Statement on the Planned Public Plans of His Majesty King Charles III Alongside Pope Leo XIV in a Shared Worship Service in the Sistine Chapel

EVEN FEWER GOSPEL GROUNDS TODAY FOR RAPPROCHEMENT BETWEEN THE BRITISH MONARCH AND THE POPE OF ROME THAN AT THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION

His Majesty King Charles III, the reigning British Monarch, and Pope Leo XIV the Bishop of Rome are planning to offer shared public prayers in a service of worship. According to Buckingham Palace and the Church of England, there has been no similar moment with a British monarch and a pope praying alongside each other at a shared church service since Henry VIII’s split from Rome in the sixteenth century. If this goes ahead it would be wrong for the following reasons.

Such a public act would contradict both the Coronation Oath and the Church of England’s own formularies. During the coronation service on 6th May 2023, the King, as Supreme Governor of the Church of England, with his hand on an open Bible, made a solemn oath before Almighty God and the people. He promised to the utmost of his power to “maintain and preserve inviolably the settlement of the true Protestant Reformed Religion established by law”, and to “maintain and preserve inviolably the settlement of the Church of England, and the doctrine, worship, discipline, and government thereof, as by law established”. This is required by the Coronation Oath Act of 1689. The Church of England’s own Articles of Religion still plainly affirm: “The Church of Rome hath erred, not only in their living and manner of ceremonies, but also in matters of Faith” (Article XIX). “The Bishop of Rome hath no jurisdiction in this Realm of England” (Article XXXVII).

Five hundred years after the Protestant Reformation, the gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ as revealed to us in the holy scriptures has not changed. Hebrews 13:8 teaches us that the gospel is unchangeable because it is centred on the Lord Jesus Christ, who eternally never changes. “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever”. Jude 1:3 reveals to us that the true church is “to earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints”. The phrase “once delivered” emphasises that the essential content of the Christian faith is not subject to change. In Galatians 1:8-9 the Apostle Paul strongly warns against any attempt to change or distort the foundational gospel message. But the Church of Rome has not only never recanted her false and unscriptural doctrines or repealed the decrees of the Council of Trent but has changed for the worse since the Protestant Reformation. All the decrees on Mariolatry and the De Fide proclamation of the infallibility of the Pope have come since the Protestant Reformation. The recent Catechism of the Catholic Church affirms all the essential issues of the sixteenth century debate including the treasury of merit, purgatory, indulgences, justification through the sacraments. It is furthermore plain to all Bible-believing Christians that, through its distortion of the Christian faith, there is no gospel in the Church of Rome to save souls. Rather Rome has historically only deceived, persecuted and harmed the true church of Christ. We affirm the view held by our Protestant forefathers such as Archbishop Cranmer, that the Papacy is the Antichrist, that man of sin and son of perdition. This is surely no basis for any rapprochement between the Church of England and the Church of Rome today.

We therefore respectfully beseech His Majesty King Charles III to uphold the gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and to renounce communion with the Church of Rome by not proceeding with this proposed event of praying and worshipping publicly with the Bishop of Rome.