This is a week of celebration in the United Kingdom and across the 15 independent realms of which The Queen is Head of State (including Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Jamaica). We are celebrating Her Majesty the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. And in so doing, we are also celebrating the stability and evolution of the British constitution.
In my speech at the Service of Thanksgiving held at All Saints’ Anglican Church in Rome on 5 June, I emphasised the importance of “service”. It is a concept too often neglected in modern society. But it is a word on which both The Queen and Pope Benedict XVI place great emphasis. The Pope is “the Servant of the Servants of God”. The Queen, even before taking up the Throne in 1952, declared on her 21st birthday in 1947 to the peoples of the then Empire her dedication “to your service”. Both are in their eighties, both in positions that have no retirement age, both great servants of their communities.
As I told Vatican Radio, The Queen’s reign has seen extraordinary change. The Queen is no longer head of an Empire, but Head of the Commonwealth of Nations, a freely constituted body of 54 independent countries. As Supreme Governor of The Church of England she is still “Defender of the Faith”, but in her words and actions she has also developed a role of defender of all faiths, “speaking across all ethnic and religious divides” in the words of Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks. All nine of the major faith communities in Britain feel recognised and respected. The same could not have been said 60 years ago.
In terms of Catholicism, for example, it is fair to say that in 1952 there were, still, echoes of anti-Catholic feeling in parts of the United Kingdom dating back to the Reformation. But as the Catholic Peer Lord Alton reminded the House of Lords a few days ago, Catholic faith-based activity has flourished under a Queen “whose life embodies religious tolerance and the principle of duty”. During her reign, full diplomatic relations between the United Kingdom and the Holy See were re-established (in 1982). The first ever visits of a Pope to Britain took place (Bl. John Paul II in 1982, and Pope Benedict XVI in 2010). The numbers of her Catholic subjects rose from 4.4 million to 6.4 million. There are 2,278 Catholic schools educating 800,000 children, and 1,000 independent Catholic charities engaged in the sort of faith-based work of help for the poor, sick, and others in need that underpins social unity.
Heads of State across the world, even those representing very different constitutional systems, could do worse than model themselves on Queen Elizabeth II. For Britain, that is definitely something to celebrate.