Something Overdue

Today it was announced that the Prime Minister had been in discussions with Buckingham Palace over the possibility of reforming the Act of Settlement to remove discriminatory clauses. Changes under consideration would be removal of the bar on heirs to the throne marrying Roman Catholics and to give royal daughters an equal claim to the throne. We can only welcome and applaud changes which are likely to bring the rules of succession out of the 18th Century and into the 21st. There is no longer any justification for the antiquated practice of giving male heirs precedence over female ones and the time has come, nay is long overdue, for it to brought to an end.

Marriage of an heir to the throne (or even a Monarch) to a Roman Catholic would be a slightly different matter though. As the law currently stands, the Monarch is earthly head of the Church of England, a role which he or she can only fulfil by being a member of that body. Certainly the law could well be relaxed to allow an heir to the throne (or Monarch) to marry a Roman Catholic if he or she so chose. However, unless we were to go down the route of disestablishment, the Monarch would have to remain a member of the Church of England. A way would have to found of squaring the circle which on the one hand allowed a greater liberty than at present whilst safeguarding the Monarch's position as earthly head of the English Church.

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