The state of Christianity in England today and tomorrow

My father’s Commission from World War II is kept in our home and will be passed down to the next generation (along with my husband’s, similarly worded) from Queen Elizabeth II.

Some years before inheriting the throne, the then Prince Charles, on being asked about that ancient title “Defender of the Faith”—conferred, of course, by a Pope on King Henry VIII, in one of the ironies of history—reflected that he would see himself rather as simply “defender of faith”. This caused a minor stir at the time and is still quoted with indignation by friends who enjoy being angry about this perceived lapse from loyalty to Christianity.

I am not so sure. As Prince of Wales and now more significantly since coming to the throne, King Charles has been an outspoken defender of Christians persecuted for their faith. This Advent, he led the congregation at a special service of prayer for the Christians of Iraq who have suffered cruelly at the hands of ISIS (Daesh). The service, held at London’s famous Farm Street Jesuit Church, was organized by the international Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need. It was a powerful experience to be there, along with the Papal Nuncio, our Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, and a large congregation, listening to a Chaldean choir and hearing a prayer in Aramaic, the language Our Lord himself would have spoken while on earth. And we sang “Dear Lord and Father of mankind” with its line about those very first Christians “beside the Syrian sea”.

At his coronation, the King made the now-standard promise to uphold the Protestant form of Christianity. George V adapted the oath, refusing to use an earlier version that specifically denounced various Catholic beliefs and practices.

King Charles is known to be interested in Eastern Orthodoxy—in which his father Prince Philip was brought up—and has stayed on Mount Athos where monks offer hospitality to those prepared to share in some days of austerity and prayer. And he has been openly supportive of Catholicism: in a significant move, he attended the canonization of St John Henry Newman in Rome in 2028 and wrote a notable feature published in The Times celebrating Newman’s life and work.

The link between monarch, Church, and people is a strange one. Queen Elizabeth II, along with large numbers of her subjects, attended church as a matter of course on Christmas morning. This was usually mentioned in the news bulletins later in the day, but I don’t recall any live television coverage of her walking with her family along the lane to the little church near the Royal estate at Sandringham, much less of large crowds attending her as she did so.

But in recent years, this Royal walk to worship has become something of a spectacle: people gather to present flowers, call out greetings, and hope for the chance of a chat or even a selfie with one of the Royals. It’s strange: most seem to pay little or no attention to the service in church (old-fashioned Matins), which is sometimes broadcast to the crowds outside. And they are certainly not in church themselves—instead, they have traveled by car (Sandringham is in a rural part of Norfolk) simply to be near the Royals on this Christmas morning in what seems to be turning into a sort of substitute for Christian worship.

I have lost count of the times that Americans, taking part in the Catholic History Walks that I lead around London, have asked me about the status of the Church of England and the religious prospects of our country. They are fascinated by the role of the King.

The situation is going to get messy. Along with many (most?) other Catholics in the UK, I have always felt that having some Church of England bishops in the House of Lords is in general a good thing, bringing some Christian influence to bear and paying due tribute to our Christian tradition and heritage. As St John Henry Newman put it, the Church of England was at least some sort of bulwark against atheism. But today’s Anglican bishops certainly cannot offer any reliable guarantee that they will defend, for example, marriage as the specific union of a man and a woman or the need to protect children in the womb.

Numbers for Anglican worship are plummeting. Catholic numbers are poor, too, and the majority of boys and girls at our Catholic schools are certainly not at Mass on Sundays. We can muster large crowds for major events, and there are big gatherings at, for example, the national shrine at Walsingham every summer. A major conference planned for February with Bishop Robert Barron among the speakers will certainly fill the massive O2 arena in London’s former docklands. But the state of the Catholic church is poor: we are not ordaining enough priests and parishes are being effectively merged or having to offer reduced numbers of Sunday Masses.

On the other hand, the general trend is towards orthodox and traditional beliefs and values among the Catholic young: the days of “kum-by-ya” are over, and projects like Radio Maria, Youth 2000 (still booming and attracting the children and grandchildren of its founders), and the Faith Movement (ditto) flourish along with Latin chant and Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. Large numbers of African, West Indian, Goan, Filipino, and Hong Kong Chinese parishioners keep urban and suburban congregations flourishing and produce crowds at pilgrimages and diocesan events.

What next? At a guess, nothing dramatic. The quietly busy Anglicanism that Queen Elizabeth II knew and lived has gone: today many country churches of Medieval beauty attract only a tiny group of worshippers. The vicar, sometimes with his young family, still exists in rural areas—usually serving several churches—and the most energetic tend to be of an Evangelical style. There continues to be a small, irregular trickle of the “high” Anglican clergy towards the Catholic church. The Church of England’s lady “priests” tend to describe themselves as having studied “pastoral theology” in what is often a later-life career change with—at least to this Catholic questioner—a confusion about once standard Christian theology. There is a lot of emphasis on higher-level bureaucracy with well-paid staff at diocesan levels, and this has caused some public backlash, as has a recent announcement that the Church of England would pay sums of money to undisclosed recipients in countries deemed to have suffered from Anglican involvement in slavery two hundred years ago.

The present government seems likely to try to evict the Anglican bishops from the House of Lords. The Anglicans’ Synod will probably endorse formally the arrangement for public same-sex blessings that has already been agreed upon for private ceremonies. The Methodist church, once a major part of community life, has long conceded to the general culture on such issues and will continue to melt away in its former heartlands—Wales is now dotted with former chapels that have become picturesque holiday homes for well-to-do city dwellers.

The scene is messy and frankly bleak. England isn’t going to become Catholic anytime soon, and nor will it be sensible to describe us as an Anglican country. The Moslem strength grows daily. Large numbers throng the mosques, and Islamic dress is a normal sight on city streets, along with advertisements for Moslem projects and, of course, halal meat food for Eid as standard in supermarkets.

Don’t assume any dramatic change at a formal level in Britain’s Church/state relationships. Don’t assume, either, that things are static. They never are. When Catholics talk—and pray—about the conversion of England, as they have never ceased to do since the Guild of Our Lady of Ransom was founded during the Catholic revival of the 19th century, they do so with a recognition of our complicated history. The Reformation in England was never a popular movement—it was imposed from above via a king’s lust, a dynasty anxious to assert its power, and an episcopate in need of renewal.

The Church of England, inheriting the churches and parish system, worked partly through people’s sense of connection with their past and their local, national, and family structures. Today, with a population that is changing daily as new immigrants surge across the Channel and with new media shouting a vast variety of ideas and opinions against formal older structures urging varying degrees of “woke”, the hope for Christian renewal essentially lies where it always has—with the truth committed by Christ to the care of his Church, via fragile men and women with all their hopes and failings. With prayer and courage, that Church can remain and flourish in Britain.

Catholic World Report