Diamond Jubilee

THIS YEAR marks the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II. In June, celebrations will be held across the United Kingdom and the British Commonwealth to mark the 60th year of her reign.

In the United Kingdom, there will be an extra day on the Spring Bank Holiday (the last Monday in May), giving people a four-day holiday in honour of the celebration, which also marks the Queen’s official birthday. Events in London that weekend will include a huge concert and a parade of boats and events along the River Thames on 3 June, in which 1,000 vessels are expected to take part – the largest flotilla to be seen on the river in 350 years. More than one million people are expected to watch from the riverbanks. Street parties will also take place in cities, towns and villages across the country.

 

Head of the Commonwealth

 

The world has changed considerably since the young Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary became Queen on the death of her father, King George VI, on 6 February 1952. She was just 26, married to Prince Philip and with two young children. Europe was still recovering from the devastation of World War Two. There were still food shortages and many cities remained bomb damaged. Yet Britain still ruled over an empire. In the forthcoming years many countries went on to became independent republics. Elizabeth is now the constitutional monarch of 16 sovereign states known as the Commonwealth realms: among them the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica and Barbados. As Head of the Commonwealth, she is also the figurehead of the 54-member ‘Commonwealth of Nations’. And, as the British monarch, she is the Supreme Governor of the Church of England.

 

Breach with Rome

 

Until the 1530s, Britain, like the rest of western Europe, was Catholic. This changed when Henry VIII decided he wanted to divorce his wife and remarry. Infuriated by the Pope’s refusal, Henry declared himself Supreme Head of the Church in England, and embarked on a systematic closure of all the monastic communities, evicting their occupants and seizing their property. There was a brief return to Catholicism under his elder daughter Mary I (1555-58), but then England officially became Protestant in 1559 under his younger daughter Elizabeth I (1558-1603). For the next 232 years, it was illegal, and often dangerous to be a Catholic in England.

Many people died for their faith, and many more suffered imprisonment and fines if they did not attend Church of England services. There were periodic attacks on Catholics, but gradually the official persecution relaxed by the 18th century. In 1767 there were about 80,000 Catholics in England (about 1 percent of the population), mostly attending Mass in private chapels and homes. Though excluded from Parliament, magistracies, military and naval commissions and the universities, they included lawyers, doctors, and other humbler jobs.

 

Emancipation Act

 

Although there was considerable anti-Catholic feeling in society, Catholic worship became legal again in 1791. Because of the French Revolution, many English colleges and monasteries on the Continent moved back to England and church building began again.

By the Emancipation Act of 1829, Catholics had recovered most of the rights enjoyed by their fellow-citizens. In the 1840s many thousands of Catholic migrants arrived from Ireland, fleeing the famine there, and there was a great upsurge of converts from the Church of England, who included the future Cardinals Newman and Manning.

In 1850, Pope Pius IX restored the Catholic Hierarchy in England, with Westminster as the metropolitan see, and its occupant the lawful successor of the Catholic Archbishops of Canterbury.

Tensions between the Catholic and Anglican churches eased greatly through the 20th century. When my mother became a Catholic in 1936, her Anglican family were very shocked. Today few people would be concerned.

 

Ecumenical Queen

 

The Queen and Prince Philip have met Pope John XXIII and Pope John Paul II at the Vatican through the years. In a great gesture of reconciliation, when Pope John Paul II made his pastoral visit to England in 1982, the Queen welcomed him to Buckingham Palace. In 1995 she became the first monarch in centuries to join in a Catholic service when she attended vespers at Westminster Cathedral.

In 1999, the Queen awarded Cardinal Basil Hume the Order of Merit days before he died. A Buckingham Palace spokesman said, “This is in the spirit of co-operation, unity and friendship that Her Majesty has always practised. It is a sign of the ecumenical age we are in.”

History was made in January 2002, when the Queen invited Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor to stay at her home in Sandringham, Norfolk, and preach to the Royal Family at their Sunday morning service. The invitation marked a formal end to difficulties between the Queen as Head of the Church of England and the Catholic Church.

An Archbishop’s House spokesman said, “The Cardinal is greatly honoured by the Queen’s invitation. This is a further sign of the Queen’s own determination to promote ecumenical relations within the nation.”

 

Force for good

 

In September 2010, the Queen officially welcomed Pope Benedict XVI to the UK, at Holyrood House and spoke of her memories of her own visits to the Vatican and meetings with some of his predecessors. She said, “Much has changed in the world during the nearly thirty years since Pope John Paul’s visit. In this country, we deeply appreciate the involvement of the Holy See in the dramatic improvement in the situation in Northern Ireland. Elsewhere the fall of totalitarian regimes across central and eastern Europe has allowed greater freedom for hundreds of millions of people. The Holy See continues to have an important role in international issues, in support of peace and development and in addressing common problems like poverty and climate change”.

The Pope thanked the Queen for her hospitality, and extended his own greetings to all the people of the UK. He spoke of the force for good throughout Britain’s long history, coming from a “respect for truth and justice, for mercy and charity” that benefits Christians and non-Christians alike. Speaking of the UK’s international relations, he said, “Looking abroad, the United Kingdom remains a key figure politically and economically on the international stage. Your Government and people are the shapers of ideas that still have an impact far beyond the British Isles. This places upon them a particular duty to act wisely for the common good. Similarly, because their opinions reach such a wide audience, the British media have a graver responsibility than most and a greater opportunity to promote the peace of nations, the integral development of peoples and the spread of authentic human rights. May all Britons continue to live by the values of honesty, respect and fair-mindedness that have won them the esteem and admiration of many”.

 

Mgr Antonio Mennini

 

In March 2011 new Apostolic Nuncio to Great Britain, Mgr Antonio Mennini, was taken by horse-drawn carriage from Archbishop’s House, Westminster, to Buckingham Palace to present his Letter of Credence to the Queen and his predecessor’s Letter of Recall.

Speaking about his audience with the Queen, Mgr Antonio Mennini said, “I told the Queen that the aim of my mission is to strengthen the already existing good relations between the United Kingdom and the Holy See and to strengthen the good fraternal relations with the Anglican Church in order to give a common witness to the values of the Gospel.

“The Queen said that she believed all Christians should work together to achieve this goal. She underlined the fact that the Holy Father’s visit was a big success, and allowed both the United Kingdom and the Holy See not only to highlight the areas of current joint working, but to look into new areas of effective co-operation for the well-being of the entire human family.”

 

MASS FOR QUEEN ELIZABETH

It is a sign of the warmth felt by Catholics in the UK towards Queen Elizabeth II that the Bishops’ Conference has requested that on the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, Sunday 3 June 2012, each parish will celebrate a Mass with prayers to commemorate her Diamond Jubilee.

During this Mass, the first reading is replaced by 1 Kings 3:11-14, and the Prayer for the Queen, which has been approved by the Bishops, is used after the Post Communion Prayer and before the Final Blessing.



 PRAYER FOR THE QUEEN

V. O Lord, save Elizabeth, our Queen.

R. And hear us on the day we call upon you.

V. O Lord, hear my prayer.

R. And let my cry come before you.

V. The Lord be with you.

R. And with your spirit.

Almighty God, we pray that your servant Elizabeth, our Queen, who, by your providence has received the governance of this realm, may continue to grow in every virtue, that, imbued with your heavenly grace, she may be preserved from all that is harmful and evil and, being blessed with your favour may, with her consort and the royal family, come at last into your presence, through Christ who is the way, the truth and the life and who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.