The rule was introduced arguably more for reasons of politics than strictly religious ones.

Since the Middle Ages the Vatican has been a major political power, prosecuting wars both by proxy and on its own account and materially affecting the decisions of monarchs and sovereign nations. A very cursory glance at world history confirms this.

The Roman Catholic church, in the work Dominus Jesus written by the present Pope Benedict when he was Cardinal Ratzinger, dismisses all other Christian denominations as being wrong and illegitimate.

Also, as far as I know the Vatican still asserts the concept of Papal infallibility and recent Vatican exchanges with the Irish premier tend to indicate that their attitudes have not materially changed in that respect.

Two questions therefore arise.

If the Orangemen are bigoted, are they more or less so than the Catholic Church?

Is the move to permit a Catholic monarch, the right to dictate whose moral judgements is claimed by the head of another sovereign state, either appropriate or prudent?

DISSENTER

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