Reciprocal religious honours between Pope and King celebrate a friendship. They leave unanswered a question of considerable importance to anyone contemplating reception into the Catholic Church.
An Anglican who becomes a Catholic must make a profession of faith. He may also have to explain himself to a bewildered family, leave a congregation he loves or surrender a ministry which has provided his livelihood. He accepts those consequences because he has become convinced that the Catholic Church’s claims are true. Those responsible for receiving him ought to consider how their public actions bear upon that conviction. When the Pope accepts religious confraternity at an Anglican royal chapel, while the Anglican sovereign enjoys a corresponding honour at a Roman abbey, the prospective convert has an obvious question: why am I being asked to leave?
The reported announcement of 23 October brings that question into sharp focus. Leo XIV has accepted the title of Papal Confrater of the College of St George, Windsor, with the King’s approval and the Archbishop of Canterbury’s support. The honour reciprocates Charles III’s reception as Royal Confrater of the Abbey of St Paul Outside the Walls during his visit to Rome last year.¹ The historical symbolism provides ample material for favourable publicity. Explaining how these affiliations serve the reconciliation of separated Christians requires considerably more theological candour.
An honorary confraternity does not establish ecclesiastical communion. Charles has not thereby become a Catholic; Leo has not submitted to Anglican jurisdiction. Neither proposition answers the criticism. These honours have been presented as religiously significant expressions of spiritual fellowship. Their sponsors evidently believe that titles and institutional associations can communicate something substantial about Christian unity. The faithful are entitled to examine what is being communicated, especially when a conspicuous ceremony offers a reassuring picture of agreement without explaining the convictions which still divide its participants.
Charles remains bound by his coronation undertaking to maintain “the Protestant Reformed Religion established by law”.² His obligations encompass the doctrine, worship, discipline and government of the Church of England. His personal goodwill towards Catholics cannot dissolve that constitutional commitment. Rome continues to profess an ecclesiastical authority which the English religious settlement excludes. Beneath the reciprocal honours, that contradiction remains intact.
The Pope bears the greater responsibility for explaining it. A sovereign cultivates diplomatic relationships and seeks concord among his subjects. The successor of Peter must confirm his brethren in the Faith and make known the Church’s claims. His friendship with the King could provide an unusually valuable occasion for doing so. Yet when religious affiliation is publicly celebrated and conversion remains unmentioned, the omission itself begins to teach. Those watching may reasonably conclude that entering Catholic communion is an optional preference whose importance earlier generations exaggerated.
Pius XI confronted the underlying error in Mortalium animos. The Church cannot be treated as one religious society among several, contributing her distinctive beliefs towards a unity still to be negotiated. She possesses the unity bestowed upon her by Christ; reconciliation must bring separated Christians into that unity through the profession of the Faith.³ Whatever judgment is made about particular contemporary gestures, this doctrinal question cannot be evaded. Do they help people towards Catholic communion, or encourage them to regard the existing separation as a satisfactory arrangement?
That distinction matters because friendship and reconciliation are different achievements. A relationship may become affectionate while the religious division remains untouched. Indeed, affection can make the division harder to discuss if candour comes to be regarded as a threat to everything the friendship has accomplished. Ecclesiastical diplomacy then acquires an interest in postponing the very questions which give it a Christian purpose. The ceremonies continue; the destination becomes progressively less definite.
Appeals to common baptism do not resolve the difficulty. Where Anglican baptism has been validly administered, the Church recognises it. She also recognises the Christian truths Anglicans retain and the action of grace in their lives. These are substantial reasons to desire their full communion, and to pursue it with patience and charity. They provide no warrant for suggesting that separation has ceased to matter. Baptism gives the relationship its particular seriousness; it cannot settle the outstanding questions concerning authority, Holy Orders and the Eucharist.
Those questions concern what happens in churches every day. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s 1998 commentary on the Profession of Faith included Leo XIII’s judgment on the invalidity of Anglican ordinations among teachings to be held definitively.⁴ This bears upon whether a minister is a priest and whether the Eucharistic sacrifice is offered at his altar. Catholics cannot quietly relegate such matters to the status of historical disagreements while celebrating religious fellowship as though the sacramental consequences were negligible.
Nuntiatoria’s earlier examination of the Church of England’s crisis of coherence considered what happens when institutional accommodation continues without the doctrinal agreement needed to sustain it.⁵ Catholic authorities should recognise the danger in their own practice. A relationship becomes fragile when its preservation depends upon leaving the most consequential subjects undiscussed. Eventually, stating an established teaching sounds provocative, while remaining silent passes for pastoral wisdom. The person asking why he should become a Catholic discovers that his question has become inconvenient.
For converts, this can be painfully concrete. Former Anglican clergy have accepted financial uncertainty because they believed communion with the successor of Peter required a decision. Lay converts have endured domestic tension and the loss of familiar religious friendships. Those sacrifices should neither be romanticised nor taken for granted. They deserve the support of Catholic authorities whose words and actions make their purpose intelligible. It is difficult to offer that support while giving the impression that the separation they crossed is scarcely consequential.
Cooperation for the common good presents a different question. Catholics and Anglicans can feed their neighbours, defend vulnerable people, oppose persecution and preserve historic buildings. Such work has an identifiable purpose and requires neither party to conceal his convictions. Shared worship and spiritual affiliation concern the public profession of religion itself. They therefore require a judgment which cannot be supplied merely by pointing to the goodwill of those taking part.
Even Unitatis redintegratio insists upon the integrity of Catholic doctrine and rejects the false irenicism which obscures its meaning.⁶ That obligation applies to ceremonies as surely as to theological documents. Most people will encounter the Windsor exchange through a headline, a photograph and a few sentences about Christian brotherhood. They will draw conclusions from what ecclesiastical authorities have chosen to place before them. A qualification buried elsewhere cannot be expected to undo the public impression.
England’s martyrs make such reticence especially troubling. St John Fisher and St Thomas More understood the distinction between loyalty to their sovereign and surrender in matters belonging to God. Missionary priests returned to England under persecution because they believed their countrymen needed the Catholic Faith and the sacraments. Their witness gives Catholics no excuse for hostility towards Anglicans today. It does impose an obligation to explain why the truths for which they suffered remain worth professing. Gratitude for their courage rings hollow if their convictions have become embarrassing.
The words Ut unum sint on the King’s stall at St Paul’s deserve more than ceremonial admiration. Our Lord’s prayer gives Christian unity its urgency and binds it to the truth He revealed. Those invoking it should be willing to explain what reconciliation requires, including the decisions it may demand of people whose sincerity and Christian devotion they readily acknowledge.
Leo XIV has an opportunity to speak to a country which has largely forgotten the substance of its separation from Rome. A warm relationship with its sovereign could help England hear the Catholic claim afresh. It could encourage serious inquiry and strengthen those already preparing for reception. That opportunity will be squandered if the friendship becomes another reason for avoiding the subject. Somewhere beyond the official photographs, an Anglican is considering whether the Catholic Faith is true and what accepting it will cost. He deserves to hear the Pope explain why coming into communion matters.
¹ The Royal Household, “Pope Leo XIV accepts honorary title at St George’s Chapel, Windsor”, 23 October 2026; Vatican News, “King Charles receives Royal Confrater title as sign of ‘hope’ with Anglican Communion”, 23 October 2025.
² Church of England, The Authorised Liturgy for the Coronation of His Majesty King Charles III, 6 May 2023.
³ Pius XI, Mortalium animos, 6 January 1928.
⁴ Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, “Doctrinal Commentary on the Concluding Formula of the Professio fidei”, 29 June 1998, §11.
⁵ Nuntiatoria, “Back-Door Departures: Living in Love and Faith and the Crisis of Anglican Coherence”, 13 February 2026.
⁶ Second Vatican Council, Unitatis redintegratio, 21 November 1964, §11.
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