Find out by listening to the episode here
Publications mentioned
People Magazine cover story: William & Kate Secrets of Their Royal Romance - November 8, 2010
Hello! Canada Weekly No 193 8 November 2010
Vanity Fair - November 2010 edition
Harmony: A New Way of Looking at Our World
Article mentioned
VF Daily - Prince Charles on the Environment, the Monarchy, His Family and Islam
From My Royal Collection
A Year with the Queen
Tune in to the next episode of The Royal Report on Sunday November 21, 2010 at 9:00PM EST (North America)
The topic will be: Do Kate Middleton's parents deserve privacy?
© Marilyn Braun 2010
7 comments:
I'm not sure I want the monarchy modernised, to be quite honest, and though I've always been an admirer of The Prince of Wales - not always agreed with his every decision - but agree with and respected a lot of his work. However, I think, especially in recent years, that I might be more of a traditionalist than he is - ok, I'm a serious traditionalist.
I recently wrote about an article I came acrossed featuring The Duchess of Cornwall - check it out: http://officiallyshane.blogspot.com/2010/11/duchess-of-bold-talk.html
I think the royal family could make some changes, ones that are long in coming such as changing the succession rules as well as the rule that doesn't allow royals to marry Catholics.
Otherwise I would say the royal family needs little in the way of modernization. Maybe, when it comes down to modernization, it's more of a glamour factor. The preference for youth and vitality. Might be the reason why people want the throne to bypass Charles and go to William.
It's easy to focus on Prince Charles' personal issues - they're more interesting to people. But I think it's great that he seems to be getting his due when it comes to issues he's championed long before anyone else realized the importance of them.
I have to disagree on the religious issues and succession. There are differences between Anglicans and Catholics. I'm Anglican (Episcopalians, as we more often call ourselves here), and I'm often called a Catholic by those who don't understand, but we are not Catholic, and the Anglican vs. Catholic succession is long-standing. So, no, I'm not in favor of that, nor am I in favor, as the prince of Wales has proposed, he become the defender of "faiths," as opposed to "the faith" upon his succession.
I'm more traditional, in general, so I worry about the damage these modern young royals do to their country's throne.
The royals can marry into other faiths and yet marrying a Catholic isn't allowed. It's ridiculous in this day and age to hold the royals hostage to an act written in 1701.
The Prince of Wales may want to be 'defender of faiths' but I think other faiths can look after themselves without his influence.
The succession rules should definately be changed because they are sexist. Queen Victoria and the present Queen are excellent examples of Queens regnant, so there's no reason to think a female is incapable of ruling based on her sex.
Every royal generation has chipped away at the foundation. Each scandal is supposed to be the downfall of the monarchy, yet it still survives and will continue to.
My bet is that the royals have always acted this way in private, it's just that the media scrutiny has become more intense and minute. The days of the media turning a blind eye to anything related to the royals is long past. The media itself could be to blame for encouraging and pouncing on every little salacious tidbit.
I'm not sure that I agree, once again, when you say the members of the British royal family marry into "other faiths." They may have, over the years, married members of other protestant faiths, outside of Anglicanism, but I can't think of instances where they married outside the protestant faith. One must remember, that anyone in the line of succession is there for they may, one day, become monarch, who is, in turn, head of the church - the protestant Church of England. It gets a bit sticky if the successor is Catholic, etc. And there are Catholic members of the royal family, just not in line to the throne: I think of Princess Michael of Kent, as well as her sister-in-law, the Duchess of Kent.
Your last point is well-taken and I agree, though the media has scrutinized royal houses for, well, years and years, I do think the increase in media outlets, add money to the mixture, and one gets what we see today.
Now that Prince William is off the market, let's take Prince Harry as an example. Harry can marry someone who is Muslim or Jewish, yet he cannot marry a Catholic?
With Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, he lost his place in line but their children did not because they agreed to have them raised in the Church of England. Could be the same way with Harry. Should he marry a Muslim woman, then as long as their children are raised in the Church of England then where is the problem?
Just because you marry someone does not mean you have to take their faith. True there are rules surrounding the RF but I don't see why they should not be allowed to marry Catholics. The line of succession remains Anglican regardless of, say, the religion of the woman Harry marries. The religion of the spouse should have no bearing on this.
I'm not sure that's how it works...or, let's say, not sure how it was "supposed" to work, as it's been years since I studied it or thought much about it. I somehow doubt that Christian leaders of the 18th Century - be they Protestant or Catholic - foresaw that in a Christian nation, with a state church, and in a Chrisitan monarchy, where the sovereign is head of said church, there would ever be a desire to marry outside of Christianity. We have to remember, this is legitimately a Christian nation with a national church, which would be harmed (the church) by a repeal, IMO. I imagine that initially the act was to declare for protestantism over any and all other forms of religious worship.
I can, though, think of exceptions to other provisions to the Act of Settlement, pertaining to parliament.
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