Betrayed by my King - with Rachel Ciano and Stephen Tong

Marcus Loane said no.  The King said yes. 

For the first time in more than 800 years, an English monarch has prayed publicly with the Pope.

King Charles III — the Supreme Governor of the Church of England — joined Pope Leo XIV in the Sistine Chapel in a highly choreographed moment of unity. But for many Protestants, this was not a moment to celebrate, but to grieve,

The Reformation was born out of deep conviction that Rome had departed from the apostolic gospel — that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. Those convictions have not changed. And yet, the sight of a Protestant king kneeling in prayer beside the Pope suggests that they believe these dividing lines no longer matter, that the Reformation is no longer relevant.

Half a century ago, in 1970, when Pope Paul VI visited Australia, Sydney Anglican Archbishop Sir Marcus Loane — refused to pray with the Pope, saying shared prayer implied shared faith, and that the great truths of the Reformation still mattered: salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

Loane’s grandson, Dr Stephen Tong, joins Rachel Ciano, Lecturer in Church History at Sydney Missionary and Bible College, and Dominic Steele on The Pastor’s Heart to discuss what's happened in Rome this week - as the leaders of the Roman Catholic and Church of England Churches downplay the Reformation's significance.

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Chapters

• 0:00 A Personal Shock And Backstory
• 3:14 Why The Rome Prayer Matters
• 5:59 No Salvation Outside The Church?
• 9:29 Symbols, Staging And Deep Resonance
• 13:36 The 1970 Sydney Stand-Off
• 17:06 Justification At The Centre
• 21:36 Liturgy, Mary And Prayer Patterns
• 25:06 Motives: Theology Or PR
• 28:51 Confraternity Titles And Unity Claims

Transcript

SPEAKER_02: 0:37

Betrayed by my king. It is the Pastor's Heart. It's Dominic Steele, and our guests today are Rachel Ciano and Stephen Tong. I feel betrayed by my king. On the most important issue, I feel like King Charles has betrayed me and Protestant Christians around the world, but even more significantly, he has grieved the Lord Jesus. I was born in England. I was Christian Catholic, Communion Catholic, taught confession in a Catholic church, confirmation Catholic and Catholic school, the Delar Salle Brothers. I was an altar boy at St. Agatha's Catholic Church in Pennant Hills in Sydney for six or seven years. But it was in a Protestant church, an Anglican church, that I was converted, that I was saved, that I discovered the free grace of salvation by faith alone as a 20-year-old. And there was then real pain and real cost in making a break from the Roman Catholic Church. I remember conversations with both sets of my now dead grandparents about my conversion. And I had to sort out what was my new relationship with Jesus Christ and what that meant and how the past fitted in, and all those years that I had formal religion, but I didn't have a relationship, a saving relationship with Jesus Christ. And so for me, it has been a punch in the heart this week to see the Pope and the King and the Archbishop of York praying together. Something that the office holders of Pope and King have not done well since at least the twelfth century. And I feel so, so sad. And two church history experts have kindly come in to help me sort through this inner turmoil. Rachel Ciano is a lecturer in church history at Sydney Missionary and Bible College, and Stephen Tong has a PhD in evangelical ecclesiology and the English liturgy. Rachel, I wonder if you could start us off, and you've heard my story, but actually take us back a step. What's the significance of what's going on here?

unknown: 2:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 2:50

It's significant on a number of fronts. So we have the leader of the Catholic Church, the Pope, Pope Leo. We have the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, King Charles. Now they operate as spiritual heads of those religious institutions, but they also act as heads of state in those roles, King Charles of the UK and the Pope of Vatican City. And so in those roles, in that coming together, in those public prayers in a consecrated church, it is a step towards coming together after the break of the Reformation. And so from Vatican II onwards, in the 1960s, there has been a movement, particularly by the Roman Catholic Church. We now have the DICASG for promoting Christian unity that is working towards bringing Anglicans, other faith communities into the fold of the Roman Catholic Church, because outside of that, there is no salvation. And so public prayer and liturgy is one of the key ways of saying the Reformation is over. Come back in.

SPEAKER_02: 4:05

Outside of that, there is no salvation. Just unpack that statement for me, because that's the Catholic perspective.

SPEAKER_00: 4:12

So it's been the perspective well before we would talk of the Roman Catholic Church. So it's from the early days of the church, the early centuries, as they were trying to understand how church works. Cyprian comes up with this idea, not just his own, but that there is no salvation outside the church. And so when the Roman Catholic Church emerges, that is co-op, that is understood to mean that there is no salvation outside the Roman Catholic Church. And so Protestants have historically been viewed as separated brethren. And Vatican II has been a call back into the fold to find points of unity and contact in order to accommodate them back into, in some way, the Roman Catholic Church. So the public prayer would be recognized by the Catholic Church as King Charles and Queen Camilla, and particularly King Charles as Supreme Governor of the Church of England, coming under the authority of both the Roman Catholic Church and the Pope.

SPEAKER_02: 5:18

Coming back.

SPEAKER_00: 5:19

Coming back home.

SPEAKER_02: 5:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 5:20

Coming back home.

SPEAKER_02: 5:21

So you can understand the kind of gut punch that I've felt this week.

SPEAKER_00: 5:26

Absolutely. I'm married to a man who has a similar story to you. It cost him dearly to leave the Roman Catholic Church. In many ways, it still does. There's profound pain there. And I think it's the gospel confusion from a leader who you expected to do better that can hurt. And that can happen in all sorts of contexts. But in this context, it's King Charles, I think, for you. It sounds like you expected better of him as a as a person, as a leader. And as the monarch. And as the monarch. Yeah. And so with that betrayal comes very real sense of grief and loss. And um what was it all for? Why why did you pay that cost? Why do you continue to pay that cost if there's no difference, if the reformation is over and we're all on the same page on key doctrines of justification by faith alone, through Christ alone.

SPEAKER_02: 6:23

Yeah, I mean, I mean, I've been through that whole cycle of grief, you know, and and I think I've felt it, I mean, all these debates we've been having about sexuality and things like that, I felt like, well, this is as big. And yet, as I look around and I talk to some of my other Protestant leader friends, they're not registering that in the same terms that I am. And you, Stephen Tong, you were you were saying you've been talking to people and they're not seeing it in the same categories that I'm seeing it in. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 6:53

I think that's right, because they don't have the same personal experience as you do, or Rachel's your husband. So for someone who is either born and bred Protestant, be Anglican, Baptist, or whatever it might be, or new to the faith without a Roman Catholic background, I think some people will be struggling to understand why is this such a big deal. Because and I understand that too to a point, because at one level, it it's not really a big deal. If you are a Christian, who is the head of the church?

SPEAKER_02: 7:21

Jesus.

SPEAKER_01: 7:21

Exactly. It's not a human. Exactly. So one level, whatever. And people can pray if they want to. But Rachel, you're right, because uh you've made the point before, it's a very staged scenario in the Sistine Chapel, which in and of itself has a huge sense of historical resonance. Exactly. And so it's those visual messages that are being sent out that have a huge amount of consequence and deep-seated resonance for someone like yourself, Dominic, and many people around the world. And it's worthwhile sort of unpacking that, whilst acknowledging that, yes, at one level, it doesn't really matter, um, particularly as a Sydney Anglican. Perhaps we probably actually have more in common with someone who's not Anglican. Let's say, for instance, Don Carson, you know, whose theology I would argue lines up pretty much well with us, besides maybe um infant baptism. Um, but there's an example I'd be very happy to be praying with Don Carson.

SPEAKER_02: 8:20

You know, if Don Carson went and prayed with the Pope, I would feel that same.

SPEAKER_01: 8:26

No, I agree. My my point is at one level people will be like, whatever, two people praying. But it's worth having a look at why it is so significant. So acknowledging, yes, it's it's one level is um a human level, but there are because of the deep history, which Rachel you've touched on, particularly the last 500 years since the break with Rome in 1534, all the way through to now, um, it's it's significant. And it's significant from an English point of view as well. So if you look at the past 500 years in the West, which has been built up uh like Australia has as a child of the British Empire, what is synonymous with British identity, right from the word goes, those British ships went out right across the world. What was accompanying those ships? Two books, the King James Bible and the prayer book. And so Protestantism, or rather, Anglicanism, is synonymous for the past 500 years with what it is to be British. So for the British monarch to actually in some ways step back or walk backwards on that and go to the Sistine Chapel and pray with the Pope.

SPEAKER_02: 9:35

Kind of on the probe's terms.

SPEAKER_01: 9:36

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02: 9:38

And sort of I mean, it's not like if they both happen to be at Charlie Kirk's funeral or something.

SPEAKER_01: 9:42

No, no, that's right, which would be a different thing altogether. But yeah, exactly in the heart of Roman Catholicism, that that symbolism in itself is massive.

SPEAKER_02: 9:51

Now I want to push into um firstly, I'm I'm gonna come to English history and some of that. Yeah. That's your PhD and that kind of thing. But firstly, um there's a personal narrative for you too, Stephen, because you're the grandson of the Archbishop Anglican Archbishop of Sydney who wouldn't pray with the Pope in the early 1970s, and it cost him. Um, can you tell that story to us?

SPEAKER_01: 10:22

Yeah, so in 1970, well, let's go to the 60s um when the the huge wave of ecumenicism was was sort of rolling through. And so the Pope had a visit here in Sydney in December, well, end of November, December 1970, and it was a bit of a roach as they went around. Part of that, I think I'd have to double check the numbers, is about 2,300 invitations went out, different church leaders and other significant uh people in Sydney to meet with the Pope. There was going to be a um an ecumenical service. So my grandfather, who was Archbishop of Sydney at the time, Sir Marcus Lone. Sir Marcus Loan said that if he was invited, he would actually decline as a matter of conscience, as a Protestant, as an Anglican, because of the deep theological differences between uh Anglicanism, um, the truth faith, perhaps, and uh the Pope and what the Pope believed and stood for terms of.

SPEAKER_02: 11:22

I'm hearing we disagree on justification by faith.

SPEAKER_01: 11:25

Well, that's what I was gonna say. Yeah, that was the key one justification by faith, invocation of Mary, transubstantiation. They're probably the three big ticket items from a from a Protestant point of view that we disagree with. I mean, there's other points as well, but those are the key um theological points that granddad made a stand on. And I and and I'd stand on the same foundation as well.

SPEAKER_02: 12:18

Um let's just jump in and disagreements on justification by faith, because you've been involved in writing on this. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 12:26

So we've always got to bear in mind that in fairness to Roman Catholicism, we need to treat it as a system. And so that's right, these are the big ticket items, but they fit within a system. You cannot understand Mary outside of understanding the system, you cannot understand um uh understanding of transubstantiation outside that. And so justification by faith is the central piece of doctrine uh over which um these things are connected. But when we look at, say, the pattern of prayer that would that did occur in the Sistine Chapel, even understanding the differences that we pray to the Father through the Son in the Spirit, that understanding would be markedly different because of the doctrine of justification by faith in a Protestant setting, evangelical setting, uh, and in a Roman Catholic setting. And so Mary, for example, disrupts that because uh she is the one who brings the prayers to the son because what son would say no to his mum, to his mum, and then that can go up. So it's a spiritual, a spiritual hierarchy that means that really that curtain has not come down between us and the father because of the death and resurrection of his son. So even the pattern of prayer speaks to the profound systemic differences in Roman Catholic theology, which we need to treat fairly by taking the whole into account, um, and broadly evangelical theology.

SPEAKER_02: 14:14

Um I mean, you researched this and researched the prayer books, um, Stephen. What are the different um liturgies say about our different perspectives on justification by faith?

SPEAKER_01: 14:26

Before I go there, can I just uh a postscript to the story about Grandad? Oh, is it which is interesting. Sorry, I didn't know. No, no, no, that's okay. So he disagreed, he didn't go to the service, but after that, Cardinal Gilroy, the Catholic cardinal in in Australia, actually wrote an open letter published in the SMH at the time saying he respected Grandad for making that stance and totally understood it along those doctrinal lines. And there's an example of Cardinal Gilroy exactly, and so and there is an example of I wish that Tope Leo was more like Cardinal Gilbert. Yeah, well that's but you can disagree agreeably on these heart matters that are so central to our faith on these things. So I just put that in there because there is a sense of human grace at that level. Um and directly after that, both uh Gilroy, uh Gilroy and um and granddad started to meet um and and move and talk and talk, exactly. And and we've got to understand that in those days sectarianism in Australia was alive and well, which current generation may not um have no real idea. Yeah, and so that in itself was also significant, but that doesn't get the headlines, it's only ever the disagreements behind what's going on. So just to come back to King Charles, it's worth asking, what is he actually trying to achieve there? What's he doing praying with the Pope? Is it a theological, ecclesiastical moment for him, or is it a good news story that is kind of a distraction from a few other bad news stories that the royal family's getting at the moment?

SPEAKER_02: 15:58

So if I can get the front page of Prince Andrew and onto a controversy over here, then that's yeah, yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_01: 16:04

It's kind of a you know, huggy, cuddly, fearly, you know, a nice, a nice story. Well, let's push into that.

SPEAKER_00: 16:10

I was just gonna say, so that liberality of friendship in that common humanity, that's something that we want to applaud when we see it. That's you we want to be wide in our friendships. But with an occasion like a staged prayer in a consecrated church, which is the Pope's private chapel, under the high altar, under the Last Supper by Michelangelo, with the Pope front and center, uh king and queen to decide to decide.

SPEAKER_02: 16:39

That's not about the messaging is really clear. It's about spiritual unity.

SPEAKER_00: 16:44

Yeah. So we want to say, yes, we want to be liberal with our friendships, but when it comes to gospel clarity and spiritual unity, uh, they called one another basically co-brothers, confraters uh as a result of that meeting.

SPEAKER_02: 17:02

And so they are they've given each other those titles.

SPEAKER_00: 17:05

They've given each other those respective titles. So for King Charles, who's now Confrader of St. Paul's Outside the Walls in Rome, and for uh the Pope here is now Confrayter of St. George's Chapel in Windsor. And so there's a spiritual confraternity. There were gifts that were exchanged as part of that. And so it's it ends up being more than a good news story, even if that was the intention. And and I get that intention, and there's something noble about it, but it's the wrong context for that because it speaks to spiritual unity, where such a thing does not exist when the core doctrine of justification by faith is still not settled. The Reformation is not over because um Rome and evangelicals hold vastly different views on that. That that issue has not yet gone away.

SPEAKER_01: 18:00

To bring it back to the liturgy, that's that's actually significant. They didn't hold a mass or they didn't have a Lord's Supper together.

SPEAKER_02: 18:06

I mean, which would have actually been totally explosive.

SPEAKER_01: 18:09

And that exactly. So you've avoided that whole, you know, you've just sidestepped the whole issue of transubstantiation, salvation alone, you know, uh by faith alone, by grace alone. All those big ticket items which we mentioned earlier, they just have elided that.

SPEAKER_02: 18:24

Uh and so therefore it can't-for a superficial unity.

SPEAKER_01: 18:27

That's what I mean. Yeah, exactly. And it can be a good news story from a political human level, but again, there are huge theological and historical resonances that that are worthwhile pondering.

SPEAKER_00: 18:39

Which is all it can be. It can only, you touched on it, superficial unity. That's all it can be. There can be agreement if we're not asking the deeper questions of what do we mean by prayer? What do we mean by justification? What do we mean by church? What do we mean by Mary? What do we mean by Jesus? If we don't ask or don't define those things, then there can be superficial unity. And that's what that was a beautiful production of exactly that.

SPEAKER_02: 19:07

Um, now you've spoken about what the, if you like, the Roman Catholic agenda was in this whole thing. What do you reckon the Anglican agenda was in this whole thing? I mean, thinking about I mean, we're talking about the liberal Archbishop of York and and really the liberal king.

SPEAKER_01: 19:20

Yeah. It's without actually talking to them myself, yeah. It's hard to do that question. I appreciate that. But but put it into the the immediate context. I mean, GAFCON has just broken away, was it in the in the last week, fortnight?

SPEAKER_02: 19:33

I mean, yeah, I mean, that's when you think, don't they have enough fights? Do we like if they're trying to deal with the GAFCON thing on the one hand, why have this fight on the other?

SPEAKER_01: 19:42

Yeah, exactly. So what I I that's a question I don't have a uh direct answer to just because no, I know, but it's it's the timing is always interesting there, isn't it? Surely they would have thought with Welby going, that would, you know, that's not new news, that's old news in terms of the timing, mining all this kind of stuff. Yeah, exactly. So I don't have a precise answer to that, but it is just interesting to observe the timing of Charles's meeting with the Pope right now, directly after GAFCON. And I guess a cynic might read, or he's here's a response to that as well, whether that's intended or not. Um, it's hard to know.

SPEAKER_00: 20:23

Yeah, I think there are common interests between King Charles uh and Pope Leo, and following on from Pope Francis's pontificate, and that was reflected both in the type of prayers that were prayed in the Sistine Chapel, but also the meeting that occurred afterwards, and that was a focus on creation care and sustainability. So, you know, without um knowing King Charles' mind, I suspect that a greater issue uh for him, creation care, drove him to partner, for want of a better word, with someone that he could be in a co-belligerent cause with. And I think um that's often something that we need to work through uh in everyday life. In in what ways do we partner with people because there's a common cause? And when do we draw a line and say, I can go with you this far, but no further?

SPEAKER_02: 21:21

I mean, that's interesting. I mean, I I taught on the weekend on 1 Thessalonians 3, and uh as I was preparing that sermon, I was thinking the thing that drives Paul is his care for the growth in uh the strengthening of the faith of this church that he was the pastor of, and the strengthening of their trust in Jesus. And there were other there were other things to care about what was going on in their lives, but the thing I really care about is is their faith in Christ Jesus being strengthened. And the big message from this church service is environmentalism, do you know? And you think, right, well, these guys are not on the same plane as the Apostle Paul.

SPEAKER_01: 22:05

Yeah, which is why I make that point about Don Carson as a non-Anglican. Yeah, I love Don Carson, I read his staff and listen, I think he's fantastic, but he's a non-Anglican. But I think it's absolutely fine and appropriate for us to be praying with Don Carson. Don Carson or someone in that right, but when the head of the church goes to the Sistine Chapel, that's a very different thing altogether for that exact point you've made. It's not about Jesus, not about the gospel, it's about something human, something about this world in terms of environmentality.

SPEAKER_02: 22:41

That is not as important as people growing in Christ. Um what do you say to the Protestant who just says it's not a big deal?

SPEAKER_00: 23:02

I don't want to ask why they thought that was so. There could be lots of reasons why it hasn't registered as a big deal. But I would want to, in that conversation, ensure that there was gospel clarity and that there was clarity around what the Roman Catholic Church taught about the way that a person is saved, which is a continual process of sanctification, and an evangelical understanding of how a person is saved, which is a declaration because of the work of the Lord Jesus in his death and resurrection that then empowers by the Spirit to live a new changed life. And so those are two remarkably different things. And so in any conversation with someone, if they weren't sure if it was a big deal, I'd want to get at gospel clarity.

SPEAKER_02: 23:57

Okay, I asked Rachel about the it's not a big deal. What do you say, Stephen, when you see the photo of the Pope and the photo of the uh king next to each other on Facebook and they're praying, and a whole lot of your Facebook friends have clicked like. What do you say to those people who are who are saying Well, I'm not really on Facebook to start with.

SPEAKER_01: 24:19

Maybe they like Michelangelis. Yeah, yeah, that's it. Yeah, they're art historians. Um just to make the point on this as well, as you've said before, Rachel, a lot of Roman Catholics aren't that happy with what's going on either. Right. Yeah. So we're coming from our Protestant-Anglican point of view, but also on the other side, there's a lot of Roman Catholics scratching their noggins as well, thinking what's the criticism there? Because I've seen a little bit of online, but but for those who haven't, uh trying to distill a lot of different disparate voices here. Uh uh correct me if I'm wrong, but I think uh a lot of the anger and perhaps disappointment uh as well comes down to this idea as you've unpacked before, Rachel. If the Pope is seen to be bringing the king of England, the the supreme head of the Church of England back under his headship, as in the Pope, so bring him back into the Catholic fold, uh, a lot of Catholics might scratch their heads and think, what about all the Catholic martyrs during the Reformation period and through the 17th century as well, and all the way through, you know, until the Test Act in the 19th century when Catholics were barred from certain positions of office and public life. What was that all for from at one level? Um, and also the the understanding of the Anglican priesthood in terms of our ministry, and there's from the Catholic point of view, there's probably a bit of disgust in terms of well, they're not actually um, they're not priests in the way that we understand them as priests, and yet the Pope has now just l legitimized the whole Anglican orders that are in there, and so they might be coming up from their perspective with a similar sense of betrayal in in your instance, or um uh really confusion. Well, what is the Pope doing as well? We've asked, what's the what's the king doing? Maybe you know, from the other side, what is the Pope trying to achieve here as well? Is it more than just a sign uh a symbolic bringing the Church of England back under? And that's gonna confuse some Roman Catholics.

SPEAKER_02: 26:23

I mean, you and I have talked about this before about the Roman Catholic Church, that the Roman is the we believe in a doctrine end of the spectrum, and the Catholic is the kind of universally kind of everybody I get on board end of the spectrum. And so really what Stephen's saying is some of those Roman people are going to be critical of the Leo here.

SPEAKER_00: 26:42

That's it. So Rome is the pull towards the centre, the the physical, the spiritual centre of Rome, of which the Vatican, the Sistine Chapel sits within the Vatican, uh, you know, is paramount and the Catholic universal embrace. And it's always both at the same time, and there's always a push-pull. One. Post Vatican II, it's been pulling towards uh Catholicism, the embrace. Pope Francis uh typified that. Um, I don't know if Leo is going to pull further, but I feel like there will be uh there will be a limit to how much it can pull without those pulling in the Roman direction within the Roman Catholic Church. Uh finding that that's just going too far for their taste. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 27:27

Yeah. What do you think Elizabeth would think?

SPEAKER_01: 27:30

I don't think she would have ever put herself into that position. Again, never never having met the good queen, although my grandpa did.

SPEAKER_02: 27:40

But did she say, Well done, Sir Marcus? Possibly it's hard to know.

SPEAKER_01: 27:47

Um, but I don't I don't think from what I can tell Christmas messages and and a few other uh bits and pieces along the line. I I'm hopeful that she had a genuine faith in Jesus. I mean that's what it could appear. Yeah, would she pass PTC from Moore College? I I don't know, but I think there was a genuine faith in in the Bible and and in Jesus. I'm not convinced that Charles shares that same faith.

SPEAKER_02: 28:12

No, no, I mean that's the evidence. I mean, from a distance, that's what it looks like.

SPEAKER_01: 28:16

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 28:16

He's not saying, I mean, to say I want to be defender of faiths rather than defender of faith, you've got to say, well, what's going on? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 28:25

Yeah, and that was that was significant in his uh coronation as well. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 28:29

So both Charles and Pope Leo are in an accommodating stage uh in their leadership. And so I think that's what we saw play out in those prayers.

SPEAKER_02: 28:40

Thanks so much for coming in and talking to us.

SPEAKER_01: 28:42

Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_02: 28:43

My guests on the Pastor's Heart, Rachel Ciano. She lectures in church history at Sydney Missionary and Bible College and Stephen Tong, and uh, well, he teaches at Sydney Grammar School, but he has a PhD in evangelical ecclesiology and English liturgy. My name is Dominic Steele. You've been with us on The Pastor's Heart. We will look forward to your company next Tuesday afternoon.