Um, that's technically not true. They do have power. The Queen can veto anything that parliament passes - she just doesn't. If anyone cares, or wants to know more, [url=this site]http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Ithaca/1562/monarchy.html[/url] looks fairly accurate and unbiased.
And while the Queen is head of the Church of England, I think she can be any religion she chooses, except Catholic . IIRC, this is due to some funny laws passed during the Glorious Revolution to secure William of Orange's position. Does anyone know for sure?
The queen has no power...The written word of the law means nothing. The queen would not last one second if she tried to exert political power against the public/the commons will. The Church of England is a flimsy organisation which can hardly be described as political, and is almost the antithesis of the word 'powerful' ...
Does Diana count one iota towards all that Mother Theresa did, in my opinion, no. It was just her over glamourised nature and that got all the stories. Diana is about the only royal who has done anything beneficial in my life time, something truly revolutionary. So we have one out of 300 odd (hangers on at a guess) and that is supposed to account for all the countless millions that are spent? Are there any other royalty who you know of that have done a lot of good?
I entirely agree with Sleep on this... Charles is active in suporting farmers around Britain (ever had his sausages? They're very good ) and Diana did quite a lot of good work on the landmine cause, but these are completely insignificant compared to what other people do all the time...and anyway, why should we classify them as 'royalty' in this case? We might as well say 'Blonde people are really useful to society - Princess Diana helped charity'. There is no compulsion upon royalty to act especially virtuously, and they very seldom do.
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The queen has no power...The written word of the law means nothing. The queen would not last one second if she tried to exert political power against the public/the commons will. The Church of England is a flimsy organisation which can hardly be described as political, and is almost the antithesis of the word 'powerful' ...
How are you defining power? The Church of England is perceived as an honest, credible Church in a longstanding tradition that is part of the fiber of its nation; it therefore possesses a moral weight that matters a great deal--not just to Anglicans, but to non-Anglican English. It's power is not vested in law, which in any case can only proscribe the ways and limits of power, not provide true power, itself. Thatcher and her pet dog, John Major, had their day, and fell from grace. So will Tony Blair. But the Church of England has a vested authority that doesn't change with votes.
Flimsy organization? What do you know about the internal organization of the Anglican Church? If the RCC were to permit female priests tomorrow, most of the cardinals and bishops would leave, and half the clergy might well quit. The Anglicans took that decisive action right on the chin, and lost a few clergy--but not many. Their "flimsy organization" is in fact tighter for being far less top-down and more responsive to involvement of the flock, than the RCC.
And when those hostages were held for so many years in the late seventies and early eighties by Iranian terrorists who were, in fact, stooges for the government, who negotiated repeatedly for their release? The Anglican Church. It was the first and biggest crisis of its kind in modern times, and they stepped in. When their main negotiator, Terry Waite, was in turn captured and held hostage for several years, they didn't give up; they sent along more negotiators. The Reagan administration tried to buy out the hostages release with multi-million dollar deals; the Iranians took the money, freed the hostages, and quickly grabbed an equal number, again. In the end, the Anglicans continued to negotiate, and finally won through. Their "antithesis of power" yielded results, there and in many other instances unseen by the world's headlines, where the biggest military and economic power of the day could do nothing.
And no, I'm not Anglican. My point is simply that power isnt just a matter of resources that can be used to crush your opponents. Power is a gift given by those who believe in you. If they lose that belief, power crumbles away, regardless of resources. And if you gain the belief of millions, even if you're a hermit in a cave, you still have great power.
To the Righteous belong the fruits of violent victory. The rest of us will have to settle for warm friends, warm lovers, and a wink from a quietly supportive universe.
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