Anointing the monarch at a coronation takes us back to England’s Catholic past, explains former Royal Chaplain Dr Gavin Ashenden
Of the symbolic echoes of the Catholic vision of society in Europe, the coronation of a monarch remains one of the most powerful. The ceremony in which King Charles III is to be crowned has retained some of the external shells of the Catholic construction of Christendom, but with a certain hollowing out of its central essence.
The recent restive gestures towards morphing a ceremony profoundly rooted in Catholic sacramental theology into a multi-faith, multicultural occasion by the King is an example, among many, of this entropic Protestant gravity. But a better understanding of what lies at the heart of this Christian coronation might help explain what the issues are.
