King Charles’ Royal Priesthood

National Catholic Register, 08 May 2023

The coronation of King Charles consecrated him symbolically as a priest-king like Solomon.

God save the King! Long live the King!

So the cries went up in Westminster Abbey at the coronation of King Charles III. Catholics watching may have been reminded of a frequent acclamation in the presence of the Holy Father: Viva il Papa! Long live the Pope!

There was a time, during the time when the pope ruled over the Papal States as a temporal sovereign, that the cries were sometimes different: Viva il Papa Re! Long live the Pope King!

And at the coronation, it would have been a fitting time to cry out, God save the King Bishop! Long live the Bishop King!

On Saturday, after months of talking about the coronation, the coronation spoke at last. It spoke as all good liturgy speaks. The late Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel reminded us that the point of liturgical worship is not that it should say what we mean, but that we should mean what it says.

The coronation spoke poetically and powerfully. It sang gloriously, soaring in spirit, offering supplications to God for the King — and, one might say, symbolically a bishop.

The coronation rite is properly Anglican, but with deep Catholic roots, and even today resembles nothing as much as the ordination of a bishop. Few Catholics may have witnessed the consecration (“coronation”) of a bishop, but those that have would have recognized the key elements at Westminster Abbey. 

Indeed, the anointing and crowning of a king is rooted in a “royal priesthood,” with the biblical exemplar of the anointing of King Solomon, who both ruled and offered priestly worship. 

The ritual is a priestly one. The Gospel proclaimed is Luke 4 — “The spirit of the Lord is upon me” — which is read at the chrism Mass during Holy Week, the Mass at which Catholic priests renew the promises of ordination. 

Before the anointing of the King, the Veni Creator Spiritus is sung, as is often done at ordinations. 

King Charles knelt, analogous to the prostration of men before they are ordained deacons, priests or bishops.

At the heart of the coronation ceremony is the anointing of the king — his hands, breast and head. Catholics are anointed with holy oil on the breast at baptism; a priest’s hands are anointed at ordination; and the head of a bishop is anointed when he is consecrated.

Before the anointing, King Charles was stripped of his “robes of state” — the garments of his civic authority. After his anointing, he was dressed — vested, more accurately — not in the robes of state, but as a priest. 

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