by Mark Michael, The Living Church
Prime Minister Andy Burnham, the first lifelong Catholic politician to hold the office, announced plans on September 10 to introduce legislation that would abolish historic legal restrictions that prevent Catholics and Jews from advising the Crown on the appointment of senior leaders in the Church of England, including its archbishops, bishops, and the deans of its historic cathedrals.
“It is … unacceptable for there to be a legislative bar against people of any faith performing all the functions of my office. The Government will therefore introduce a Bill at the earliest possible opportunity to correct this antiquated and archaic anomaly,” Burnham said.
In the meantime, the prime minister has transferred this largely symbolic responsibility to the Lord Chancellor, the Rt. Hon. Alex Norris. Norris has not publicly discussed his own religious convictions, but is not a practicing Catholic or Jew.
The restrictions triggered by Burnham’s election as the United Kingdom’s head of government in July were imposed by two 19th-century laws whose general force was to grant wider citizenship rights to non-Protestants, the Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1829 and the Jews Relief Act of 1858.
Section 18 of the Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1829 prohibits “any person professing the Roman Catholic religion directly or indirectly to advise his Majesty … concerning the appointment to or disposal of any office or preferment in the Church of England, or in the Church of Scotland.” Those who violate the law, it adds, shall be “deemed guilty of a high misdemeanor, and disabled for ever from holding any office, civil or military, under the Crown.” Section 4 of the Jews Relief Act of 1858 uses nearly identical language.
Indirectly, the restrictions date back to the religious politics of 17th-century Britain, which saw the monarchy and the episcopacy abolished for 11 years by radical Protestants and nearly four years of rule by a Catholic king, James II.
The Test Acts, passed in the 1670s after the restoration of the monarchy, restricted public office in England and Wales to communicants of the Church of England. Similar laws privileged members of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland and the Anglican Church of Ireland.
Read also: Catholic PMs shouldn’t be appointing Anglican bishops by Christopher Howse, Telegraph