Willing to Vote for Their Own Demise

 

The previous government attempted the reform of the House of Lords in two stages, but succeeded only in the first. All that the last government could achieve was the disgraceful expulsion of the hereditary peers, except the ninety-two happily redeemed by the present Marquess of Salisbury. No-one could agree on what should replace the hybrid arrangements left after 1999, and they cannot agree on it now.

Please Strike Out Anglicans of Whom You Disapprove

To the Editor of the Church Times:

Willing to Love All Mankind

The Great Doctor writes, in a well-known passage:

How any man can have consented to institutions established in distant ages, it will be difficult to explain. In the most favourite residence of liberty, the consent of individuals is merely passive; a tacit admission, in every community, of the terms which that community grants and requires. As all are born the subjects of some state or other, we may be said to have been all born consenting to some system of government. Other consent than this the condition of civil life does not allow. It is the unmeaning clamour of the pedants of policy, the delirious dream of republican fanaticism.

Quite right, and the pedants of policy and the delirious dreamers are still clamouring, on both sides of the Atlantic.

Over the Water

We never expect much good news at Plumstead Rectory, but we can't see any downside to this. The country has, in the Great Doctor's words, been fairly polled, and the hereditary right of the sacred monarch is acclaimed by the people. Not only that, but the sovereign power has been used, not as it more usually is to oppress and destroy, but for the protection of the weakest. And in this the people have also heartily concurred. D.G.

Sadly none of this has occurred in the life of our own dear constitution, but in a far-away land of which we know little. Nonetheless, rejoicing with them, we find the Principality of Liechenstein to be more and more to our liking. Others may wish the United Kingdom to become more like the United States of America, Scandinavia, or Singapore, but the reactionary choice must now be clear.

I'm the Guy Who Found the Lost Cause

Government proposals for altering the nature of marriage have been made, which no member of the Church of England can possibly accept. These proposals are incoherent and badly drafted; and we believe that to impose a new meaning on a term so familiar and fundamental as “marriage” would be deeply unwise.

We refer, of course, to proposals by the unelected Lord Hardwicke to require the registration of marriages as a condition that they be legally recognised.

England's Nazareth

One of today’s tasks is to do some planning for the parish pilgrimage to the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham. It is sometimes called England’s Nazareth, where Mary’s “Yes” to God is commemorated, and where at the heart of the shrine is the miracuculously revealed Holy House. Walsingham is one of the “thin” places, and is very special for many. But it is located in a rather obscure corner of Norfolk, and expecially a very long way from Liverpool.

An opportunity is being missed to open the riches of England’s Nazareth to a wider audience, to remove the barriers of distance and travelling time and to broaden Walsingham’s appeal. We propose that the Guardians should develop a franchise arrangement along the following lines, giving the Walsingham brand a penetration throughout the country, and addressing the differing needs of modern pilgrims:

Our Place in the Church of England

It has been a week of anniversaries. Today, of course, is the 59^th anniversary of the Coronation of Her Majesty the Queen; a strange number to celebrate with such festivities as this weekend’s, but it is all grist to the royalist mill. On Tuesday was the anniversary (the 352^nd) of the wonderful Restoration of the late King Charles, and if my acquaintance is anything to go by, this is being even more widely celebrated than the Diamond Jubilee.