Churches of the West: The Bishop of Rome.

Churches of the West: The Bishop of Rome.: 

The Bishop of Rome.

By this time, most observant conservative Catholics are either so fatigued from Papal issuances that they either disregard them, or cringe when they come out. They seem to come out with a high degree of regularity.

And, while we don't technically have a new one, a "study document" issued by the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity has put out something that has the Pope's approval to be issued, that being something that looks at the role of the Papacy itself:

Now, it's a very large document, so I'm not going to attempt to put it all out here, and I haven't read all of it either.  So, we're going to turn to  The Pillar to find out what it holds.  The Pillar states:

What does it say? 

Helpfully, the text has a section summarizing the four sections (beginning on p106).

1) Regarding responses to Ut unum sint, the document says that the question of papal primacy is being discussed in “a new and positive ecumenical spirit.” 

“This new climate is indicative of the good relations established between Christian communions, and especially between their leaders,” it says. 

2) Concerning disputed theological questions, the text welcomes what it calls “a renewed reading” of the classic “Petrine texts,” which set out the Apostle Peter’s role in the Church.

“On the basis of contemporary exegesis and patristic research, new insights and mutual enrichment have been achieved, challenging some traditional confessional interpretations,” it notes. 

One particularly controversial issue, it says, is the Catholic conviction that the primacy of the Bishop of Rome was established de iure divino (by divine law), “while most other Christians understand it as being instituted merely de iure humano” (by human law). 

But the document says that new interpretations are helping to overcome “this traditional dichotomy, by considering primacy as both de iure divino and de iure humano, that is, being part of God’s will for the Church and mediated through human history.” 

Another enduring obstacle is the First Vatican Council. But the document says that here too there has been “promising progress,” thanks to ecumenical dialogues that seek “a ‘rereading’ or ‘re-reception’” of the Council’s decrees. 

This approach, it says, “emphasizes the importance of interpreting the dogmatic statements of Vatican I not in isolation, but in the light of their historical context, of their intention and of their reception — especially through the teaching of Vatican II.” 

Addressing this point in a June 13 Vatican News interview, Cardinal Koch said that since Vatican I’s “dogmatic definitions were profoundly conditioned by historical circumstances,” ecumenical partners were encouraging the Catholic Church to “seek new expressions and vocabulary faithful to the original intention, integrating them into an ecclesiology of communion and adapting them to the current cultural and ecumenical context.”  

“There is therefore talk of a ‘re-reception,’ or even ‘reformulation,’ of the teachings of Vatican I,” the Swiss cardinal explained. 

3) Summarizing the document’s third section, the text says that fresh approaches to disputed questions have “opened new perspectives for a ministry of unity in a reconciled Church.” 

Crucially, the document suggests there is a common understanding that although the first millennium of Christian history is “decisive,” it “should not be idealized nor simply re-created since the developments of the second millennium cannot be ignored and also because a primacy at the universal level should respond to contemporary challenges.”

From the ecumenical dialogues, it’s possible to deduce “principles for the exercise of primacy in the 21st century,” the text says. 

One is that there must be an interplay between primacy and synodality at every level of the Church. In other words, there is a need for “a synodal exercise of primacy.”

Synodality is notoriously difficult to define, but the document describes it at one point as “the renewed practice of the Synod of Bishops, including a broader consultation of the whole People of God.” 

4) Among the practical suggestions for a renewed exercise of the ministry of unity, the document highlights the possibility of “a Catholic ‘re-reception’, ‘re-interpretation’, ‘official interpretation’, ‘updated commentary’ or even ‘rewording’ of the teachings of Vatican I.” 

It also stresses appeals for “a clearer distinction between the different responsibilities of the Bishop of Rome, especially between his patriarchal ministry in the Church of the West and his primatial ministry of unity in the communion of Churches, both West and East.”  

“There is also a need to distinguish the patriarchal and primatial roles of the Bishop of Rome from his political function as head of state,” the text says, adding: “A greater accent on the exercise of the ministry of the pope in his own particular Church, the Diocese of Rome, would highlight the episcopal ministry he shares with his brother bishops, and renew the image of the papacy.” 

The new document appears months after Pope Francis restored the title “Patriarch of the West” among the list of papal titles in the Vatican’s annual yearbook, after it was dropped by his predecessor Benedict XVI. 

Commenting on that development at the June 13 Vatican press conference, Cardinal Koch said that neither Francis nor Benedict XVI offered detailed explanations for the change. 

“But I am convinced they did not want to do something against anyone, but both wanted to do something ecumenically respectful,” he commented. 

Another suggestion is for the Catholic Church to further develop its practice of synodality, particularly through “further reflection on the authority of national and regional Catholic bishops’ conferences, their relationship with the Synod of Bishops and with the Roman Curia.” 

Finally, the text mentions a request for regular meetings among Church leaders at a worldwide level, in a spirit of “conciliar fellowship.”

What does that mean?

Well, frankly, I don't grasp it.

Without having read it, I sort of vaguely grasp that the Pope, who recently revived using the title Patriarch of the West, is sort of modeling this view of the Papacy on the Churches of the East, sort of.  In the East, each Church is autocephalous, with the Patriarch of Constantinople holding a "first among equals" position.  I don't think the Pope intends to fully go in that direction, but vaguely suggest that the synodal model of the East should apply more in the West, and that as Patriarch of the West, perhaps the entire Apostolic Church could be reunited, and perhaps even sort of vaguely include the "mainline" Protestant Churches, by which we'd mean the Lutheran and Anglican Churches.

It sort of interestingly brings up the Zoghby Initiative of the 1970s, in which Melkite Greek Catholic Church bishop Elias Zoghby sought to allow for inter-communion between the Melkites and the Antiochian Orthodox Church after a short period of dialogue.  His position was, basically, that this reunion could occur with a two point profession of faith, those being a statement of belief in the teaching gof the Eastern Orthodox churches and being in communion with the Bishop of Rome as the first among the bishops "according to the limits recognized by the Holy Fathers of the East during the first millennium, before the separation."

Thing was, there really were no limits.  In the first thousand years before the separation it's pretty clear that the Pope was head of the Church.  Indeed, from the earliest days that was recognized.

Bishop Zoghby's initiative went nowhere and he's since passed on, but this sort of interestingly recalls it.  His effort received criticism from figures within Orthodoxy and the Roman Catholic Church, although a few Eastern Catholics admired it.  Here, I'd predict that conservative Catholics are not going to be too impressed.

Additionally, a recent problem barely noticed in the West is that the recent focus of Pope Francis on blessings for people in irregular unions, which is widely interpreted to mean homosexuals, has not only upset conservative Catholics, but Eastern Churches in some cases have backed away from the Catholic Church.  One Eastern Bishop who was getting quite close to Rome came out and stated that Fiducia Supplicans basically prevented any chance of reunion with his church.

This gets back to some things we've noted here before.  One is that this Papacy seems very focused on Europe, although the fact that this also looks towards the East cuts against that statement a bit.  Having said that, a good deal of the early focus of this Papacy was on European conditions, which have continued to be a problem as the German Church is outright ignoring Pope Francis to a large degree.  Loosening the role of the Papacy may stand to make those conditions worse, and probably won't bring the mainstream of the Lutherans and Anglicans in.  Which gets to the next point.  The Reformation is dying.

Seemingly hardly noticed is that the real story in Christianity, to a large degree, is the rapid decline in the old Reformation Protestant churches.  People like to note "well Catholic numbers are declining too", but frankly real statistical data shows that while there may be a decline, it's slight.  Indeed, what appears to be occurring in the Western World is that conversions to Catholicism offset departures. That's not growth, but what that sort of shows is the decline in cultural affiliation with a certain religion and, at least in the US, the end of the byproduct of the Kennedy Era Americanization of the Church.  Indeed, at the same time this is going on, the growth in Catholic conservatism and traditionalism in younger generations has grown too big to ignore.¹ At the same time, Eastern Catholic Churches are gaining members from outside their ethnic communities, and the Easter Orthodox are gaining adherents from conservative Protestants who are leaving their liberalizing denominations.

This is a study document, so it's not a proclamation.  Twenty years ago or maybe even ten, I would have thought this a really good idea.  My instinct now is that its time has passed.  While conservative Catholics hold their breaths about the upcoming next session of the Synod on Synodality, there's sort of a general sense of marking time here as well, and indeed, an uncomfortable one.  The current Papacy has is very near its end, everyone knows this, but it puts out a lot of material that's of a highly substantive, and often controversial, nature.  Much of this is going to have to be dealt with after this Papcy concludes. Both the volume and speed at which things are occurring may reflect this, as that knowledge operates against the clock, but it might also be a reason to slow down at the Vatican level, or even put a bit of a time-out on things.

Footnotes:

1.  Indeed, I was at Confession recently on an average Saturday and noted that as I was there a  young woman with her two children were waiting in front of me, with both children saying Rosaries and the mother wearing a chapel veil. Her mother came in and also was wearing one, and a stunning young woman of maybe 20 came in also wearing one.  Every woman, and most of them were young, were attired in that fashion.

It's a minor example, but very notable.  This is becoming common.

Lex Anteinternet: Resurrection Sunday?

Lex Anteinternet: Resurrection Sunday?: 

Resurrection Sunday?

Before this past weekend, I'd never heard Easter called Resurrection Sunday.  I heard it twice on the weekend shows, once from a conservative Republican in Congress, and once from a centerist Democrat in Congress.  The latter, an African American Congressman from South Carolina, said off hand "we're supposed to call it Resurrection Sunday now".

I don't like it.

Apparently, what this relatively newly coined word is, is part of a widely held angst that everything on the liturgical calendar might have some pagan origin.  This is silly.

The classic one is that Christmas falls on top of a Roman holiday, which is particularly odd given that the Roman holiday so noted first came into existence after the first Christian texts noting the celebration of Christ's Mass in December.  The deal with Easter, apparently, is a fear that it is tied to the northern European goddess Eostre, who was the goddess of fertility and the goddess of the dawn.  People like to say that this is "German", but in actuality it would be Norse, with the Anglo-Saxons having close connections with the Scandinavians even before they became illegal immigrants on Great Britain.  The Venerable Bede made that claim, and he lived from 672 to 735, so in relative terms he was sort of close, but not all that close, to when the Angles, Saxons and Jutes had first shown up.

Bede further claimed that British Christians, using the Saxon calendar, starting calling Easter by that name as it occured in Eosturmonath (April) or Eastermonað.  If so, it also helps explain Easter eggs and the Easter Bunny, although it wouldn't explain why a bunny would leave boiled eggs all over, or why Easter Eggs are so famously associated with the East, as in Ukraine and Russia, either.

That the egg custom is really old and seems to ahve been adopted from a Persian Nowruz tradition actually would serve to explain the eggs. . . The tradition was old by the time it showed up on Great Britain.

The Easter Bunny is more obscure.  Rabbits had no association with Eostre, however.  About all we really know about the Easter Bunny is that it was a German Lutheran custom, and originally it played the role of a judge, evaluating whether children were good or disobedient in behavior at the start of the season of Eastertide, making the rabbit sort of scary.

Back on topic, and be all that as it may, some believe that the word Easter comes from an old Germanic, in this in context it would be Low German, probably Saxon, word for "east" which also, if fully extended to "Easter" grammatically meant to turn to the east. When the etymology is really examined, this is in fact the most likely explanation.  Some who have looked at it go further and claim that the word came from a Latin loan word (of which there are a surprising number in German), that being Auster, which sounds a lot like Easter, but actually had sort of a complicated meaning, the most simple being south, but the word apparently having other more complicated implications associated with the dawn.  However, some would say, including me, that instead Auster and East have the same Indo-European root word, that being  *h₂ews-, which means ‘dawn’, with the sun rising, of course, in the East. Those people claim the Germanic East is a variant of the root *h₂ews-ro-, whereas Auster is the Italic reflex, from *h₂ews-teros.  And it goes from there.

The latter sounds complicated, but this too is more common than we imagine.  Certain elemental Indo-European words have ended up in all the Indo-European languages, twisted and turned over the millennia, which all make sense if their roots are explained, but which don't seem to when you first hear them.  Indeed, there's the added odd widely observed phenomenon that certain words in other languages that depart widely from your native language, almost instantly make sense when you hear them, an example being Fenster, the German world for "window", which is fenestra in Latin and fenêtre in French.  Just my hypothesis on the latter, but it's like because of some deep Indo-European root that we otherwise understand.

Anyhow, for what it is worth, as Americans tend to believe that things are uniquely centered around us, the German word for Easter is Ostern.  I note this as I've seen repeated suggestions that only in English is the word "Easter" used.  This isn't true.  Ostern, which has the distinct "Ost", or "East" in it, is pretty close, suggesting that the directional origin of the name is correct.  I.e., in German Ostern derives from the Ost, the German word for East.

Likewise, the Dutch, who speak a closely related Germanic language, call the day Ooster.  The Dutch word for East is Oosten.  So here too, the Dutch word for Easter derives from the Dutch word for East.

Applying Occam's Razor, and keeping in mind that English is a Germanic language related to German and Dutch (Dutch more closely), leads us to the conclusion that the word "Easter" derives from the cardinal direction East, particularly when the cousin Germanic languages of German and Dutch are considered, which they usually are not.  Once that is done, and it is realized that at about the time the word Easter was first used all the northern German languages were much closer to each other than they are now, and they are still pretty close, logic pretty much dictates this result.

Most language groups do not, however, call Easter that.  The word seems to behave the way German words did and do, and has "East" as its major component, hence "East"er, "Ost"ern and Ooster.

The Scandinavian goddess explanation is considerably more complicated in every fashion.

Most non-Germanic language speakers, and some Germanic language speakers, don't use a word anything like this, of course.  

Latin and Greek, with together with Araamic, would have had the first word for the Holy Day, and they have always called Easter Pascha (Greek: Πάσχα). That is derived from Aramaic פסחא (Paskha), cognate to the Hebrew פֶּסַח‎ (Pesach), which is related to the Jewish Passover, all of which makes both linguistic, historic, and religious sense, although in the latter case one that causes some irony as we'll explain below.  Pascha actually shows up in English in at least Catholic circles, as the term Paschal is given frequent reference in relation to the Last Supper, but also beyond that in relation to Easter.

Of interest, the Swedish word for Easter is Påsk, the Norwegian Påske, the Danish Påske and the Icelandic Páskar.  If the word derived from a Scandinavian goddess, we'd expect the same pattern to hold in Scandinavia, which was the origin point of Eostre, although that would not obviously be true.  Instead, in all of Scandinavia, the word derives from Pascha.

The Frisian word for Easter is Peaske, which is particularly interesting as Frisian is extremely closely related to English and some people will claim, inaccurately, that it's mutually intelligible.  Peaske is obviously from Pascha, but it's almost morphed into Easter, which could cause some rational explanation if Easter is just a badly mispronounced Peaske. Wild morphing of words can occur, as for example the Irish Gaelic word for Easter derives from Pascha, but is Cháisc, which wouldn't be an obvious guess.

Given the German and Dutch examples, however, the Frisian word almost certainly doesn't suggest that Easter came from Pascha.

The use of Pascha makes sense, as every place in Western Europe was Christianized by the Latin Rite of the Church, which would have used a Latin term for the Holy Day.  The difference is, however, they weren't all Christianized at the same time.  The Anglo-Saxons encountered Christianity as soon as they hit the British shores in the 400s, probably around 449. At that time, most of the residents of the island were British or Roman Christians, and they would have sued the Latin term.  Conversion of the invaders is, however, generally dated to the 600s.

The Scandinavians were however much later.  Christianity appeared in Scandinavia in the 8th Century, but it really began to make major inroads in the 10th and 11th Centuries.  When the Church sent missionaries to the Saxons, it remained a much wilder place than it was to be later.  Scandinavia was very wild as well, in the 10th and 11th Centuries, but Scandinavian roaming was bringing into massive contact with the entire Eastern and Wester worlds in a way that sort of recalls the modern impact of the Internet.  They changed quickly, but they were, ironically, more globalist and modern than the Saxons had been a couple of centuries earlier. They also became quite devout, contrary to what Belloc might imagine, and were serious parts of the Catholic World until the betrayal of Gustav Vasa.

But here's the added thing. What if, in spite of the lack of evidence, the day's name in English recalls Eostre or Eosturmonath (Eastermonað"? So what?

Well, so what indeed.  It really doesn't matter.

Early Greek and Aramaic speaking Christians took their term for the day from Passover, or rather פֶּסַח‎ (Pesach).  So they were borrowing a Jewish holiday for the name right from the onset.  Nobody seems to find this shocking or complain about it.  As far as I know, Jews don't complain about it.  It simply makes sense.

And borrowing holidays that preexist and even simply using the dates is smart.  The date of Easter doesn't fit this description at all, but if the word does, borrowing it would have been convenient if a holiday existed that was celebrating rebirth.  Explaining concepts through the use of the familiar is a smart thing to do, and indeed in the US this has been done with a civil holiday, Cinco de Mayo, which Americans inaccurately believe is a Mexican holiday celebrating Mexican independence, and which have made the We Like Mexico holiday.

So, if Eostre had a day, or if the day in Saxon was named after the month named after her, it really doesn't matter.

Indeed, on that latter note, we've kept the Norse goddess Frig in Friday, the Norse God Thor, in Thursday, and the Norse God Woden in Wednesday., in English, and we don't freak out about it. Sunday originally honored the Sun, and we don't find Evangelical's refusing to use the word Sunday, as it's also the Christian Sabbath

So what of Resurrection Sunday?

I'm blaming Oliver Cromwell, fun sucker.

Great Britain's experience in the Reformation was nearly unique, in some ways.  Really radical Protestant movements, such as the Calvinists, took root in some places on the European continent, but by and large they waned, leaving isolated, for the most parts, pockets in areas in which they were otherwise a minority.  Looked at from a distance, the initial round of Protestant "reformers" didn't seek to reform all that much.  Luther continued to have a devotion to the Blessed Virgin, and Lutheran services today look pretty Catholic.  

In England, however, official religions whipped back and forth.  King Henry VIII didn't want a massive reform of theology, he wanted to instead control the Church, but things got rapidly out of hand.  After him, the Church of England struggled between being very Catholic in outlook and being a "reformed" church.  

Cromwell came up as a childhood beneficiary of the theft of Church property in the form of the dissolution and appropriation of the monasteries.  He evolved into being a radical sola scriptura Calvinist and saw the suppression of the Catholic and Anglican Churches come about.  Under his rule, religious holidays were made illegal under the theological error of sola scriptura.  After his death, the English Restoration brought a lot back, but it was never able to fully bring back in Calvinist who had adopted a rather narrow provincial English, or Scottish, view of their Christian faith, filtered through the language that they spoke.  They heavily influenced Christianity in the Americas, and their influence continues to carry on, which explains how they can adopt a view that ignores the other Germanic languages and which, in seeking to give a new term to Easter, ignores the fact that the logical choice would be the Aramaic word פסחא (Paskha) which would appear in the Bible as it would have applied to Passover, or the Greek word Πάσχα, Páscha, which means Easter and Passover.  So modern Evangelicals have inherited the Puritan narrow focus, ignored the other Germanic language words, and ignore the original Greek and Aramaic ones, in order to come up with a new one with no history of use whatsoever.

Let's just stick with Easter.

Lex Anteinternet: Holy Week.

Lex Anteinternet: Holy Week.:  

Holy Week.

 This is Holy Week.  It commenced yesterday with Palm Sunday, which we noted  yesterday:

Palm Sunday

 

Zdzisław Jasiński Palm Sunday 1891.

From City Father:

Palm Sunday

In those countries which were spared the cultural impact of the Reformation, at least directly, at the entire week is one of celebration and observance.  In a lot of those places, people have the whole week off.  Some of Spanish and Central American friends, for example do.

Well, in the English-speaking world we've had to continue to endure the impact of Cromwell and all his fun sucking, so we'll be headed to work instead.

Lex Anteinternet: Friday, November 6, 1942. The Church of England does away with the requirement that women wear hats in Church.

Lex Anteinternet: Friday, November 6, 1942. The Vichy French Surren...: The Church of England abolished its rule requiring women to wear hats in church.

This is an oddly controversial topic among a select group of people even today.

Catholic female factory workers attending a Palm Sunday Mass after getting off work, 1943.

I wasn't aware of the Church of England rule, nor why it was abolished at this point in time.  That it existed, however, isn't surprising, as even though "High Church" Anglicans are critical of the Catholic Church in some ways, they very much lean into it as well.  Indeed, attending a High Church Anglican service gives a glimpse of some of the things that existed in the Catholic Mass long ago, and most older Anglican Churches retain their alter rails.

At any rate, while this may surprise some, in the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church it was a custom, not a law, that women wear head coverings up until the promulgation of the 1917 Code of Canon Law, which required women to wear a head covering and precluded men from wearing hats in church.  While this was the Canon Law, as of 1917, it was also the custom at the time as well, in any event.  Also, contrary to what some may suppose, it was only the Latin Rite that imposed these conditions, not hte Catholic Church as a whole.

The 1917 Code remained in effect until 1983, when a new one was promulgated. The 1983 Code removed the requirement that women wear head coverings. By that time, however, the practice had fallen completely away in much of the Western World anyhow.  I can't recall at all a time in which women generally wore head coverings in church, although a review of old photographs of weddings and the like shows that they certainly did well into the early 1960s.  Perhaps they were a casualty of the trend towards ever-increasing informality in the west, or perhaps it was something that the "spirit" of Vatican II reforms brought about, or both.

Oddly, however, in recent years, in Catholic circles, it's seen a bit of a revival.  There were always some who regarded female head coverings as Biblically mandated, citing St. Paul's letter to the Corinthians, in which he states, in part:

But I want you to know that Christ is the head of every man, and a husband the head of his wife,and God the head of Christ.

Any man who prays or prophesies with his head covered brings shame upon his head.

But any woman who prays or prophesies with her head unveiled brings shame upon her head, for it is one and the same thing as if she had had her head shaved.

For if a woman does not have her head veiled, she may as well have her hair cut off. But if it is shameful for a woman to have her hair cut off or her head shaved, then she should wear a veil.

 A man, on the other hand, should not cover his head, because he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man.

For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; nor was man created for woman, but woman for man; for this reason a woman should have a sign of authority on her head, because of the angels.

Woman is not independent of man or man of woman in the Lord.

For just as woman came from man, so man is born of woman; but all things are from God.h

Judge for yourselves: is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head unveiled?

Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears his hair long it is a disgrace to him, whereas if a woman has long hair it is her glory, because long hair has been given [her] for a covering?

St. Paul is, truly, the most ignored Apostle and the one most likely to make almost everyone in the modern world uncomfortable.  At any rate, some people have read this to mean that women must wear head coverings in church.

I'm not really qualified to comment on it, but I'd note that this was the subject of an article relatively recently in US Catholic, which stated, in part:

A hairy problem

Personally, I think it’s a no-brainer that the changes in the 1983 Canon gave us all freedom of choice about headgear. But a simple Google search convinces me this a matter that still isn’t settled in the minds of some Catholics.

Msgr. Charles Pope addressed this issue in a blog called “Community in Mission” on the Archdiocese of Washington’s website. It’s interesting that he calls the piece, dated May 19, 2010, “Should Women Cover Their Heads in Church?” Like it’s still a matter of debate.

It’s even more interesting how he starts out: “Now be of good cheer. This blog post is meant to be a light-hearted discussion of this matter.”

While admitting that the church currently has “NO rule” on hat wearing, he offered his thoughts to “try and understand the meaning and purpose of a custom that, up until rather recently was quite widespread in the Western Church.” He explains that even before the 1917 mandate, it was customary in most places for women to wear some kind of head covering.

He also tries to explain how the church got tangled up with this hat stuff in the first place. The reasoning is not easy to understand. He points to tradition and custom as well as feminine humility and submission.

I’m not weighing in on this one; I’ll defer to Msgr. Pope. He notes that in biblical times Jewish women often wore veils or mantillas in public worship. This custom got carried over to the New Testament by virtue of St. Paul’s letters, particularly 1 Corinthians 11:1–11, which takes up the topic of head coverings for women and men:

“For if a woman does not have her head veiled, she may as well have her hair cut off. But it is shameful for a woman to have her hair cut off or her head shaved, then she should wear a veil. A man, on the other hand, should not cover his head, because he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man.”

Msgr. Pope calls this a “complicated passage” with “some unusual references,” and goes on to say that Paul sets forth four arguments in it as to why a woman should cover her head. “Argument 1—Paul clearly sees the veil as a sign of her submission to her husband.” A second argument, based on custom or accepted tradition, is pretty straight forward and reasonable. Don’t ask me to explain the two remaining “arguments.” Even Pope concedes that Paul’s claims in the passage—that women should wear veils “because of the angels” and “nature”—are more “difficult references to understand.”

Heading forward

So who knows? Whether it was due to custom, a fascination with Victorian mores, or thinly-veiled patriarchy, the fact remains: After centuries of ignoring the matter, the church decided to codify regulations on head coverings in 1917 and to say nothing about them when it changed its own rules in 1983. For 66 years, milliners had a good run.

Of course, with the women’s liberation movement, most women had stopped wearing hats to church anyway. The whole idea of covering the head was a sign that had lost its meaning and even taken on a negative connotation in mainstream society. Besides, in the 1970s, in a document titled Inter Insigniores (On the Question of Admission of Women to the Ministerial Priesthood), the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had already linked wearing chapel veils with customs that were “scarcely more than disciplinary practices of minor importance” and obligations that “no longer have a normative value.” The 1983 Code change just put the nail in the coffin.

Of course, some may still beg to differ. You have to wonder why church leaders like Cardinal Burke and Msgr. Pope would even feel the need to take up this issue. Chalk it up to the fact that old habits die hard and no one likes change but a wet baby. Today, traditional Catholic blogs advocate not only a return to the Latin Mass but pre-Vatican II accouterments like vintage attire for priests and nuns. Could a push for veils in the pews be the next big thing?

I wouldn’t bet on it.

I wouldn't either.

Let's take a look at the Msgr blog entry.  It states:

Should Women Cover Their Heads in Church?

Now be of good cheer. This blog post is meant to be a light-hearted discussion of this matter. The bottom line is that the Church currently has NO rule on this matter and women are entirely free to wear a veil or a hat in Church or not.

I thought I’d blog on this since it came up in the comments yesterday and it occurred to me that it might provoke an interesting discussion. But again this is not meant to be a directive discussion about what should be done. Rather an informative discussion about the meaning of head coverings for women in the past and how such customs might be interpreted now. We are not in the realm of liturgical law here just preference and custom.

What I’d like to do is to try and understand the meaning and purpose of a custom that, up until rather recently was quite widespread in the Western Church.

With the more frequent celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass, the use of the veil is also becoming more common. But even at the Latin Masses I celebrate, women exhibit diversity in this matter. Some wear the longer veil (mantilla) others a short veil. Others  wear hats. Still others wear no head covering at all.

History – the wearing of a veil or hat for women seems to have been a fairly consistent practice in the Church in the West until fairly recently. Practices in the Eastern and Orthodox Churches have varied. Protestant denominations also show a wide diversity in this matter. The 1917 Code of Canon Law in  the Catholic Church mandated that women wear a veil or head covering. Prior to 1917 there was no universal Law but it was customary in most places for women to wear some sort of head covering. The 1983 Code of Canon Law made no mention of this requirement and by the 1980s most women, at least here in America, had ceased to wear veils or hats anyway. Currently there is no binding rule and the custom in most places is no head covering at all.

Scripture – In Biblical Times women generally wore veils in any public setting and this would include the Synagogue. The clearest New Testament reference to women veiling or covering their head is from St. Paul:

But I want you to know that Christ is the head of every man, and a husband the head of his wife, and God the head of Christ. Any man who prays or prophesies with his head covered brings shame upon his head.  But any woman who prays or prophesies with her head unveiled brings shame upon her head, for it is one and the same thing as if she had had her head shaved.  For if a woman does not have her head veiled, she may as well have her hair cut off. But if it is shameful for a woman to have her hair cut off or her head shaved, then she should wear a veil.  A man, on the other hand, should not cover his head, because he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man. For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; nor was man created for woman, but woman for man;  for this reason a woman should have a sign of authority on her head, because of the angels. Woman is not independent of man or man of woman in the Lord. For just as woman came from man, so man is born of woman; but all things are from God.  Judge for yourselves: is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head unveiled? Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears his hair long it is a disgrace to him, whereas if a woman has long hair it is her glory, because long hair has been given (her) for a covering? But if anyone is inclined to be argumentative, we do not have such a custom, nor do the churches of God. (1 Cor 11:1-11)

This is clearly a complicated passage and has some unusual references. Paul seems to set forth four arguments as to why a woman should wear a veil.

1. Argument 1 – Paul clearly sees the veil a woman wears as a sign of her submission to her husband. He also seems to link it to modesty since his references to a woman’s  hair cut short were references to the way prostitutes wore their hair and his reference to a shaved head was the punishment due an adultress. No matter how you look at it such arguments aren’t going to encourage a lot of women to wear a veil today. It is a true fact that the Scriptures consistently teach that a wife is to be submitted to her husband. I cannot and will not deny what God’s word says even though it is unpopular. However I will say that the same texts that tell a woman to be submitted tell the husband to have a great and abiding love for his wife. I have blogged on this “difficult” teaching on marriage elsewhere and would encourage you to read that blog post if you’re troubled or bothered by the submission texts. It is here: An Unpopular Teaching on Marriage. That said, it hardly seems that women would rush today to wear veils to emphasize their submission to their husband.

2. Argument 2 – Regarding the Angels– Paul also sees a reason for women to wear veils “because of the angels.” This is a difficult reference  to understand. There are numerous explanations I have read over the years. One of the less convincing ones is that the angels are somehow distracted by a woman’s beauty. Now the clergy might be 🙂 but it just doesn’t seem likely to me that the angels would have this problem. I think the more convincing argument is that St. Paul has Isaiah in mind who wrote: I saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne, with the train of his garment filling the temple. Seraphim were stationed above; each of them had six wings: with two they veiled their faces, with two they veiled their feet, and with two they hovered aloft.(Is 6:2-3). Hence the idea seems to be that since the angels veil their faces (heads) it is fitting for women to do the same. But then the question, why not a man too? And here also Paul supplies an aswer that is “difficult” for modern ears: A man, on the other hand, should not cover his head, because he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man. For man did not come from woman, but woman from man. In other words a man shares God’s glory immediately whereas a woman does as well but derivatively for she was formed from Adam’s wounded side. Alas this argument too will not likely cause a run on veil sales.

3. Argument 3 – The argument from “nature” – In effect Paul argues that since nature itself veils a woman with long hair and this is her glory that this also argues for her covering her head in Church. What is not clear is that, if nature has already provided this covering, why then should she cover her covering? I want to take up this notion of glory in my conclusion.

4. Argument 4-  The Argument from Custom–  This argument is pretty straight-forward: Paul says it is customary for a woman to cover her head when praying and, other things being equal, this custom should be followed. Paul goes on to assert that those who insist on doing differently are being “argumentative.” In effect he argues that for the sake of good order and to avoid controversy the custom should be followed. However, in calling it a custom, the text also seems to allow for a time like ours where the custom is different. Customs have stability but are not usually forever fixed. Hence, though some argue that wearing veils is a scriptural norm that women “must” follow today, the use of the word custom seems to permit of the possibility that it is not an unvarying norm we are dealing with here. Rather, it is a custom from that time that does not necessarily bind us today. This of course seems to be how the Church understands this text for she does not require head coverings for her daughters.

Conclusions –

1. That women are not required to wear veils today is clear in terms of Church Law. The argument that the Church is remiss in not requiring this of her daughters is hard to sustain when scriptures attach the word “custom” to the practice.

2. I will say however that I like veils and miss women wearing them. When I was a boy in the 1960s my mother and sister always wore their veils and so did all women in those days and I remember how modestly beautiful I found them to be. When I see women wear them today I have the same impression.

3. That said, a woman does not go to Church to please or impress me.

4. It is worth noting that a man is still forbidden to wear a hat in Church. If I see it I go to him and ask him to remove it. There  a partial exception to the clergy who are permitted to wear birettas and to bishops who are to wear the miter. However, there are strict rules in this regard that any head cover is to be removed when they go to the altar. Hence,  for men,  the rule, or shall we say the custom, has not changed.

5. Argument 5 – The Argument from Humility – This leads me then to a possible understanding of the wearing of the veil for women and the uncovered head for the men that may be more useful to our times. Let’s call it The Argument from Humility.

For both men and women, humility before God is the real point of these customs. In the ancient world as now, women gloried in their hair and often gave great attention to it. St. Paul above,  speaks of a woman’s hair as her glory. As a man I am not unappreciative of this glory. Women do wonderful things with their hair. As such their hair is part of their glory and, as St. Paul says it seems to suggest above  it is appropriate to cover our glory before the presence of God.

As for men, in the ancient world and to some lesser extent now, hats often signified rank and membership. As such men displayed their rank and membership in organizations with pride in the hats they wore. Hence Paul tells them to uncover their heads and leave their worldly glories aside when coming before God. Today men still do  some of this (esp. in the military) but men wear less hats in general. But when they do they are often boasting of allegiances to sports teams and the like. Likewise, some men who belong to fraternal organizations such as the various Catholic Knights groups often  display ranks on their hats. We clergy do this as well to some extent with different color poms on birettas etc. Paul encourages all this to be left aside in Church. As for the clergy, though we may enter the Church with these ranked hats and insignia, we are to cast them aside when we go to the altar. Knights organizations are also directed  to set down their hats when the Eucharistic prayer begins.

I do not advance this argument from humility to say women ought to cover their heads, for I would not require what the Church does not. But I offer the line of reasoning as a way to understand veiling in a way that is respectful of the modern setting, IF  a woman chooses to use the veil. Since this is just a matter of custom then we are not necessarily required to understand its meaning in exactly the way St. Paul describes. Submission is biblical but it need not be the reason for the veil. Humility before God seems a more workable understanding especially since it can be seen to apply to both men and women in the way I have tried to set it forth.

There are an amazing number of styles when it comes to veils and mantillas: Mantillas online

This video gives some other reasons why a woman might wear a veil. I think it does a pretty good job of showing some of the traditions down through the centuries. However I think the video strays from what I have presented here in that it seems to indicate that women ought to wear the veil and that it is a matter of obedience. I do not think that is what the Church teaches in this regard. There can be many good reasons to wear the veil but I don’t think we can argue that obedience to a requirement is one of them.

As noted, I'm not qualified to opine on this, and I'm loath to not take St. Paul at his word, but in some ways what I think St. Paul is instructing on here is simply to "dress decent".  That changes, quite frankly, over time, and varies by culture.

Indeed, on this, I heard awhile back an interview of an Easter Rite icon painter who was disturbed by the rich Renaissance art in Latin Rite churches.  His view was that the paintings bordered on indecency (well, he thought they were indecent but was too polite to say so) as seeing the naked or mostly naked body of a woman was strictly limited to her spouse.  St. Paul is saying something that's sort of in the same ballpark, a bit.  Having lived through the wrecking ball of the late 70s and early 80s in clothing standards, I can get that, as there was a time in there in which I'd see clothing at Mass that was occasionally indecent.  It might be the case that St. Paul is instructing people not to put themselves on display, and as recently as a few months ago I was at a Mass at which an attractive young woman with very long hair was constantly addressing it, for lack of a better way to state it.

No, she wasn't being indecent.  Yes, it was hard not to notice, but not in an indecent way.

Anyhow, as the articles above note, veils and even rarely hats at Mass are making a little bit of a comeback, but when you see them, they're making, usually, a bit of a statement. The women wearing them is usually some sort of Catholic Traditionalist.  That can be a bit distracting in its own right, but I don't mean to criticize it either.

Indeed, again by way of an example, some time ago I attended an early Holy Day Mass in which two young women, either on their way to work, or maybe to school, sat in front of me.  One was very well turned out, but in a modern fashion.  A nice wool seater paired with a nice leather skirt. She was wearing what we call inaccurately a veil.  Her friend in contrast was wearing jeans, etc. The veiled young woman also cut, in her apparel, an attractive presence.

Where am I going with this?  

Well, nowhere really.  I'm just noting another clothing change here that's taken place over time, the second in one day, really.

Before closing, I'd note that the "veil" or "chapel veil" is a "mantilla".  I know that my mother had some, as all Catholic women did.  No idea what happened to them.

A friend of mine actually recent got his wife, a convert from the Baptist faith, one.  He was asking me about it at the time, and I had no advice of any kind.  I don't know where you get them, etc.  He wasn't sure how she would take it, and I never followed up to find out.

By the way, my wife wouldn't wear a veil at church.  No way.

Also, back when head coverings were required, mantillas weren't required, just a head covering.  I recall my grandmother wearing a hat, usually of the pillbox type, and occasionally my mother doing so as well.

Lex Anteinternet: Thursday August 11, 1921. Prejudice.

Lex Anteinternet: Thursday August 11, 1921. Prejudice.:   

Thursday August 11, 1921. Prejudice.

 

Father Coyle.

Father James Coyle, an Irish born Catholic priest serving in Alabama, was shot in the head in front of his rectory on this day in Birmingham.  His killer, E.R. Stephenson, was the father of the bride, a convert to Catholicism, who had married a Puerto Rican man earlier that day.  Stephenson was a member of the Ku Klux Klan and a Methodist minister.

The KKK was not only a terroristic opponent of blacks in the South, it should be remembered, but also of Catholics and Jews, and generally of anyone not of a British Isles or Northern European background.  At the time, it was extremely powerful and not held in disrepute in the South.

Catholicism, for its part, was a distinctly minority religion throughout the South and still is.  Today, only 7% of Alabamans are Catholic, and even fewer must have been at the time.  Even as late as 1941 Time Magazine was able to report that an area as big as Ireland in the South had just ended the distinction of being completely without a Catholic Church.  Oddly, however, the South has produced some notable Catholic literary figures, including Flannery O'Connor.

Future Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black, himself at that point a future member of the KKK, would defend Stephenson in court, who got off of the charge of murder based upon a plea of temporary insanity.

In Ireland, Eamon de Valera sent his reply to British peace proposals, rejecting them. The British had offered dominion status, which de Valera was not willing to accept for Ireland, wanting complete independence with no ties of that type to the UK, and a plebiscite for Northern Ireland to determine its fate.

In the Canadian dominion, Lord Byng took office as the Governor General.

South of the border, Franklin Roosevelt showed the first signs of paralysis from polio.  A doctor misdiagnosed the condition, where he was vacationing in Maine, as a bad cold.

Churches of the West: BoJo Marries and the Comments Fly.

Churches of the West: BoJo Marries and the Comments Fly.: 

BoJo Marries and the Comments Fly.

A Medieval wedding.

Boris Johnson and his longtime girlfriend, Carrie Symonds (now Johnson) married.

So what, you may ask.  Indeed, dulled by the long 2019-2021 parade of bad news of one kind or another, that was my initial reaction, even though there's an obvious Christian point to this story from the onset, as by marrying, they're no longer shacking up, if you will, even though they certainly haven't been shacking up in quarters that could be compared to a shack.  

Frankly, as an Apostolic Christian, I'd normally have probably made a comment at some point about their living arrangements as its clearly contradictory to the tenants of the Christian faith, and even in Europe this would have been poorly regarded in almost any society up until, well right now.  Now, it pretty much produces a yawn, as do the majority of other serious religious tenants shared by all of the Abrahamic religions on a variety of matters related to sex.  I.e., this conduct is regarded as seriously sinful by all the Christian religions, Judaism and Islam.  In the modern world, it seems, Christians, including some serious ones but also a lot of nominal ones, have decided that most of what the Apostles wrote down was elective in nature and that people pretty much get a vote on what is and what isn't sinful.

More on that here later.

That's not what sparked the news, as soon became apparent.  What did, is that Johnson and Symonds married in a Catholic cathedral in a Catholic ceremony.  For people who like to be shocked, amazed, or scandalized, this was shocking, amazing, and scandalous.  And the press all over the English speaking world reacted with a giant "WHAT? How could this be?"  For example, the New York Time ran this headline:

Why Could Boris Johnson Marry in a Catholic Church?

The Guardian, a British newspaper that has made inroads into this US, ran this bizarre historically dim headline:

Boris Johnson’s outdone Henry VIII in having his third marriage blessed by the Catholic church

Apparently the writers at this British paper are historical dimwits.

The Irish Times, less dim on the topic, ran this one, which was actually interesting and informative.

Boris Johnson baptised Catholic and cannot defect from Church, says canon law

And the Times headline gets to the crux of the matter.

That didn't keep, however, an Irish priest from stating that the wedding made a "mockery" of the Church's laws.

Which it does not.

I don't know much about Johnson personally,  Or indeed, hardly at all.  And among the things I didn't know is that his mother was Catholic and he was baptized by a Catholic priest.  His mother raised him as a Catholic as a child, but when he was in Eaton, he was confirmed (rather late, if we look at North American anyhow) by an Episcopal Bishop.

And that makes him an Episcopalian, right?

Well, that depends.

Carrying the story forward, in the 1980s he married Allegra Mostyn-Owen. The couple divorced in 1993 after six years of marriage.  She's currently married to a man 22 years her junior who is a Muslim, which has lead Johnson to put Mostyn-Owen on a Muslim relations task force.  Reportedly, she's given her husband permission to have more than one wife as she is unlikely to be able to bear children and of course polygamy is a feature of Islam, although that would not be legal anywhere in Europe, in so far as I know. ^[1]. 

His second wife was Mariana Wheeler, a childhood friend of Johnson's.  They married twelve days after his first divorce and she was pregnant at the time.  Their marriage lasted seven years.

So, eeh gads, surely this is contrary to Catholic teaching, right?  I.e., his current marriage to Symonds, age 33 (Johnson is 56), just can't happen, right?

To read the press, you'd think so.  I've read everything, however, from this can't happen as Catholics don't allow divorce to this could only happen as Catholics don't recognize the marriages of other faiths.  

That doesn't grasp the interesting religious angle, however, of this at all.

In reality, all of the Apostolic faiths, as well as some of the Christian faiths that are close to the Apostolic faiths and regard themselves as Apostolic, take Christs' injunction against divorce seriously, although they don't all approach it exactly the same way.  Interestingly, and completely missed in all of this, the Church of England doesn't recognize divorce.  The mother church of the Anglican Communion, that is, regards it as invalid, just as Catholicism does, which isn't surprising as High Church Anglicans regard themselves as a type of Catholic, even if the Catholic Church completely rejects that assertion as "completely null and utterly void".

We'll get to more of that in a minute, but perhaps the most peculiar of the approaches to divorce is the Orthodox one.  The Orthodox allow more than one marriage under a vague application of a mercy principal that tolerates, in some cases, up to three marriages.  It's tempting to compare this to the Catholic concept of annulment, and indeed it is somewhat comparable, but lacking in the formality.  The basic approach, however, is that the Orthodox only recognize one valid marriage, but accept that human nature is frail and people goof up, so it applies some leeway essentially as it generally feels that the problem of sex in human nature makes it difficult not to.  I'm not Orthodox, so I could be off on this by quite some margin.

The Catholic Church doesn't recognize divorce at all.  It does apply the principal of annulments where it judges that one of the original marrying parties lacked something to make that marriage valid.  I don't' know what percentage of people who go through the annulment process obtain one, but frankly it seems rather shockingly high, which as been a long criticism of it, and a valid one in my view.  Outside of that, however, Catholics hold that once you are married, its until death.  No exceptions, save for the one noted, which would hold that the first marriage wasn't valid, and therefore wasn't really a marriage.

So how on Earth could Johnson and Symonds marry in a Catholic cathedral?

Well that leads to messy press analysis.

The Irish Times, not surprisingly, had it best. 

Contrary to what some of the press elsewhere would have it, the Catholic church fully recognizes the marriages of non Catholics, and for that matter, non Christians.  If two Muslims marry, the Catholic Church regards them as married.  Married and can't divorce is how the Catholic Church would regard it, irrespective of how Muslims may view it.

And also contrary to what some of the press is claiming, the Church also recognizes the marriages of people who are two different faith, or no faith at all.  Go down to the Courthouse and have the judge marry you, in other words, and you are married.  

So what's the deal here?

That's where you get into Canon Law.

Originally the overwhelming majority of Christians, all of whom were Catholic, married outside of a Church ceremony.  Indeed, it was extremely informal.  People just decided they were to marry, and they were.  No wedding ceremony at all.  

That first began to change with monarchs, as their marriages were also effectively treaties between nations, and they wanted it to be really clear and official in every respect possible.   But also, during the Middle Ages, things began to change with regular people as the need for marriage witnesses arose. This was principally because one member of the couple would claim they were never married, usually the man, leaving he other, usually the woman, in a very bad position.

Indeed, even with very early Christian monarchs you can see this at work.  Some early Saxon and English kings, for example, had queens who were subject to this.  Hardecanute is a famous one who married with King of England, but who had a Scandinavian queen before and during that period. What was she?  Harold Godwinson, the last Saxon king of England, had a Saxon queen who was "married in the old style" and a Welsh queen to whom he was more formally married. When  he died at Hastings, it was apparently the Saxon queen, still around, that identified his body.

This presents a series of obvious problems and the Church therefore worked to clear it up, imposing the Canon law that Christians had to be married by a priest.  This served a number of purposes, one of which was that the wedding was therefore witnesses and couldn't be simply excused away.

It would be tempting to think that the current situation came about immediately upon the Reformation, but that would be in error.  Indeed, it's important to keep in mind that at the parish level, while the fact that the Church was in turmoil was obvious, the severance wasn't necessarily immediately apparent in the pews.  All of the original Lutheran priests, for example, had been ordained Catholic priests.  No Bishops followed Luther into rebellion in what is now Germany, so there was no way to ordain valid new priests in the eyes of the Catholic Church there, but in Scandinavia things muddled on in an unclear fashion for some time and the Scandinavian Bishops did follow their monarchs into a series of murky positions.

In England, the situation in the pews was also unclear. All of the original Anglican priests had been Catholic priests and most, but not all, of the Bishops followed Henry VIII into schism.  Eddward VI took the country as far from the Catholic folds as he could, but then Queen Mary brought the country back into the Church, although without completely success.  Then Elizabeth struck a middle ground, most likely for political reasons more than anything else.  As late as the Prayer Book Rebellion, 1549, Catholicism was still so strongly rooted in the minds of average Englishmen that they revolted over the introduction of the Book of Common Prayer which the conceived of as too Protestant.

The point of this isn't to introduce a treatise on the history of religion in England, but rather to note that for average people this must have been distressing, but if they were going to get married, they still went to the same place, the Church, and the presiding cleric presided over it.  This is important to our story here as, at least in England, in spite of an outright war by the Crown against Catholicism, the Church did not prohibit Catholics from marrying in a ceremony presided over by an Anglican priest and no dispensation was required for a "disparity of cult".

Indeed, it's widely believed that as late as 1785 the man who would reign as King George IV married Maria Fitzherbert, a Catholic.  The marriage remains really murky in terms of details, as it was conducted in secret, and was arguably invalid because George IV had not obtained permission from George III, which was a legal requirement.  The marriage did not, however, require Fitzherbert to obtain permission from the Catholic Church and its believed it was conducted by an Anglian priest.  Interestingly, while George IV would later deny that the marriage was valid, and their relationship was rocky, it never completely ceased altogether and he asked to be buried with a locket containing her image.  George IV was officially married to his cousin Caroline of Brunswick in what was pretty clearly both an arranged and unhappy marriage that he did wish to terminate.  He died first.

So when, exactly, the current canon came in requiring permission for a marriage outside of a Catholic officiation, I frankly don't know.  It may not have occurred everywhere at the same time, for that matter.  Having said that, it seems to have been first mentioned as a Church law, and therefore a legal requirement binding Catholics, in 1563, so the example given above is problematic.

Note, however, that it binds Catholics.  Not other people, and the Church has never stated otherwise.  

Additionally, it binds Catholics as its a law of the Church.  In order for a Catholic to have a valid marriage, it must be presided over by a Catholic priest or there must be some dispensation.  If that doesn't occur it isn't valid, as to Catholics.

And that's what we have here.  It's not change in the law of the Church in any fashion. Boris Johnson was baptized as a Catholic and so he is a Catholic, the way that Catholics understand that.  Carrie Symonds is also a Catholic, and indeed, press comments about her routinely refer to her as a "practicing Catholic".  Her status in that regard is problematic as she and Johnson have been shacked up, which is contrary to Catholic moral law in a major way, but with their marriage, and presumably with a Confession that preceded it, that's no longer an issue of any kind.  And Symonds' views would otherwise be evident in that she had their son, born out of wedlock (see issue above again), baptized in the Catholic faith.

So, why al the fussing?

Well, for the most part at least knowledgeable Catholics aren't fussing.  Not everyone likes Johnson politically, but Catholics pretty much take a "welcome home" view towards this sort of thing.  So, the past is what its, and Boris is back. All is fine, religion wise.

Of course, some Catholics who don't know the doctrines of their own church, or who simply want to have a fit, are. But its' a pretty misplaced one.

Non Catholics can have a fit if they're predisposed to, as they don't understand the Church's law and they are often surprised to find that the Church retains its original position that as it is the original Church, which is indisputable, all others lack in some fashion. ^[2].  So this serves to remind people that the Anglican Church and the Catholic Church have a lot of similarities, but no matter what the Anglican Communion may maintain, the Catholic Church doesn't regard it as Catholic.  Of course, not all Anglicans wish to be regarded as Catholics, but some of them are offended as the fact that the Catholic Church isn't according them equivalency with the Catholicism is offensive to them.

More than that, however, a long held cultural anti Catholicism that came in with the reformation is still pretty strong in certain Protestant regions of Europe in spite of the decline of their Protestant established churches.   This is very evident in England, and is very strong in Scandinavia.  It's somewhat ironic in various ways, not the least of which is that these regions have become highly secularized and as that has occurred, the Church that has remained strong has been the minority Catholic Church, which has not only survived its long Reformation winter, but which has gained new adherents.

Does this mean that Johnson has fully returned to the Catholic fold and will be at Mass next Sunday?  Well, Catholics should hope so, and frankly so should Protestants as well. And there is some evidence that Johnson, who has lived a fairly libertine life, may in fact be taking his Christianity more seriously than he did in earlier days.  His recent address regarding the Pandemic specifically referenced Christ and his mercy, something that very few politicians would generally do, and European ones even less.

So, while people can have fits if they want to, all in all, they shouldn't.  Indeed, no matter what a person thinks of Johnson one way or another, there's reason to be happy about this development, and not just in being happy for the apparently happy couple if a person is inclined to be such.

Footnotes

1.  Having said that, I don't know if polygamy is legal in Turkey, which is obviously a Muslim majority nation, and which is in Europe, depending upon how you draw the continental lines.  Turkey has become increasingly Islamic under its current leadership but had years of aggressive secularism, so the status of Muslim polygamist marriages isn't a given, and I don't know the answer as to its status there.

2. The various Orthodox Churches also stretch back to Apostolic origins, which is why the Catholic and Orthodox Churches regard each others sacraments as valid, and also regard their separation as schismatic, depending upon which you are in, rather than an outright rebellion and departure as was the case with the Protestant Churches.