The Church England raised significant logical objections, centring on the sovereign's dual role as Monarch and head of the Anglican Church.

Church of England leaders were concerned that if a future heir to the British throne married a Roman Catholic, their children, by the Catholic Church's canon law, are required to be brought up as Catholic.

The constitutionally problematic situation would result in the Supreme Governor of the Church of England possibly being a Roman Catholic.

English Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg began work on making the way for members of the Royal Family to marry a Catholic in order to introduce full equality between the faiths and to end the common law principle of males having first right to the throne.

A spokesman for Mr Clegg said: "The Government accepts there are provisions [in the Act] which could be discriminatory.

"Amending the laws regarding succession to the throne is a complex and difficult matter that requires careful and thoughtful consideration."

A spokesman for the Anglican Church said that although the Act of Succession appeared "anomalous" in the modern world, while the Church of England remained the established religion, the monarch and Supreme Governor could not owe a higher loyalty elsewhere.

"The prohibition on those in the line of succession marrying Roman Catholics derives from an earlier age and inevitably looks anomalous, not least when there is no prohibition on marriage to those of other faiths or none."

"But if the prohibition were removed the difficulty would still remain that establishment requires the monarch to join in communion with the Church of England as its Supreme Governor and that is not something that a Roman Catholic would be able to do consistently with the current rules of that church."

Before Autumn Kelly married Peter Phillips, the oldest son of the Princess Royal who is 11th in line to the throne, she converted from Catholicism to Anglicanism.

Thirty years earlier, Prince Michael of Kent, the Queen's cousin, renounced his position in the line of succession in order to marry the then Baroness Marie-Christine von Reibnitz, a Roman Catholic divorcee.

Source

• The Telegraph

John Paul II is considered a modern Catholic hero, and the Vatican is working overtime to make the beatification go viral and embarking on a social media strategy unseen before by the Vatican. A website, a Facebook page and Twitter account all part of mix.

The Vatican even intends to broadcast the beatification in 3D, however it is having difficulty getting traction from the traditional media; TV networks are not as interested in John Paul as they once were.

According to one event planner, behind closed doors, once-optimistic Vatican officials who were planning for 1 -2 million visitors told city event planners in Rome to prepare for as few as 150,000 people and only a handful of dignitaries.

"There won't be a lot of space to cover the beatification because all the attention is going to be on England." said Sabina Castelfranco, an Italy-based reporter with CBS TV.

Monsignor Slawomir Oder, the church official who has advanced the case for the late pope's sainthood, bemoaned the attention the royal wedding is getting, adding, "In today's world, gossip makes more news and gathers more of an audience."

Oder said that Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, the archbishop of Krakow, who was John Paul II's private secretary, insisted the beatification should coincide with the May 1 Labor Day weekend, giving pilgrims from the late pontiff's native Poland enough time to travel to Rome.

Source

• Wall St Journal

Police report Muslims Against the Crusades (MAS) applied for permission to protest outside Westminster Abbey on the day of the royal wedding. The police, who have the power to ban protests along the main route, have rejected their request.

The group however may be able to stage their protest nearby and the police say they are in negotiations with Muslims Against the Crusades.

On its Website, MAS labelled Prince William as "one of the biggest advocates of British imperialism" and, through his army and air force career, had "direct involvement with the murderous British military." MAS said it will mount a "forceful demonstration" against Britain's interventions in Muslim countries.

"We strongly advise Prince William and his Nazi sympathisers to withdraw from the crusader British military and give up all affiliation to the tyrannical British Empire.

"We promise that should they refuse, then the day which the nation has been dreaming of for so long will become a nightmare and that it will inshaa'allah (God willing) eclipse the protests in Barking, Downing Street and the events of November 11."

A counter demonstration is also planned by the English Defense League who have recently mounted several violent protests against Islam.

Lynne Owens, assistant commissioner of Scotland Yard, told the BBC: "We see this as a day of celebration and what we will be doing is making sure that no protest disrupts that celebration of the royal family.

"We have to authorise a demonstration but we can put conditions on that demonstration and it's that negotiation process that we're engaged with at the moment," she added.

About 5000 officers are being deployed to police the royal wedding, which is expected to draw hundreds of thousands of people onto the streets of London.

Sources

• BigPond News
• Daily India
• Image: ODT