Today is the traditional Feast Day of Christ the King.
Posted on 10/26/2025 4:45:41 PM PDT by ebb tide
Indeed, the Catholic Church does not recognize Anglican orders, and the recent rise of female ordinands in the Church of England – something the Catholic Church infallibly condemns – has further muddied the waters of attempts to overcome doctrinal juxtapositions.
In fact, Anglican converts to Catholicism did not find the day to be the resounding success which many in the media did. Some priests in the Ordinariate also warned of negative impacts of the ceremony. “Am I alone in thinking serious work of Christian unity (sorting out doctrinal difference & heresy) ought to come before the joint services & nice photo opportunities?,” Father Ed Tomlinson asked. “The ordinariate did that and actually united the reformation divide. All else – I fear- gives confusing signals…”
Similarly wrote Father Mark Elliot Smith, also of the English Ordinariate: “It’s also true to say that the Catholic Church & Anglicanism have never looked so much alike while never being so far apart.”
Dr. Gavin Ashenden – Catholic convert and former chaplain to the Queen, told me that it was visually “profoundly moving to see the king and queen sitting alongside the Pope in the Sistine Chapel accompanied by the choir from Saint James’s Palace in London dressed like mini beef eaters singing the exquisite music of Thomas Tallis, who was of course a Catholic.”
“But,” he added, “while the visual impact was profound, the content of the visit itself was light and in substantial. It represented nothing more than generous diplomacy from the Vatican.”
What effect might it have?
Perhaps since King Charles has been criticised for failing to understand the centrality of the Anglican faith that he was born to be supreme governor of, it might have some personal impact to help him recalibrate the significance of the faith itself and the tragedy of the breach with the mother Church.
It was further lamentable that the Sistine Chapel – where the sacred rites take place for the election of a new Vicar of Christ – was made the prop and setting for something given to the focus of climate change.
As noted by the Holy See and Buckingham Palace, the ecumenical prayer was “focused on the theme of ‘Care for Creation’, reflecting Pope Leo’s and His Majesty’s commitment to the protection of Nature and concern for the environment.” It was not, by the official account, prayer for the sake of prayer but prayer for the sake of the current dominating ideology of climate concern.
Indeed, directly following the service, Leo and Charles met with leaders and activists from the environmental sector. “This engagement emphasizes The King and Pope Leo’s common leadership on environmental matters and commitment to sustainability and protecting biodiversity,” the press were told.
This, it seems, was a missed opportunity.
However, summarizing the King’s discussion with Cardinal Pietro Parolin the Vatican said that “recalling the history of the Church in the United Kingdom, there was a shared reflection on the need to continue promoting ecumenical dialogue.” What form such dialogue takes remains to be seen.
With such arguments critiquing the ecumenical ceremony, what is there to be said in defence of the day’s affairs? While it betokened no immediate healing of the schism invoked by the Church of England, some hailed it at least as a positive step in that direction.
Vaticanist Edward Pentin recounted on EWTN that Monsignor Andrew Wadsworth suggested “these gestures give substance to the hope that the British monarch and the Church of England may one day be restored to unity in the Catholic Church.”
Prominent Catholic former MP Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg also welcomed it as a “wonderful symbolic gesture of Christian unity” in that same journey towards unity: importantly unity in the Catholic Church, not just unity itself.
Dr. Joseph Shaw – president of Una Voce International and an Oxford academic – echoed Rees-Mogg in his tone of optimism. “English Catholics,” he told me, “can take great pleasure in King Charles giving the Pope Leo tokens of what he called ‘esteem and appreciation’, and in the Holy Father reciprocating in a such gracious manner.”
This is the language of diplomacy, but there is no reason to think it is insincere on either side. King Charles is a deeply interested in religion, and acknowledges the ancient connection between his office and the Catholic Church. Until the Reformation, the Kings of England were honorary Canons of St Paul Outside the Walls; this connection has been revived by making King Charles a ‘Royal Confrater’ of the Basilica.
Dr. Shaw did not shy away from the differences between Canterbury and Rome, but nevertheless expressed his own hope that Thursday’s visit could serve as an impetus for the former to reconcile to the latter: “There remains a great gulf of belief between King Charles the Pope, but bonds of mutual respect can prepare the way for deeper understanding a reconciliation.”
Indeed, the state visit of Charles III to the Holy See was arguably in line with all that should be expected: pomp, ceremony, diplomacy and ecumenism to the current recommended amounts were all on display. In a world dominated by visual information, the optics were striking but the substance was lacking.
Catholics and Protestants might well join ever more frequently in such ecumenical endeavours, but until the Church of England recognizes the error of its ways there will be no unity in Christ but simply unity in something else.
Catholics eager to express devotion to the Catholic institution of a monarchy should rightly rejoice at all the very proper beauty of yesterday’s state reception, but we should further hope and pray that it is not the end goal, but simply one key step on the path to Anglican reconciliation with the Catholic Church.
In his 1928 encyclical Mortalium animos Pope Pius XI wrote explaining why Catholics were prohibited from participating in non-Catholic “assemblies”:
The union of Christians can only be promoted by promoting the return to the one true Church of Christ of those who are separated from it, for in the past they have unhappily left it. To the one true Church of Christ, we say, which is visible to all, and which is to remain, according to the will of its Author, exactly the same as He instituted it.
Today is the traditional Feast Day of Christ the King.
Just yet another example of more change from the group that claims they never change.
Why bother?
Both churches are on the edge of apostasy.
A flock of sheep driven out by goats.
Nothing but a photo op.
Let's see how far that gets you.
Can a Muslim and a Catholic get along?
Second Corinthians 6:17
17 Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you.
Apostate churches abound.
Pick your poison.
Looks like you already have.
I, however, choose not to.
14 I am the good shepherd; and I know mine, and mine know me. 15 As the Father knoweth me, and I know the Father: and I lay down my life for my sheep.
16 And other sheep I have, that are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice, and there shall be one fold and one shepherd. John Chapter 10
Do you understand what "one fold" means?
That doesn’t look like charles.
HOMILY BY HIS HOLINESS POPE LEO XIV
Disturbing words from a Catholic pope.
You asked if a muslim and Catholic can get along.
Yes, the Catholic Church is considered to contain the entire truth. It is described as the only way to salvation because it alone has received from Christ both the commission and the means to lead men to salvation (V19 German Bishops A Catholic Catechism 1958 141:1). The Church is characterized by its unity in faith, sacraments, and governance under one head, the pope, and it is deemed infallible in its teachings (V8 Pius X Compendium of Christian Doctrine 1905 235:5).
Furthermore, the Church teaches that one cannot be a true Catholic while rejecting even one revealed truth, as Catholicism must be held as a whole (V0 Schneider Credo 2023 158:1). The Catholic Church is the only Church that has existed since the time of Christ and possesses the attributes of being one, holy, catholic (universal), and apostolic (V19 German Bishops A Catholic Catechism 1958 139:3).
In summary, the Catholic Church is the sole custodian of the complete truth as revealed by Jesus Christ and is necessary for salvation.
In this case, I meant Pope Leo and Charles.
In my head....Followers of Mohammed, i.e., are not Religious at all. They are a cult of murderous beings who wish to bring everyone to their knees.
Where does that leave you as you believe God can sin?
And you wear the idol known as the scapular?
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