Rowan Williams on Prince Charles Defender of the Faith

Charles Moore talks to Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, at Lambeth Palace (extract)


Q: What do you think of the Prince of Wales's proposal to be titled Defender of Faith rather than Defender of the Faith?

A: I'm glad that the Prince of Wales takes faith communities as seriously as he does but the actual title, there is an historical, constitutional framework for it which you don't just change by fiat. Unless something really radical happens with the constitution he is, like it or not, Defender of the Faith and he has a relationship with the Christian Church of a kind which he does not have with other faith communities. But three cheers that he has the seriousness he has about this.


Q: Do you think he accepts that, in fact?

A: I think he does.


Q: But you think he has a particular relationship with the Christian faith, and a change of title might suggest that that wasn't there any more, so you have that concern, do you?

A: Well, it would be a large issue, wouldn't it. It wouldn't just be a matter of words. The fact is that that the monarch is the supreme governor and is such in virtue of being the prime lay person of a Christian Church.


Q: And that situation would carry on as well?

A: As long as that constitutional situation prevails. It's rather difficult to be the leading lay person of a Christian Church if you are not a lay person of a Christian Church.

Humanity needs peace not Islam.