Catholic Medical Quarterly Volume 74(4) Nov 2024
Book Review
A Defence of Monarchy. Catholics under a Protestant King
Edited by Joseph Shaw
Angelico Press
Reviewed by Dr Pravin
Thevathasan
A
fascinating collection of essays are found in this book. Really
challenging questions are examined. For example, why did not Queen
Elizabeth withhold her assent when the 1967 abortion law was passed? In
contrast, in 1990, Baudouin, late Catholic king of Belgium, did precisely
that. He asked the government to declare him temporarily unable to reign
so that he could avoid signing the measure into law. The Catholic
theologian Alan Firmister is quoted as saying that the British
constitutional system is immoral. He cites Pope Zachary as claiming that
"it is not appropriate for someone to bear the name of king while
exercising no actual power." James Bogle, the Catholic lawyer, argues
otherwise: the option of a temporary abdication was not available to Queen
Elizabeth.
The Catholic philosopher Joseph Shaw points out that the Queen was not even able to make a public protest about the legalisation of abortion because "by the most stringent constitutional convention, the monarchy must be publicly apolitical." Shaw also provides the reader with an excellent description of the difference between formal and material cooperation. We may have to cooperate in evil. But what we can never do is intend evil.
In an excellent chapter in defence of the monarchy, Catholic writer Sohrab Ahmari argues that human beings are "wired" for ritual. The coronation ritual was indeed moving. Such rituals are "needed for decent and stable societies." The purpose of the coronation ritual, argues Ahmari, was to "erase" Charles as an individual. He is now king. The ritual is profoundly Christian: when he was anointed with oil, we were reminded that such oils have always been the "mark of the self-sacrificing King of Kings: Jesus is anointed before he undergoes his passion, death and burial. " Charles, as a Christian statesman, is now united with the sacrifice of Christ.
I found this book truly fascinating