This article first
appeared in The National Catholic Register
Once and Future King
By Dwight Longenecker
Operation CPB is the
code name for the public relations campaign to convince the
British public that Prince Charles’ mistress, Camilla Parker
Bowles, should be the Queen of England one day. The plot is
worthy of the juiciest fairy tale or historical romance.
It goes like this:
Queen puts pressure on her son and heir to marry. So Heir marries
Airhead. But Heir has a secret girlfriend who is a married
lady. Poor Princess is justifiably unhappy. Prince and Princess
divorce. Married lady and husband divorce. Princess dies in
terrible crash with swarthy foreign millionaire. Hey presto!
Prince is free to marry Camilla—his long time love. But British
public mourn the pretty princess and think Camilla is the Wicked
Queen with the poisoned apple.
As a result, the public
relations experts have been called in to gently persuade the
British public to forget Princess Diana and realise what a
charming and good person Camilla Parker Bowles is. Gradually
Camilla has been seen in public with the Prince. Step by step
she is being eased into a public role. Carefully chosen photo
opportunities are used to place her next to the Queen, next
to the royal princes and alongside Prince Charles. It seems
to be working, but still most English people don’t want her
to marry Prince Charles.
The hypocrisy of it
all seems stunning. Considering how congested the roads are,
getting a divorce in Britain is easier than passing the test
to get a driving license. Something like two out of three marriages
in Britain end in divorce and most divorced people go on to
marry someone else. Despite this many British people have a
gut instinct that their future monarch should not marry a divorced
woman.
The plot thickens
because the Anglican Church is involved. The Queen is the nominal
head of the Church of England, and Prince Charles will take
up the same role someday. The rules of the Church of England
still forbid divorcees to be remarried in church. Many think
it would be a terrible hypocrisy to have a divorced and re-married
head of the Church of England.
Catholics in this
country have long memories. Five hundred years long. They can’t
help asking what all the fuss is. After all, the Church of
England was founded by a King for the very reason that
he wanted to marry his mistress. If the founder of the church
went on to divorce one wife, bump off the next, bury the third,
divorce the fourth, and bump off the fifth then die of syphilis
what’s the big deal?
Still, the idea offends
those who believe in the sanctity of marriage, and so it should.
No matter what you think of royalty, the royal family ought
to provide a role model of family life, loyalty and Christian
commitment. The sad fact is that the disastrous marriages
of the royal family reflect the disastrous state of family
life in Britain generally.
Because ministers
of the Church of England are still expected to officiate at
the majority of weddings, the divorce and re-marriage situation
is at crisis point. There is no central guidance on what ministers
should do. There is widespread disagreement among Anglicans
about the whole issues of divorce and re-marriage. Although
the rules don’t allow it, most Anglican vicars at least perform ‘blessings’ of
marriages for divorced people and many flaunt the rules and
re-marry divorced people whenever they wish. Quite a few of
the Church of England clergy are themselves divorced and re-married.
There was even a Church of England bishop who married the
divorced wife of one of his clergymen.
As a result of this
chaos, the Anglican Church has been under extreme pressure
to change the rules. Earlier this year the General Synod of
the Church of England proposed changes to allow re-marriage
of divorcees in church under some circumstances, and it looks
like the new rules will go through. So is that a green light
for Charles and Camilla to get hitched?
Not really, because
one of the proposed regulations is that the relationship between
the people who want to get re-married in church should not
have been the cause of the breakdown of either first marriage.
Princess Di made it quite clear before she died that there
were ‘three people in her marriage.’ Everybody now knows that
Charles and Camilla maintained a relationship all through Charles’ ‘fairytale
marriage’ to Diana. If the new rules are applied, the heir
to the throne and his mistress are still left out in the cold
because their adulterous relationship caused the breakdown
of both marriages.
What are the other
options? When Charles’ sister Anne wanted to re-marry she simply
skipped across the border where the Church of Scotland (which
is Presbyterian) allows the re-marriage of divorced people
in church. Charles and Camilla could go the land of kilts and
bagpipes, but this would look suspiciously like the couples
who sneak off to the marriage chapel in Las Vegas for a quickie
marriage.
So the Prince and
his mistress are still stuck. There is one other option
that no one seems to have considered. Prince Charles might
actually display some moral courage. He could show a Christian
example and sacrifice his own selfish ‘happiness’ for the sake
of his faith. In other words, he might put away his mistress
and either live as a celibate widower or marry someone who
is free to be his queen. Then, despite the personal difficulties
for the Prince, the fairy tale might have a happy ending after
all.
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