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A law change allowing a first-born daughter to succeed to the throne — and permitting an heir to the throne to marry a Catholic — has been passed by the House of Commons.
But an effort by a Catholic MP, Jacob Rees-Mogg, to change the Succession to the Crown Bill so that a Catholic could become king or queen was unsuccessful.
Rees-Mogg described the current exclusion as a “grating unfairness”, adding that he thought the Church of England could still be protected as the established church in the United Kingdom.
The bill specifies that the children of a monarch must be brought up as Anglicans if they are to retain their place in the line of succession, given the sovereign’s role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England.
“A Catholic may marry an heir to the throne, but may not then maintain the succession by bringing up a child of that marriage as a Catholic. Now the reason I object to this is that it is an attack on the teaching of the Catholic Church,” Rees-Mogg said.
Cabinet Office minister Chloe Smith said there was no public support to allow Catholics to succeed to the throne. Introducing such a fundamental change would also undermine the Church of England at a time when “instability was not welcome”.
Rees-Mogg’s amendment to allow a non-Anglican monarch to hand over the ecclesiastical role to a regent was rejected.
A Catholic MP from Northern Ireland, Mark Durkan, said the language proposed in the succession bill relating to the Catholic religion was offensive.
“The choice we’re making…is basically putting a twenty-first century license on arcane and offensive language, quite sectarian provisions. Provisions which, if a politician in Northern Ireland used that same language on a political platform, people would be talking about incitement to religious hatred,” he said.
The bill still has to go to the House of Lords for further scrutiny. The 15 other realms of the Commonwealth have already given their agreement.
The changes will mean that if the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s first child, expected in July, is a girl, she can become monarch even if she later has younger brothers.
Sources:
Image: The Anglophile
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