A Royal Inconvenience

On a more irreverent note. . . . Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles were scheduled to wed this Friday, but the Pope's funeral caused the future King Charles III - who's been waiting to marry Camilla almost as long as he's been waiting to ascend to the English throne - to delay the wedding until Saturday.

There is some irony to the fact that the divorced Charles, whose bride's ex-husband is still alive, had to delay his wedding plans to attend the Pope's funeral. When King Henry VIII wanted a divorce from one of his six wives (I can't remember which one!) after she failed to produce a male heir, Pope Clement VII (a lot of Roman numerals here!) refused to grant it. Henry then broke with Rome and established himself as head of the Catholic Church of England. (Though this happened at the time Martin Luther was leading the Reformation, Henry VIII refused to align himself to the Protestant revolt; the Church of England only became Protestant under later monarchs.) So in a way, the Catholic Church just got its revenge on the British royal family for breaking away over the issue of divorce!