Nicholas T. Wright

N. Thomas Wright

Anglican Bishop of Durham, England

Nicholas Thomas Wright is Anglican Bishop of Durham, England. The "On Faith" panelist taught New Testament studies for 20 years at Cambridge, McGill and Oxford Universities before becoming Dean of Lichfeld in 1994. He was named Canon Theologian of Westminster Abbey in 2000, and consecrated bishop in 2003. He has written hundreds of articles and more than 40 books, including Judas and the Gospel of Jesus (2006) and Evil and the Justice of God (2006). He has served as Visiting Professor at numerous institutions including Harvard Divinity School, Gregorian University in Rome and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Dr Wright holds four degrees, including a divinity doctorate from Oxford University, and honorary degrees from several universities and colleges. Close.

N. Thomas Wright

Anglican Bishop of Durham, England

Nicholas Thomas Wright is Anglican Bishop of Durham, England. The "On Faith" panelist taught New Testament studies for 20 years at Cambridge, McGill and Oxford Universities before becoming Dean of Lichfeld in 1994. He was named Canon Theologian of Westminster Abbey in 2000, and consecrated bishop in 2003. more »

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Discrimination Built Into UK System

I can't speak for the United States. But discrimination against Roman Catholics is sometimes alleged in the UK -- for instance, in the present Blair government's decision to go ahead and insist that all adoption agencies, including not least the Roman Catholic ones, will be forced to place children with gay couples.

The issue is more complicated than that but this is what it will boil down to.

In other areas, the UK has a law prohibiting the sovereign from becoming, or marrying, a Roman Catholic. This is regarded by many (including not surprisingly many Roman Catholics) as discriminatory. But it is the direct result, of course, of Rome's view of the Anglican church and its orders, namely that the Anglican church isn't a proper church and that its orders are invalid.

Thus if a sovereign became a Roman Catholic, or married one, he or she would be unable in conscience to belong to or support the Church of England; and, because children of 'mixed marriages' are supposed by Roman Catholic tenets to be brought up as RC, this would mean that the heirs to the throne would become RC.

All this may seem very far removed from life in the USA. But there are many people in the UK for whom the careful checks and balances in the British system are an important part of national self-understanding.

Many people here, faced with the choice of continuing with a monarchy (a constitutional monarchy, of course, acting through democratic institutions i.e. Parliament) or moving to a presidential system, look at various countries with Presidents and decide, on balance, that they are happy as they are.

As a long-time friend of the USA, I couldn't possibly comment . . .

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