Charles crosses swords with Church

Press, 3 July 1978, Page 1

Charles crosses swords with Church

London A leading Roman Catholic archbishop has criticised Prince Charles for his remarks about religious differences which cause “needless I’stress.” The Archbishop of Glasgow (the Most Rev. Thomas Winning), an expert on Roman Catholic law on matrimony, said the Prince's remarks would cause annoyance and anger to millions. The Prince’s remarks in a speech to the Salvation Army international congress at Wembley, have been widely interpreted as being critical of the Church for refusing to allow Prince Michael of Kent and his Roman Catholic bride. Baroness Marie-Christine

von Reibnitz, to marry in church. Prince Charles praised the Salvationists for having a Christianity which was at its most essential, simple, and effective level, “unfettered by academic or theological concern for dogma or doctrine.” “When people are uncertain about what is right and what is wrong, and anxious about being considered old fashioned, it seems to be worse than folly that Christians are still arguing about doctrinal matters which can only bring needless distress to a number of people. "Surely, what we should worry about is whether people are going to be atheists and whether they know what is right and what is wrong, or whether

they are going to be given an awareness of the things of the spirit and of the infinite beauty f Nature — these are the things that matter.” The Archbishop said: “Prince Charles’s statement presumably applies to the Pope’s refusal to grant a dispensation in relation to the marriage. “His remarks will cause annoyance and anger to millions of the Queen’s loyal subjects who care deeply about truth, doctrine, and principal and also who care deeply about relationships with fellow Christians in other churches. “Perhaps he might care to enlarge his remarks to cover other aspects of this case such as the law of the land which prohibit'

Roman Catholics from becoming the Monarch.

“We all want to see relationships between the Christian churches further improved.

“But it will not be achieved by papering over the cracks and pretending that major diffe-ences of belief and practice do not exist.”

A spokesman for the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland said the Archbishop’s statement had been issued in response to inquiries from the press. Archbishop Winning, iged 53, has been Archbishop of Glasgow since 1974. The Archdiocese had 300,000 Roman Catholics. Before that he was an advocate of the Sacred Roman Rota in 1965 — the 'hurch’s supreme court for

matrimonial appeals. Prince Michael married Baroness von Reibnitz at a brief civil ceremony on Saturday. About 20 close relatives, including Princess Anne, attended the wedding in a rented room of Vienna’s towering, black, neo-gothic Town hall. The ceremony, conducted in German by Vienna’s inner-city registrar, Mr Edmund Pleyl, was held in the flowerbedecked stone salon, a fifth-floor room lit by stained-glass windows set in high gothic arches. The marriage was witnessed by the Prince’s brother, the Duke of Kent, and the bride’s mother, Countess Marianne Koczorowska. Prince Michael forgot to

take his passport to the .ceremony, and was told it was needed for Austrian formalities. A British official hurried to the British Embassy to fetch it.

It was the first civil wedding ceremony in the British Royal Family since the Duke of Windsor married the American divorcee, Wallis Warfield Simpson, in France 41 years ago after abdicating as King Edward VHI. The Prince and his bride spent their wedding night apart because the bride wanted to attend a private Mass on Sunday to set a religious seal on the marriage. She and Prince Michael attended the Mass in a monastery next door to the church where they originally had hoped to be married.