England Leaning More Catholic?

Tony Blair, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

There are several indications that the political leadership in the UK is leaning a bit more towards Catholicism.

Last year, former prime minister Tony Blair became Catholic (and for a while he has been one to possibly become the EU president, see Tony Blair a Catholic EU Leader?)

The monarchy rules in the UK may be changed to allow a Catholic King/Queen:

Govt mulls allowing Catholic monarchs

AFP – Sept 25, 2008

LONDON (AFP) — The government is drawing up plans to end a 300-year-old exclusion of Catholics from the line of succession, as well as ending the priority given to male heirs, according to a newspaper report.

The Labour government would introduce the necessary legislation after the next election, according to The Guardian, which has long petitioned for a change in the law that critics have condemned as discriminatory…

Rules laid out in the Bill of Rights 1688, the Act of Settlement 1700 and the Act of Union 1706 state that the monarch must be a Protestant, and any royal who marries a Catholic is barred from the line of succession…

A parliamentary briefing paper published in August warned that changing the law “could open up extremely complex constitutional issues”.

There were “problems inherent in trying to disentangle matters of religion and politics, being, as they are, at the heart of core aspects of the British constitution”, it said, in reference to the monarch’s role as head of the Anglican church. http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iDLv7FG2IleyDobOhC6ua7lxGhpw

But perhaps even more disturbing is that Anglican leaders have not only approached the Vatican about some type of reconciliation, some went so far as to recently visit the site of one of the apparitions claimed to be Mary:

Anglican archbishop comes under fire for homily at Lourdes

CNS – Sept 24, 2008

LONDON (CNS) — Anglican Archbishop Rowan Williams of Canterbury, England, has come under fire for his homily during a pilgrimage to the Marian sanctuaries in Lourdes, France.

Archbishop Williams, leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion, said in a homily during a Sept. 24 international Mass at Lourdes that when Mary appeared to St. Bernadette Soubirous in 1858 “she came at first as an anonymous figure, a beautiful lady, a mysterious thing, not yet identified as the Lord’s spotless mother.

“And Bernadette — uneducated, uninstructed in doctrine — leaped with joy, recognizing that here was life, here was healing,” he said. “Only bit by bit does Bernadette find the words to let the world know; only bit by bit, we might say, does she discover how to listen to the Lady and echo what she has to tell us.”

He also praised the lives of the saints, saying that their examples “matter so much.”

The archbishop later was criticized by the England-based Protestant Truth Society, a group of Anglicans and nonconformists committed to upholding the ideals of the Protestant Reformation…Jeremy Brooks, the group’s director of ministry, said: “All true Protestants will be appalled that the archbishop of Canterbury has visited Lourdes and preached there.

“Lourdes represents everything about Roman Catholicism that the Protestant Reformation rejected, including apparitions, Mariolatry and the veneration of saints,” he said in a Sept. 24 statement. “The archbishop’s simple presence there is a wholesale compromise, and his sermon — which included a reference to Mary as ‘the mother of God’ — is a complete denial of Protestant orthodoxy.”

He added, “At a time when our country is crying out for clear biblical leadership, it is nothing short of tragic that our supposedly Protestant archbishop is behaving as little more than a papal puppet.”

Archbishop Williams was invited to the sanctuaries, where Mary appeared to St. Bernadette 150 years ago, by Bishop Jacques Perrier of Tarbes and Lourdes. His visit is the first in modern times by an archbishop of Canterbury. Archbishop Williams held talks there with German Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, who celebrated the international Mass.

Archbishop Williams was joined by an unprecedented pilgrimage of 10 Church of England bishops, some 60 Anglican priests and about 400 Anglican lay worshippers.http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0804863.htm

While some may ultimately feel that they are safer with Catholicism, the Bible indicates that any such safety will only be temporary.

Several articles of possible interest may include:

Europa, the Beast, and Revelation Where did Europe get its name? What might Europe have to do with the Book of Revelation? Will apparitions of “Mary” affect Europe’s future?
Mary, the Mother of Jesus and the Apparitions Do you know much about Mary? Are the apparitions real? What might they mean? How might Mary view them?
Anglo – America in Prophecy & the Lost Tribes of Israel Are the Americans, Canadians, British, Scottish, Welsh, Australians, Anglo-Southern Africans, and New Zealanders descendants of Joseph? Where are the lost ten-tribes of Israel? Who are the lost tribes of Israel? Will God punish the U.S.A., Canada, United Kingdom, and other Anglo nations? Why might God allow them to be punished first?
Which Is Faithful: The Roman Catholic Church or the Church of God? Do you know that both groups shared a lot of the earliest teachings? Do you know which church changed? Do you know which group is most faithful to the teachings of the apostolic church? This documented article answers those questions.