An unconstitutional bill

Sovereignty and self-determination - one way or another they are filling the news these days. Unfortunately some of our politicians don't seem to have grasped the meaning of the words. Cameron has been forced into a referendum promise on the EU because many people feel that we have given away too much sovereignty to Europe. Alex Salmond wants self-determination for Scotland, only to hand it to Brussels instead of London. As Calton understands it, the reason why we don't allow our Monarch to be a Roman Catholic is because Roman Catholics are subject to the Pope, who is not only the Head of the Roman Catholic Church but is also the Head of the Vatican State. If our Monarch was Roman Catholic, it would put our Sovereignty under the rule of the Vatican. (And the Head of the Church of England under the Pope.) So Cameron wants to repatriate powers from Brussels only to potentially hand them to Rome at some future date by abolishing the ban on successors to the throne marrying Roman Catholics. Saying that any children from such a union will not be brought up as Roman Catholics is a nonsense because any decent Roman Catholic will want to educate their children in the Roman Catholic faith. Calton is all for changing the rules of succession to stop girls being ousted by younger brothers but any other change needs to be properly scrutinised, not rushed through parliament without debate, as Cameron and Clegg are now doing. Otherwise the constitutional consequences could be profound. (For more on those consequences read this article by Cranmer.)


PS. Calton often thinks that it would be no bad thing if the Church of England was disestablished, but there's no point in doing so just to replace it with the Church of Rome.