Speaking on a new royal 'docuseries' the Church of England's most senior cleric from 1991 to 2002 says he was 'pitched in to help' with Charles and Dianna's marriage.

In a frank discussion, he tells ITVXs 'The Real Crown: Inside the House of Windsor' how he was called in to try to rescue the couple's turbulent relationship.

"I found myself as the Archbishop of Canterbury pitched in to this.

"I remember one meeting at Number 10 Downing Street with [former Prime Minister] John Major and some members of the Cabinet, wrestling with what we could do to help.

"The role I took was to try and meet up," Carey (now Lord Carey) says.

The "dynamic (between Charles and Diana) was not going to be successful.

"Charles, deep thinking, a slower personality, reflective. Diana, dynamic, vibrant, less driven. It wasn't going to work."

The royals and the archbishops

For centuries, Archbishops of Canterbury have been entrusted with helping members of the Royal Family tackle some of the trickiest issues of the day.

Probably the most famous case was one Archbishop Thomas Cranmer was called in to help with.

That was when King Henry VIII and Cranmer wrestled with the King's demand to divorce Katherine of Aragon. Cranmer successfully negotiated with the Pope. He then validated Henry and Anne's marriage.

Coronation

The Coronation, which is just three weeks away, will see both King Charles III and Queen Consort Camilla crowned in front of 2,000 people in Westminster Abbey.

Charles' and Diana's sons, William and Harry, will be present.

Source

• Daily Mail

I've learned to spot the disappointment in people's faces when I don't have an opinion on Harry's latest girlfriend, or Kate's dresses.

As my wife will tell you with some regret, I'm a bit of a disappointment in the royal gossip department.

But I'm no republican. I get that it goes with the territory once you throw off your imperial monarchy and set up on your own, like Ireland, India or the U.S.

But if a royal heads your state, it's obvious that once you defenestrate them, their powers will transfer to the president, and soon you'll be obsessing about Melania Trump's footwear or Emmanuel Macron's holiday home.

So: I respect the royals, even admire them. I can riff, for example, on the evangelical Anglican piety of the Queen — a model of tireless, faithful service — and Prince Charles, who shares his family's Christian passion for the environment.

But the people themselves, and their dramas? I don't live them the way many do — with an intensity normally reserved for soap operas.

So when, in the Peruvian mountain city of Ayacucho 20 years ago, tearful strangers — Quechua speakers, mostly — crossed the Plaza de Armas to commiserate over the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, I was taken aback and didn't know what to say, except gracias, es una tragedia.

The months prior to her brutal end in a Paris traffic pile-up had been tawdry.

The messy divorce from Charles a year earlier, her tearful self-pitying interview on the BBC, her affairs and the cold-shouldering from what she called ‘the Firm' — it wasn't the royals' finest hour, and there was even dark talk of the monarchy's extinction.

But two decades on, the monarchy thrives, and the coverage of the anniversary of Diana's death has helped me see why.

The BBC's brilliant account (also on Netflix) of the seven days leading up to her funeral, as told in part by the princes, William and Harry, was essentially the story of the restoration of a deep, preternatural bond between a people and their sovereigns, one that has a powerful religious resonance. Continue reading

• Austen Ivereigh is a British writer, journalist and commentator, and co-founder of Catholic Voices, a communications project now in 20 countries.

The home was a lovely house located in a ritzy upper class neighborhood, complete with a white picket fence and a classy front door. I was only 21 and I had only been Catholic for a few months, but I knew enough to wonder how a house like this wound up as a shelter for one of the most austere religious orders in the world.

Soon after I settled in, I found out that the house had been given to the Missionaries of Charity by Princess Diana — or something of the sort. She had worked with Mother Teresa to found the shelter, a pro-life home for pregnant women seeking to adopt their children rather than abort them.

Princess Diana? I remember thinking. Isn't she over in Wales? What would royalty have to do with a tiny, wrinkly, homey nun that owns ten things to her name - at best?

The short of it is that Mother Teresa cherished a profound and touching relationship with Princess Diana. Fascinatingly, Mother Teresa died only six days after Princess Diana had been killed in a car accident in 1997.

Immediately after Diana's death, Mother sent a condolence message that said, "She was very concerned for the poor. She was very anxious to do something for them, and it was beautiful. That is why she was close to me."

Over the years, the two iconic women met with each other from time to time. They once held a meeting at a convent in New York. Mother Teresa left the meeting embracing the hands of Diana, who helped the frail nun down the steps onto the sidewalk.

In February 1992, at a Missionary of Charity convent in a working-class district in Rome, they prayed together. In fact, Princess Diana was buried with a rosary given to her by Mother Teresa. They were, apparently, dear friends, despite the fact that their lifestyles sharply contrasted one another. Continue reading

• Amanda Evinger is the grateful mother of three young children (and two others who have died), whom she homeschools with her husband Michael in a "little house on the prairie" in rural North Dakota.

It emerged this week that Rome's Congregation for the Causes of Saints has approved moves to designate Fr Ignatius Spencer ‘Venerable'.

Youngest son of the 2nd Earl Spencer, he was born in 1799, became an Anglican clergyman in 1824 and concerted to Catholicism in 1830.

Two years later he was ordained a Catholic priest in Rome. In 1847 he joined the Passionist congregation and worked among the destitute Irish in the English midlands.

He devoted much of his life to a crusade for the conversion of England to Catholicism in the course of which he visited Ireland four times, beginning in 1842.

By then he was convinced he had an original solution to the eternally troubling Irish question; he believed that if the Irish prayed for the conversion of England then, through prayer, both countries could be united in religion, so reducing antagonism.

In 1851 on a second visit to Ireland he made his famous appeal for a ‘Hail Mary' a day for the conversion of England.

In 1852 he launched a society which undertook "by united prayer to obtain from God the conversion of all the unfortunate people who, under the name of Christian, are separated from the fold of the one Shepherd, not confining ourselves only to Protestants…any more than confining the prayers to England, but including the Greeks and the Russians and the ancient sects of Asia.

Such sentiments were welcomed by then Catholic Primate of Ireland Archbishop William Crolly.

In response Fr Spencer wrote:"It seems that Ireland is to be the first nation which will rise with one simultaneous impulse to gain from God the restoration of unity to Christendom, after which the Gospel will surely spread throughout the world.

"For what is there that stops its spread but the division and opposition of Christians."

Source:

• Irish Times
• Image: Irish Times

It's somewhat providential that the two stories have coincided, especially after a story was brought to my attention late last week about a possible correlation between the papacy and British royalty.

As I've written many times in the past four months or so, Pope Francis is a pretty beloved figure around the world, even by large portions of a mainstream media that is usually suspicious of — or even hostile towards — the Catholic Church, and in many cases with due cause.

But someone at CNN was thinking back to another figure in our not-too-distant past who was loved by the media and wondered "Is Pope Francis the Catholic Princess Diana?"

Eric Marrapodi was reflecting on Pope Francis's recent trip to Lampedusa in southern Italy, one of the closest parts of Europe to Africa and the hoped-for destination of many Africans trying to make a new life for themselves, often risking their lives in the pursuit of that dream. It reminded him of Princess Diana's efforts to cast a spotlight on humanitarian issues.

But watching Francis' first few months in office, it's hard not to notice that he seems to have taken a page from the late Princess Diana's playbook.

The Princess of Wales knew where she went, the media followed. Her activism brought global attention to homelessness, HIV/AIDs, and, most prominently, land mines. Continue reading

Sources

• Gavin Abraham, The Catholic Soapbox
• Image: CNN

Gavin Abraham, a journalist for more than a dozen years, has spent most of the last six years working in Catholic media.

In the past 18 months more than 500 people have died, or gone missing at sea, trying to escape Africa. The world barely noticed.

Standing on Lampedusa on Monday, Francis prayed for the victims and cast a wreath in the water to commemorate the dead. More importantly, he drew attention to the desperate plight of migrants, in his country and around the world.

"We have fallen into a globalization of indifference," Francis said, as he stood near an altar made from the salvage of shipwrecks.

The pope wore purple - a color that symbolizes penance in Catholicism - and prayed that world leaders who ignored the plight of migrants might be forgiven.

"The fact he wore purple and asking for forgiveness was very powerful," Christopher M. Bellitto a church historian and Associate Professor at Kean University said.

"This is a guy that socks you in the gut and touches your heart."

It was his first trip outside of Rome since Argentinian Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio was elected in March as the head of 1.2 billion Catholics worldwide. And it showed how quickly he is learning to shine the megawatt spotlight of his popular papacy on issues dear to his heart.

There are obvious differences between a Catholic pontiff and a princess.

But watching Francis' first few months in office, it's hard not to notice that he seems to have taken a page from the late Princess Diana's playbook.

The Princess of Wales knew where she went, the media followed. Her activism brought global attention to homelessness, HIV/AIDs, and, most prominently, land mines.

Just as Diana ventured far from Buckingham Palace to wrap her arms around landmine victims in Africa and elsewhere, Pope Francis has taken the papacy out of the the Sistine Chapel and into the streets. Continue reading

Sources

• Eric Marrapodi in CNN Belief Blog
• Image: Spiegel Online

Eric Marrapodi is CNN Belief Blog Co-Editor.