Suppose that you are the future head of the Church of England but you want to get married in a different church, in this case one belonging to the Church of Scotland — Big Problem.  Yes, believe it or not the Reformation still means something.

In case you have not been following the British royal gossip, and I hadn’t until it broke into the realm of Reformed theology, the rumor is going around that Prince William, second in line to the British throne, is close to having an announced engagement to girlfriend Kate Middleton.  If true, congratulations to both of them.  The problem that has arisen is that according to The Daily Express…

A source told the Sunday Express: “Officials at Buckingham Palace have been under huge pressure from Kate to try to persuade the Queen to agree to a Scottish wedding.

“Scotland will always have a special place in Kate’s heart because that is where she met William and where they spent so many happy years together at St Andrews University.”

Romantic weddings are nice…  However when marrying a future king and head of the state church there is a part of the constitution that requires you to be married in the church you will someday be the head of. Unfortunately for romance 450 years ago the Church of Scotland decided that the church did not need the monarch as part of its structure and declared that Jesus Christ was the Head of the Church.  The British royals have a respected place but not religious position in this National Church.  Word is that they are back to church shopping now that St. Giles has been ruled out.  (There would be something ironic about getting married next to the grave and in the shadow of a statue of a reformer who was not afraid to take the monarch to task.)

There is another interesting twist to this church and state thing, the decision for the Queen to meet the Pope in Edinburgh on his visit in September rather than in London.  Church spokespersons deny any church/state reason for this (from the Scotsman):

The church yesterday also denied conspiracy theories that His Holiness was meeting Her Majesty in Scotland to avoid embarrassing questions over his call for Anglicans to rejoin the Catholic Church.

While the Queen is head of the Church of England, she is only a member of the Church of Scotland, because of the constitutional settlement around the Act of Union.

The practical reason for the location is that the monarch will already be in the neighborhood for her summer holidays.  But it does seem a handy device that since they won’t be in England this will avoid the head of one break-away church having to greet the current head of the church they broke away from and is now open to churches transferring back.

Finally, the fact that the Church of Scotland is also a break-away church as well is not lost on the pontiff, and he recognizes the difference between Presbyterians and Anglo-Catholics.  Back at the beginning of February the Pope met with the Scottish Bishops and had this to say about the Reformation:

The Church in your country, like many in Northern Europe, has suffered the tragedy of division. It is sobering to recall the great rupture with Scotland’s Catholic past that occurred 450 years ago. I give thanks to God for the progress that has been made in healing the wounds that were the legacy of that period, especially the sectarianism that has continued to rear its head even in recent times. Through your participation in Action of Churches Together in Scotland,see that the work of rebuilding unity among the followers of Christ is carried forward with constancy and commitment. While resisting any pressure to dilute the Christian message, set your sights on the goal of full, visible unity, for nothing less can respond to the will of Christ.

It would seem that the Anglican division is seen as less substantial than the Reformed differences — the “great rupture.”  And what is meant by “resisting any pressure to dilute the Christian message” being used in an ecumenical reference is left as an exercise for the reader.