Angry in the Great White North

The former Bishop of Connor, the Right Reverend Alan Harper, is about to take on his new job as head of the Church of Ireland, the Anglican Church on the Emerald Isle. In an interview with the Irish Times, he has some remarkable things to say about the United Kingdom and the monarchy:

The ban on Catholics becoming the British monarch should be abolished, according to the incoming Church of Ireland primate.

In an interview with the Irish Times newspaper, Bishop Alan Harper said it was now time to "move on".

The Act of Settlement bans Catholics, or those married to Catholics, from ascending the British throne.

The new primate-elect said the Act of Settlement of 1701 "belongs to its time and we should move on", but that its repeal could have implications for the Church of England.

The implications are far reaching. Remember that the sitting monarch is the governor of the Church of England. He or she appoints bishops. But that it also complicated by the fact that, like in many things, the prime minister makes the actual decision, passes it on to the king or queen, who then proclaims it.

The situation means that the Church of England is intimately tied to the symbol of power, the king or queen, and to the actual seat of power, the elected prime minister.

In order to allow a Catholic to ascend to the throne, the Church of England would have to be disestablished, that is, it would no longer have that tie to the monarch and to the government. In that way the Church of England would handle its own affairs and the Catholic monarch would not be required to manage, even in name, the affairs of a non-Catholic church.

That would be a good thing according to Bishop Harper:

Bishop Harper told the Irish Times that the disestablishment of the Church of England - separating church and state - was something it would "not only get over, but would be the better for it".

I would agree. I think a root reason for a lot of the shift of Anglicanism off of the roots of Christianity could be traced to how bishops, appointed by politicians, are obviously going to think like politicians. That means being as acceptable to as many people as possible, and that means avoiding divisive positions and beliefs. Well, the fundamental function of religion is to be divisive ("this is what is true, and this is what is not"), so you can imagine what would happen to a religion under those circumstances.

OK, you don't have to imagine. This is the way the Anglican Church has been going for quite some time. Politically correct and all that.

It should be noted that this relationship between Church and State applies only to the Church of England. Other churches in the Anglican communion, including the Church of Ireland, are not accorded any special status in their homelands. Nevertheless, the Communion takes much of its lead from the Church of England, so the impact goes far beyond the shores of England. If nothing else, what the Church of England does and says is often, if unfairly, assumed to be the word of the entire Anglican Communion. So Bishop Harper's suggestion that the Church of England would benefit by becoming completely separated from the government could be seen as a suggestion that the Communion as a whole would benefit.

Did Bishop Harper consider the implications of his comments? I can't be sure, of course, but I'm willing to bet he knew exactly what those implications were.

I doubt very much that a cleric of the Church of Ireland, even the most senior cleric, is going to have much affect on the way England sees fit to constrain the religious affiliaton of her monarch. Still, it is an interesting discussion to initiate. The change Bishop Harper is calling for is not hard to defend. Here's hoping that Bishop Harper continues to initiate interesting discussions. Sometimes, once in while, a comment is made at the right time in front of the right people, and everything changes.