Saturday, May 17, 2008
Keep the faith? Not likely, old chep…
PRINCESS Anne’s son Peter Philips will be married to Canadian Autumn Kelly at Windsor Castle later today. Thanks to the Act of Settlement, Ms Kelly had to renounce her Catholic faith in order for her husband to retain his claim to the throne. He’s only be 11th in line (and a commoner), so her conversion was pretty token. While it may be natural for those born with a silver spoon in their mouths not to rock the boat, had Ms Kelly been a Muslim, Jew, witch or Satanist none of these problems would have arisen. And if she’d kept her faith, perhaps the couple would be getting more than half a million from Hello! - perhaps they might have even earned some wider respect?
Belfast Gonzo @ 09:03 AM
Is it perhaps possible that she changed her religion for reasons other than his place in line to the throne?
Members of the Royal family have converted to catholicism, as have other high ranking public figures, including Blair.
People do change for other reasons you know.Posted by on May 17, 2008 @ 09:47 AMIf you renounce your faith youare not a Catholic, so it works out in the end, and if you are prepared to renounce your aith etc. well the starting and end positions are not too far apart.
It is like this, if asked to sacrifice to Augustus, one has to decline.
Indeed, so common as to have sold exclusive pre-nuptial photographs and an interview to Hello! magazine for some $1-million. At the same time, he is not so common as to want to sacrifice his place in the line of succession for the woman he loves.
I apologize for not knowing how to embed the url. I’ll have to take steps.
So no loss to us, and no gain to them. He has no title,
“In my eyes, it is, after all, the same religion,” Miss Kelly explained to Hello!. One does not expect either great theological or historical literacy from Hello!, but even then the statement reveals not mere shallowness, but deep ignorance. Miss Kelly was baptized at St. John Fisher parish in Montreal, named after the Catholic bishop beheaded by King Henry VIII. Neither king nor bishop thought the differences Henry was effecting in the Church were inconsequential.’
There you have it, it is no loss & no gain.
G.
Posted by on May 17, 2008 @ 09:55 AM“Is it perhaps possible that she changed her religion for reasons other than his place in line to the throne? “
Well a faith so easily set aside couldn’t may not have had the strength to endure the pitch, branding iron and stake,
but at a wild guess, I would say ‘no’.
G.
Posted by on May 17, 2008 @ 10:00 AMPerhaps you’ve mistaken us for people who give a toss.
Up the republic!
Posted by on May 17, 2008 @ 10:58 AMThe great thing about the UK is its liberal pluralist environment. Except that, er, the head of state has to be of the Protestant persuasion.
Shurely shome mishtake?
Or maybe it´s a case of ´You can be any religion you want as long as you´re not Catholic.´?Posted by on May 17, 2008 @ 11:39 AMTAFKABO - “Is it perhaps possible that she changed her religion for reasons other than his place in line to the throne?
Members of the Royal family have converted to catholicism, as have other high ranking public figures, including Blair.
People do change for other reasons you know.”Exactly. Some of the people shouting loudest about this have little to say about the Ne Temere decrees where the Roman Catholic church stated that all children born into mixed marriages had to be brought up as Roman Catholics.
The Matrimonia Mixta also states:
“the Church, conscious of her duty, discourages the contracting of mixed marriages”“the Catholic partner in a mixed marriage is obliged .. to see to it that the children be baptized and brought up in that same faith”
“To obtain from the local Ordinary dispensation from an impediment, the Catholic party shall declare that he is ready to remove dangers of falling from the faith. He is also gravely bound to make a sincere promise to do all in his power to have all the children baptized and brought up in the Catholic Church.”
Posted by on May 17, 2008 @ 11:40 AMAt a time when the USA may have a black President and a woman Vice, had a catholic President long ago, the Windsor’s and the British establishment cannot bear to have a catholic about the place, unless they are token like Norfolk.
How pathetic is that, and how shabby that these people can change their religion just like they change their knickers.
What a sad little reactionary country England has become.
Posted by on May 17, 2008 @ 12:02 PMAnother example of the inherent degeneracy of the British monarchy . Miss Kelly as an individual has every right of course to change /opt out/deny her ‘religious denomination’ but doing so or so to ‘placate’ the sensitivities of the inbreds of British Monarchy and it’s outdated constitution is ‘revolting’.
Canada is of course the official refuge place of asylum for the day if and when the Monarchy is booted out of England . None of our business of course but the sooner the better IMO .
Posted by on May 17, 2008 @ 12:24 PMUghh! How absolutely tacky. Still the snabby antics of these pathetic people does serve to allow the rest of us to feel smugly superior. I would just feel so ashamed if my daughter allowed her wedding to become a phot-shoot opportunity for a vulgar magazine like Hello!. But to do it for money - yeuk!! Monetary value is such a poor substitute for a sense of values.
Posted by on May 17, 2008 @ 12:34 PM“...how shabby that these people can change their religion just like they change their knickers”.- Mick Hall.
Mick, thanks for ruining my weekend. I was quite happy to assume that Autumn was a “go commando” type chick.
Posted by on May 17, 2008 @ 12:40 PMIt’s always better to marry a Buddhist!
Posted by on May 17, 2008 @ 12:44 PMThe reaction to this news, in contrast to the reaction when someone converts to catholicism leads me to conclude than there is still a rather strng tribalism within some catholics.
People change their religion all the time, for all sorts of reasons, some of us (I like to think the more enlightened, but I would, wouldn’t I?) even abandon religion altogether.Posted by on May 17, 2008 @ 12:55 PMDoes not this whole thing reek of outdated and unnecessary formalism? Let’s break it down.
I may be doing no more than stating the very obvious, but two things are clear. If one is prepared to change one’s “faith” in this way, then:
*That person was not a true Catholic before they became Anglican, since if they were, they’d hardly be prepared to renounce it for such instrumental reasons; and
*Neither was that person actually becoming a true Protestant, since their motives were other than personal conviction.
Thus the whole thing is just a ridiculous formality. What does it actually mean?
Nothing!
Posted by on May 17, 2008 @ 01:01 PMPope advises Thai bishops to respect Buddhists.
http://www.bangkokpost.com/breaking_news/breakingnews.php?id=127694
Posted by on May 17, 2008 @ 01:11 PMThere’s a sillyness at the very heart of this discussion.
Two points.Firstly, all people adopt religion out of selfish reasons, the most common being a fear of hellfires and the promise of eternal bliss.
Secondly, Monarchy is, by its very nature, inherrently unjust and unfair, quibbling over one little detail makes about as much point as spending all your time saying that if only we could do something about the hair loss cancer causes, it would make things all right.Posted by on May 17, 2008 @ 01:22 PMWhat a grumpy shower of barstewards you all are today. Any woman marrying into the Windsors should be wished the best of luck and leave it like that - a million smackers won’t compensate for the bull$hit that goes with that. According to press I’ve seen she had no idea who he was until she was well smitten so it’s not like she’s whatever the royal version of a puck-bunny or rugger-hugger is. As for her catholicism, well Quebecers have a funny relationship with the church as evidenced by their most commonly used swear words.
As for the Act of Settlement that is a matter for Gorn Broon - take it up with him.
Posted by on May 17, 2008 @ 01:24 PMTAFKABO
“all people adopt religion out of selfish reasons”
Not so. My religion was adopted for me by my parents, in common with most Christians. Adult converts are many in number but tiny in proportion.
Posted by on May 17, 2008 @ 01:29 PM“People”, as you say, TAFKABO may “change their religion all the time” but Catholics certainly don’t. We may fall away from practice or abandon it all together but change? No thank you.
There will always be the odd poor soul who through emotional or psychological disturbance joins up with the Moonies or the Scientologists or some other exploitative cult, but no sane Catholic would ever change for spiritual or theological reasons since any change to another christian sect would always ever be a change downward. Even stepping from Catholicism to High Anglicanism would be like shopping in Tesco’s after a lifetime spent among the goodies in Fortnum & Mason.
Posted by on May 17, 2008 @ 01:40 PMRory
Then better change from Catholicism to the Cao Dai religion.Posted by on May 17, 2008 @ 01:56 PMThere was simply no discussion when I got hitched, the missus said I was to become a Muslim and that was the end of the matter, no more Catholicism for me.
But then she’s not seventy-gazillion in line to the British throne so Slugger O’Toole and its many contributors didn’t feel the need to discuss my reasons for converting (actually “reverting” in Islam, they’re a funny lot, they believe everyone is already Islam but they just haven’t realised it yet).
My brother in law became a Catholic to marry my sister and my uncle gave up Hinduism to marry my aunt, is there any particular symbolism in any of that?
Odd how so many Slugger contributors seem to have some great inside knowledge of the marital arrangements of a couple they’ve never actually met.
Posted by on May 17, 2008 @ 02:06 PMP+J,
Problem is all your Ne Temerre stuff finished 20-30 years ago...Act of Settlement is still active thus the thread...you know it dangerous driving forward when looking in your rear view mirror...even historically speaking!Posted by on May 17, 2008 @ 02:08 PMRory, any religion can be Tesco’s.
Autumn Kelly’s conscience is of course her own. I took belfast Gonzo’s point to be—and if memory serves from his earlier blogs Gonzo is from the Protestant tradition, with a spouse from the Catholic tradition—that in 2008 it is not right—in other words, it is wrong— that the Act of Settlement bars an heir to the throne from marrying a Catholic for no other reason than he or she is a Catholic.
Of course it is wrong for a state, any state, to dictate the terms of who can marry based on race or religion or ethnicity.
As Gonzo points out, the Act of Settlement does not bar an heir to the throne from marrying a Jew, a Muslim or a Wiccan. If it were not Autumn Kelly but, say, a hypothetical Autumn Shapiro, great-grandaughter of Holocaust survivors, required to break with her family’s faith tradition, perhaps the discrimination would be more immediately repugnant to all. (On the other hand, if a member of THAT family ever does become affianced to a practicing Wiccan, even I would buy HELLO again).
Declaring that you know all of a person’s motivations for choosing a religion, or choosing religion at all, is like declaring you know all of a person’s motivations for choosing their sexual partner, or partners.
if you haven’t been alone with them in the dark, you probably don’t know.
Posted by on May 17, 2008 @ 02:25 PMAnd I thought it was all about tackiness and hello magazine.
I do not know the statistics, but I doubt even one in ten choose their religion, for as someone has pointed out above, we are born what ever our parents are. We then opt out if we so wish.
Although I’m told that this ‘go commando type chick’ told some magazines that it would be her husband who would be converting to Catholicism. seems she overestimated her powers of persuasion.
My wife’s mother refused to convert to catholicism her husbands faith, but went on to have eight children, I often wondered if that might have been my wife’s dad stamping his feet/whatever.
Posted by on May 17, 2008 @ 02:28 PMSusan
Out of interest could the Windsor kiddies marry an atheist and retain access to the throne. Or is my granddaughter out of the race?
Posted by on May 17, 2008 @ 02:31 PM“Ne Temere decrees where the Roman Catholic church stated that all children born into mixed marriages had to be brought up as Roman Catholics. “
Catholic marriages.
G.
Posted by on May 17, 2008 @ 02:41 PM
