Union 1706 state that the monarch must be a Protestant, and any royal who marries a Catholic is barred from the line of succession.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Earlier this year, a Catholic engaged to one of the Queen’s grand-children, Peter Phillips, had to be accepted into the Church of England before the couple could marry, or her husband would have lost his claim to the throne.<\/p>\n

Changes to the rule stating that the crown automatically passes to the first male heir were also planned, The Guardian said, and could see a first-born daughter of Prince William, second in line to the throne, become queen.<\/p>\n

Former prime minister Tony Blair said in 1999 he had no plans to change the law, mainly because it would require amending several pieces of legislation and would have to be approved by the Commonwealth nations.<\/p>\n

A parliamentary briefing paper published in August warned that changing the law “could open up extremely complex constitutional issues”.<\/p>\n

There were “problems inherent in trying to disentangle matters of religion and politics, being, as they are, at the heart of core aspects of the British constitution”, it said, in reference to the monarch’s role as head of the Anglican church. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You can read more details from the Times of London right here<\/a>, and a further explanation of the ban on Catholics at this link<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Photo: Peter Phillips (left) and Autumn Kelly leave St George’s Chapel in Windsor, in May, after their marriage vows. <\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In what could be a historic development, Great Britain may be poised to make dramatic changes to the most famous monarchy on earth. 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From AFP: The British government is drawing up plans to end a 300-year-old exclusion of Catholics from the line of succession, as well as ending the priority given to male heirs, according…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/09\/could-england-again-have-a-catholic-king.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-09-24T22:45:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/SNr8i8V7itI\/AAAAAAAADB8\/HeQqiTzuECY\/s320\/ALeqM5hgJhQJWjh4LFQsPkV2T4qR1hHhVw.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Deacon Greg Kandra\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Could England again have a Catholic king? - The Deacon's Bench","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/09\/could-england-again-have-a-catholic-king.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Could England again have a Catholic king? - The Deacon's Bench","og_description":"In what could be a historic development, Great Britain may be poised to make dramatic changes to the most famous monarchy on earth. 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Prior to that, Deacon Greg worked for 26 years as a writer and producer for CBS News, where he contributed to \"The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric,\" \"60 Minutes II,\" \"48 Hours,\" (Emmy Award, Writers Guild of America Award) and \"Sunday Morning.\" He was co-writer for the acclaimed documentary \"9\/11,\" hosted by Robert DeNiro. (Emmy Award, Christopher Award, Peabody Award, Writers Guild of America Award.) His radio essays were featured in the bestselling book \"Deadlines and Datelines\" by Dan Rather. He's also a two-time winner of the Catholic Press Association Award. Other places you may find him: AMERICA, U.S. CATHOLIC, CATHOLIC DIGEST, REALITY (Redemptorist Communications) and THE BROOKLYN TABLET. He also contributes homiletic reflections to the parish resource CONNECT!, published by Liturgical Publications. In November 2009, he began serving a three-year term as a consultant to the Communications Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Deacon Greg grew up in Maryland (Go Terps!) but he and his wife today live in the beautiful borough of Queens, New York. You can contact Deacon Greg at dcngreg@gmail.com.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/gkandra"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/204"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2785\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}