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POSTCARD So the best place for Charles to get some of his charm back-on, they figure, is Sri Lanka where everybody is on a charm offensive. Kofi Anan, Colin Powell, Bill Clinton, George Bush Snr. and Shane Warne, they have all been here at least for three hours apiece, to screw on the charm. So where else but Sri Lanka for yesterday’s Prince charming, Charles? Hats have to go off to a grand strategic design to sex up the wedding, such as the Prince’s own mother choosing to boycott the ceremony. They want to inject much controversy to this “boring old gits’’ business as possible, which is why they say that the future head of the Church of England is not getting married in Church. It won’t do because the Church does not recognise re-marriages if one of the spouses is living. But the couple once married is to be blessed in Church, and then all is well and the Prince is fit to become the head of the Church of England on any future date. All this they say had got to do with discouraging infidelity. It means that all of the frolics by HRH the Prince of Wales with Camilla Parker Bowles while both he and she were married will be forgotten and will not be considered strictly adulterous as long as the couple do not get married in Church. Why does the Church do that? Well, certainly not because the Church loves Princess Diana less -- but perhaps the Church loves Prince Charles more. The Church des not consent to re-marriage within its premises, or in other words re-marriages outside the Church are deemed perfectly civilised which is why such re-marriages are allowed in civil form. Thereafter, a re-married man can head that same Church which shuns re-marriages within its premises. There are similar circumstances elsewhere, if all of the above sounds a little odd to you. In the United States for instance, dodging the draft is illegal. Somebody who avoids conscription and does not go to war, is not considered a worthy person, and society therefore can haul him before the courts. But if such a person becomes President - - then all is forgiven - - and he can send others to war. Both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, the current President dodged the draft. Both of them sent young Americans to war, though none with so much pleasure as George W. Bush does now. Therefore, this can be explained as Western civilisation in essence. The dicta in Western civilisation is that if you rule the waves, we will find a way for you to waive the rules. Of course somebody can turn around and say that Charles marrying his girlfriend of 30 years is strictly his business - - which it is. Then, the question is why all the brouhaha about the Church and the state of the Church, all of which is guaranteed to make even the local Bishops blush. For instance, can a small time pastor in a vicarage here in Sri Lanka ask -- is our future head of the Church married or is he not? If the answer would be ‘yes’, why was he not married in Church, you may ask? If the answer is no - - why did the Church bless the couple anyway?? Did the Church then bless two people who are living in sin? These questions get to be a little too much - - and in any case who are Third World Bishops to ask these questions. Which is why they promptly sent the future head of the Church of England to Sri Lanka. Then he can turn that lens outward and ask “for the Lord’s sake, why aren’t you people in Sri Lanka secular? If you separated temple and state, none of these problems in the North East which I am visiting would have arisen.’’ At such wisdom, Charles is guaranteed to get mobbed by our civil society intellectuals. They will say ‘‘after all, look at how they do these things in Britain. We must emulate them.’’ They might even call for a little less celibacy on the part of our Mahanayakes for a start. |
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