King Charles’ Easter Silence Raises Questions on Faith and Leadership
(ANALYSIS) In Western Christian churches, the highest holy day on the liturgical calendar is Easter — the Solemnity of the Resurrection of the Lord.
A year ago, King Charles III, in an Easter message that made little news, proclaimed that the love Jesus showed “when he walked the Earth reflected the Jewish ethic of caring for the stranger and those in need, a deep human instinct echoed in Islam and other religious traditions. ... The abiding message of Easter is that God so loved the world — the whole world — that He sent His son to live among us to show us how to love one another, and to lay down His own life for others in a love that proved stronger than death.”
This year, Buckingham Palace made headlines when it confirmed that Charles III, the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, would not release a statement for Holy Week or Easter. While the monarch traditionally addresses the public at Christmas, Easter messages have not been the norm.
This news shocked many Christian leaders, since the king had just offered statements marking the beginning and end of Ramadan, the month of fasting and prayer for Muslims.
Adding fuel to the fire, a protester sprayed “Not our King” in red paint on a wall of the ancient Cathedral of Saints Asaph and Cyndeyrn in Wales before the arrival of King Charles and Queen Camilla for a Maundy Thursday rite during Holy Week. The royal family did release a short Easter message on social media, showing a cross, the message “Happy Easter. He is risen!" and a caption wishing “a joyous Easter Sunday to Christians celebrating in the UK, the Commonwealth and around the world today.”
It's fair to ask how the king expected the public to interpret both his actions and what could be seen as strategic silence, said Gavin Ashenden, a convert to Catholicism who, as a priest in the Church of England, served as chaplain to Queen Elizabeth II from 2008 to 2017.
It would have been consistent for Charles to issue remarks about Great Lent, as well as Ramadan, since the fasting and prayer themes in these seasons are similar, wrote Ashenden on his “New English Catholic” Substack.
“We are constantly told that he wants to be inclusive. ... But his exclusivity of Christianity raised some eyebrows and some questions," Ashenden argued. When noting "Christian festivals like Christmas, what he does then is to offer an inclusive view. So, he includes all faiths. He uses Christmas as a platform for celebrating Islamic faith and Jewish faith and Hindu and Sikh. ...
“When it's Christian, it's a platform for inclusivity. But — when it's Islamic, it's exclusively Islamic. What kind of impression does that create amongst his Christian subjects?”
The context for these debates, stressed Ashenden, includes ongoing discussions of the coronation oath language in which the monarch — since the 16th century — has promised to be the "defender of the faith," referring to the Church of England. In 1994, Prince Charles created controversy when he said that he wanted to be the “defender of faith,” dropping “the” from the oath.
In the 2023 coronation rite, the “defender of the faith” phrase was used, but not by the new king. Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby offered a new preamble to the oath that included: “Your Majesty, the Church established by law, whose settlement you will swear to maintain, is committed to the true profession of the Gospel, and, in so doing, will seek to foster an environment in which people of all faiths and beliefs may live freely.”
King Charles III affirmed that pledge.
The ultimate question, according to Ashenden, is whether clear statements about the "meaning of Easter itself," including the doctrine of the Resurrection, are “consistent” with the king’s “multicultural position” on interfaith life.
In her 2020 Easter message, during the coronavirus pandemic, Queen Elizabeth II had famously said: “This year, Easter will be different for many of us, but by keeping apart we keep others safe. But Easter isn't cancelled; indeed, we need Easter as much as ever. The discovery of the risen Christ on the first Easter Day gave his followers new hope and fresh purpose, and we can all take heart from this.”
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Terry Mattingly is Senior Fellow on Communications and Culture at Saint Constantine College in Houston. He lives in Elizabethton, Tennessee, and writes Rational Sheep, a Substack newsletter on faith and mass media.