The Queen to Visit the Pope
True Protestants will view with dismay the prospect of our Queen soon visiting the Pope at the Vatican. Accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh, she is to meet him informally in April. It is a matter of major concern that relations between the British throne and the Vatican have become much closer in recent decades – the Queen visited Popes in 1962, 1980 and 2000, and received Popes in this country in 1982 and 2010. Although the United Kingdom has had partial diplomatic relations with the Vatican since 1914, it was not until 1982 that full diplomatic relations were established and the first UK ambassador to the Vatican was appointed.
The Papacy will not be satisfied until the United Kingdom – and Rome still regards England as “Mary’s dowry” – is thoroughly Romanised. Our sovereign’s visits to the Vatican, whether formal or informal, undoubtedly contribute to that end, as well as running counter to her solemn promise at her coronation that, to the utmost of her power, she would “maintain in the United Kingdom the Protestant Reformed Religion established by law”.
May God preserve the Protestant Constitution of the British throne and
open the eyes of our leaders to see that our Protestant Reformers had a true view of the nature and workings of the See of Rome – a view that is reflected in the statement of the Westminster Confession of Faith that “the Pope of Rome . . . is that Antichrist, that man of sin and son of perdition, that exalteth himself in the Church against Christ, and all that is called God”.
We fear that our nation will learn too late the truth of Adam Smith’s view (in his An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations) that “the constitution of the Church of Rome may be considered as the most formidable combination that ever was formed against the authority and security of civil government, as well as against the liberty, reason, and happiness of mankind”. How much we need to plead the encouraging truth, “Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither His ear heavy, that it cannot hear” (Is 59:1). NMR