The recent publication of a private letter written by King Charles III in 1998, when he was Prince of Wales, is causing quite a stir. Written to a friend, Dudley Poplak, it expresses King Charles’ disdain for the imposition of scientism on agriculture, which is itself of interest, but also expresses his scorn for the imposition of “loathsome political correctness” on Christian belief, which might come as a surprise to those who had always assumed that the King had himself succumbed to such “correctness”.
In the first part of the letter, King Charles refers to his opposition to genetically modified organisms (GMOs):
The whole prospect of a “Frankenstein” future fills me with unutterable gloom and despair. It is money that drives everything and wisdom has been banished in the face of seemingly unstoppable marketing. One is made to feel so powerless when confronted by such vast corporations as Monsanto…
It is encouraging to see a head of state speak out, albeit only in private correspondence, about the dangers of corporate globalism and the devastation it is causing to nature and the environment. It was, however, the King’s comments about the way that the Christian churches had been “corrupted by loathsome political correctness” which caused the most controversy. “Personally, the older I get, the more I am drawn to the great, timeless traditions of the Orthodox Church,” the future king wrote. “They are the only ones who have not been corrupted by loathsome political correctness.”
The controversial nature of the King’s words was exacerbated by the succumbing of the Church of England, of which King Charles is the Supreme Governor, to the worst elements of “wokeism”. Back in 2019, the late Queen’s former chaplain, Gavin Ashenden, converted to Catholicism, accusing the Anglican Church of “swallowing political correctness” wholesale. It is also widely believed that Prince Philip, the late Duke of Edinburgh, King Charles’ father, had reverted to the practice of the Greek Orthodoxy in which he’d been raised in disgust at the Church of England’s abandonment of traditional Christian teaching on a host of contentious issues. It was also clear from the tone of Queen Elizabeth’s annual televised Christmas addresses that she was growing in her Christian faith, even as the Anglican Church was evidently losing its own faith in Christ.
Seen in the context of his parents’ evident disdain for the heretical drift of the hierarchy of the Church of England, it might come as less of a surprise that King Charles should share their concern. It is odd, however, that in 1994, only four years before the writing of the recently disclosed letter, he had declared his desire to be known “as Defender of Faith, not the Faith”, an apparent wish to be rid of the title of Fidei Defensor (Defender of the Faith), which successive English monarchs have claimed ever since, ironically, the title had been bestowed on Henry VIII by Pope Leo X in 1521.
Considering Charles’ desire to be bereft of any promise to defend “the Faith” in favour of a vague “faith” in something or other, one wonders what sort of faith he is talking about. This prompts some intriguing thoughts. If King Charles does not want to defend the Faith, does he not want to defend the God of Christianity? Whose God does he want to defend? Does he want to defend everyone’s god? Does he want to defend gods in general? Or is even this too dogmatic? Why should faith be restricted to a belief in God or gods? Why shouldn’t we defend faith in dogs instead of gods? Perhaps even faith in dogs is a little too dogmatic. Why not cats? It would certainly seem that Prince Charles’ vague and indefinable faith is more comfortable with dogs than dogma and more at home with cats than catechesis. His aversion to the definite article is an article of indefinable faith in God knows what. Such faith in anything is, in fact, faith in nothing in particular; and a faith in nothing in particular is, in particular, a faith in Nothing. Is Nothing worth defending?
And yet how does this seeming ambivalence and ambiguity about faith in general and “the Faith” in particular sit beside King Charles’ expressed attraction to “the great, timeless traditions of the Orthodox Church” which has “not been corrupted by loathsome political correctness”? One suspects that it is his disdain for the “political correctness” of the Church of England to which he is shackled in the monarch’s role as “Supreme Governor”. It is the vague and ambivalent political correctness of the Church of England which the King does not wish to defend and who can blame him?
Even as King Charles’ letter was being published, the Church of England was embroiled in controversy over its “woke” obsession with “diversity, equity and inclusion”, especially its latest initiative to spend £100 million “to address past wrongs of slavery” at a time when local parishes are facing severe financial challenges. Perhaps, in the wake of such wokeness, the Church of England should awaken to the realities of its own history. On the one hand, its historical role in addressing the wrongs of slavery is exemplary. Anglicans, such as William Wilberforce, were in the vanguard of the campaign to abolish slavery. Without these abolitionist pioneers, or dare we say crusaders, slavery might not have been abolished for many years beyond the Slave Trade Act of 1807, which outlawed the trading of slaves throughout the British Empire, a crucial milestone on the progress towards abolition of slavery itself. The abomination of slavery had been instigated by those who were animated by godless pride’s obsession with self-empowerment and had been abolished by Christians, especially Anglicans, who insisted on the dignity of every human person made in God’s image.
Ironically, the Anglican Church’s record on slavery is one of the few feathers in its historical cap. This being so, it is scandalous that the Church of England is not launching an initiative to spend £100 million “to address the past wrongs” of its systemic execution and persecution of the Catholic citizens of England itself. For almost 150 years, from 1534 until 1680, Catholics were tortured and put to death for the “treason” of being priests or for the “treason” of hiding priests from the Anglican authorities. Then, for a further 150 years, after the executions had ended, the persecutions continued. It was not until 1829 that Catholics were emancipated, only four years earlier than the emancipation of the slaves.
Prior to the three centuries of executions and persecutions, England had been a resolutely Catholic country for almost a thousand years. Why, one wonders, does King Charles not feel an attraction to “the great, timeless traditions” of the Church which forged the faith of his own nation and which built the cathedrals and churches, including Westminster Abbey in which his coronation was held? Might it have something to do with the fact that the anti-Catholic “Act of Settlement”, passed in 1701, forbids him from becoming a Catholic because he is Supreme Governor of the Church of England?
The King is shackled by law to the state religion, which was founded by a tyrant almost five hundred years ago. He is shackled by law to defending the faith of a faithless church. He is enslaved to a monstrous institution from which he cannot escape without relinquishing his throne. Such is the King’s dilemma.
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The featured image is “05/06/2024. Portsmouth, United Kingdom. The Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, together with his wife Akshata Murty, attends a D-Day 80th anniversary UK National Commemoration Event in the presence of HM King Charles, HM The Queen, HRH The Prince of Wales, D-Day veterans, their families, members of the armed forces and other guests. Picture by Simon Walker / No 10 Downing Street.” This file is licensed under the United Kingdom Open Government Licence v3.0, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
I admire Mr. Pearce’s faith and zeal, and it is his Catholic faith and zeal I admire. I read almost everything he writes in this journal and in other outlets, and I own several of his books. I would, however, be loath to pass judgment on the religion of King Charles III, based on pieces of conversations published by the press, here and there. I was close to a person now moved into the Fuller Life who knew the Prince of Wales well and promised me, when once I asked, that the Prince was a man of sincere and deep Christian faith. Of course, as St Paul writes, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” but this C of E person was impressed with Charles’s religion. The king’s faith remains strong, and his religion remains in fact rather traditional. Like many traditionalists, the king finds himself in an awkward position vis-a-vis the Church of England — just as no few RCs find themselves in an awkward position with the current Pope. I can have sympathy for the king. Who knows what the future will bring? In any case, Newman wrote that “the first duty of charity is to enter as much as possible into the thoughts and feelings of others.” Scott Fitzgerald was no Cardinal Newman, but there is such wisdom in the words of Nick Carraway on page 1 of The Great Gatsby: “Reserving judgment is a matter of infinite hope.” (In fact, Fitzgerald may well have learned these very words from Mgr. Sigourney Fay, the brilliant Episcopal convert to Roman Catholicism who was Fitzgerald’s own mentor at the Newman School and afterwards.) In the meantime, we can all remember to pray, “Lead, kindly Light,” which was written in 1833 by a member of the C of E.
Ha! The new “King’s Great Matter!” Good article.
Interesting that the founder of the English church, Henry VIII, regarded himself as Catholic until he died. He had no intention of founding a new church, simply being the head of the then present church was quite sufficient. It was Cranmer who Protestantized the church under the boy king, Edward VI, a status it retains today. If Charles III is serious, he could as the temporal head, simply return the church to the status quo ante of 1532 and the present organization, which styles itself as the Anglican church, could either accept the action or ignore it and remain Protestant. Since Rome already tolerates a considerable number of variances in organization, rubric and custom, it should be no problem to reintegrate the restored English Church.
This is exceptional logic and prose.
What a relief to know that after years of ambiguity, King Charles has joined the ranks of those of us who find ‘political correctness’ “loathsome”.
The remarks were actually made over 25 years ago, but were published just recently.
I heard somewhere that King Charles is a fan of Rene Guenon. I myself appreciate the French metaphysician. It’s clear he has real beliefs but appears to be to cowardly to stand for them.
There have been a lot of people who have seen Charles as the AntiChrist but it would seem that if these are indeed his true sentiments, he is the opposite. Right now, the present “progressive” Pope wants to use the new King for his global agenda. Meanwhile Charles is looking at Eastern Orthodoxy as a return to original Christianity. All of this is very interesting indeed.