The attendance by Catholic Primate Archbishop Eamon Martin at the coronation of King Charles III on Saturday is believed to be the first by an Irish Catholic bishop at such a ceremony since the Reformation. Archbishop Martin also attended the funeral of Queen Elizabeth last September, another first for hundreds of years.
Cardinal Vincent Nichols, President of the Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales, will be the first Catholic bishop to play a formal role in such a coronation since the Reformation when he blesses King Charles III during the ceremony in Westminster Abbey.
Also present there will be a papal delegation led by Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican Secretary of State and the first papal representative to take part in a coronation ceremony in England in almost 500 years. There too will be the newly appointed papal nuncio to Britain, Spanish Archbishop Miguel Maury Buendía.
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In another significant gesture, Pope Francis donated two splinters from the Cross of Christ, from among relics in the Vatican Museums, for incorporation into a new Cross of Wales which will lead the King’s coronation procession on Saturday.
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As well as assuming the role of supreme governor of the Church of England on Saturday, Charles III will also take the traditional title of “fidei defensor,” or “defender of the faith,” bestowed on Henry VIII in 1521 by Pope Leo X. Henry’s relationship with Rome ended in 1534 when he appointed himself the head of the Church of England.
Queen Camilla was baptized Protestant but she was married by a Catholic priest in 1973 to her Catholic first husband, Andrew Parker-Bowles. They brought up their son and daughter as Catholics.
It is believed the last time a cardinal was involved with a coronation ceremony in these islands was in 1543, when Cardinal David Beaton presided at the crowning of a 10-month old Mary Queen of Scots. The last Catholic bishop to attend a coronation was Bishop Stephen Gardiner who placed the crown on Queen Mary’s head in 1553. She was succeeded by Protestant Queen Elizabeth I, who was excommunicated as a “servant of wickedness” in 1570 by Pope Pius V.
Catholics, lay or clerical, did not attend Queen Elizabeth’s coronation in 1953 as the Church banned attendance at Protestant services. For that reason in 1949 the Irish government, led by Taoiseach John A Costello, remained in their state cars outside Dublin’s St Patrick’s Cathedral as the funeral service for Ireland’s first president Douglas Hyde, a member of the Church of Ireland, took place inside.
Last Tuesday in Armagh Archbishop Eamon Martin attended a special service ahead of the coronation at the Church of Ireland’s St Patrick’s Cathedral in that city. It was led by Church of Ireland primate Archbishop John McDowell who will also be attending Saturday’s coronation as will Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland Rev Dr John Kirkpatrick and President of the Methodist Church in Ireland Rev David Nixon.
