To those who think the Queen should become a revolutionary and overthrow the state...

The postbag contains some hot complaints about our dear Queen, some a bit offensive, to the effect that she is not legitimate because she didn't refuse to sign certain immoral laws, classically the abortion laws.

These are ill thought out complaints.

But why, exactly?

I shall repeat here the points I made in one answer as I can see that they may be of interest to a wider audience.

I speak as a lawyer as well as a theologian and so hope that I can speak without complete ignorance on the subject.

The Queen has some few not well defined residual powers which probably include the final power to resolve a complete constitutional deadlock or impasse, or to restrain a rogue government that breaks the law in a way that the Courts and Judges cannot otherwise rectify, but, in truth, her powers do not really extend much beyond that. Indeed, that is probably about the sum total of her real political powers today.

That her powers arise from an unwritten Constitution and are necessarily therefore not so well defined does not obliterate them but it does make determining their extent rather less clear. It means that the scope of our Constitution is defined by what lawyers call "conventions" rather than by a written instrument like, say, the US, Canadian or Australian Constitutions. It also means that the Queen will be much more hesitant about exercising any residual prerogative or reserved powers, as they are called, than is the case with her representatives in countries with a written constitution.

That is why the Governor-General of Australia, Sir John Kerr, in 1975 felt able, after taking advice from the Chief Justice of the High Court, Sir Garfield Barwick, to dismiss the Prime Minister and compel a "caretaker" government to call a General Election.

Sir David Smith, the Australian Governor-General's official secretary, reading the Governor-General's proclamation dissolving both Houses of Parliament (under s.57 of the Constitution) on the steps of Parliament House, Canberra, 11 November 1975, with the sacked ex-Prime Minister, Mr Edward Gough Whitlam, and 2 be-wigged clerks of the House, standing behind him. In front of Sir David, a large crowd of Whitlam supporters was baying and chanting in an attempt to drown out the words of the proclamation. Mr Whitlam grins at their efforts but, in fact, a month later, he was defeated at the polls by the biggest landslide defeat in Australian political history. He and his Party (the Australian Labour Party) have never forgiven or forgotten what they see as a "betrayal" by Sir John Kerr who was himself a Labour Party appointee as Governor-General. Others consider that Mr Whitlam got what was coming to him because he had, they say, begun to govern unconstitutionally. Either way, these events have had a dramatic and lasting effect upon Australian politics.

His power to do so, as the Queen's representative, was clearly defined in section 57 of the Australian Constitution, as can be seen here:

http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/general/constitution/par5cha1.htm

Even then there was a massive and intense reaction to his using that power and a political upheaval that is still being felt with all sorts of continuing ramifications including a huge campaign, supported by large funding, to replace the Monarchy with a republican President.

Thus those who think that the exercise of similar powers by the Queen would not be de-stablising or create immense upheaval are simply not looking at the facts.

In fact, however, compared with the powers of the Australian Governor-General, her representative in Australia, and even, in theory, her own powers in Australia under section 59 of the Australian Constitution, her powers in the United Kingdom are very narrow powers.

Nonetheless they remain very important ones. We must honestly hope and pray that they will never have to be exercised but it is, nevertheless, necessary that she retains them – for all our sakes and for the safety and security of the nation.

As a matter of law and constitutional convention and practice, the Queen does NOT have the power to refuse legislation beyond this extremely narrow compass of powers and she certainly has no power to pick and choose what legislation she wishes to approve.

In the UK Constitution, conventions form the very constitution. That is what the UK Constitution consists in. They determine the scope of the UK Constitution. That is how an unwritten constitution works.

Under these constitutional conventions, the Queen retains a purely nominal or ceremonial "power" to refuse legislation but it is not a real power save in the very rare and highly extreme situation of a deadlock or rogue government, as stated above. That is the current reality as regards her real political powers.

Thus, if she tried to take any more powers than this narrow compass then she would, in effect, have instigated an illegal coup d’etat against the democratically elected government of the day and would not then be acting as a responsible head of state but rather a criminal revolutionary.

Moreover, if she did so in order to prevent certain immoral laws from becoming law (e.g. the abortion laws) then her actions would not only be illegal and revolutionary but they would also not succeed in over-turning the abortion laws (or any other immoral laws) and so would, in any case, be pointless and disproportionate.

She would succeed in nothing much more than ending the Monarchy and de-stabilising the Constitution and therefore the whole country.

She simply does not have that right – morally, legally or politically.

The last Monarch actually to refuse assent to legislation was Queen Anne back in the 18th century. Queen Victoria possibly still had the power, at least in theory, but she never used it.

The present Queen no longer has those powers - rightly or wrongly.

Nevertheless some people, in ignorance perhaps innocent, still think the Queen has the powers of Queen Anne or Queen Victoria. As a matter of legal and constitutional practice and convention, she simply does not have those powers any more.

If, on the other hand, she really DID have the power to refuse any legislation i.e. as Queen Anne truly did or as Queen Victoria still theoretically did, then she might legitimately be held morally culpable for not exercising them to reject immoral laws.

But she does not have that power.

For her to take that power would be as illegal as you or I trying to take such powers. She would, in short, have become a revolutionary bent upon over-throwing the state.

Unless critics of the Queen wish to argue that we all, as Christians, have the obligation to start a revolution and overthrow the state because of an objection to immoral laws, then they cannot expect the Queen to do so any more than the rest of us.

Ignorance of the legal and constitutional postion of the Monarch is excusable in those who know but little of such things or who are simple folk of little learning but for the intelligent and educated to argue so is lamentable.

The idea that the Queen should become a revolutionary and stage a coup d'etat against her own government may perhaps have its origins in the kind of spurious liberation theology that more resembles Marxism than Catholic theology. It is the sort of entirely fallacious theology that encourages Catholics to support revolutionary movements around the world and to support revolutionaries closer to home such as the bloody, murderous and diabolical IRA.

This spirit of revolution is not a clean spirit. It is a spirit that refuses to serve and says, with Satan, "I will not serve".

It should be obvious that no Catholic can ever even begin to endorse such a creed.

It is not now the place to explore the idea of just war but suffice to say that no subject has the right to rebel against his legitimate sovereign or government and still less the right to declare such a sovereign or government illegitimate. Only a legitimate superior may declare a lesser sovereign power illegitimate and the subject, by definition, is not a superior.

The idea that a group of subjects may club together and declare their own sovereign government illegitimate and so claim the right to overthrow it is a concept entirely condemned by the Catholic Church.

It has, however, been welcomed by some Protestant sects and by many secularists.

The anti-Catholic founders of the American revolution claimed the right to judge their government and rebel and were roundly condemned by the Catholic Church for so claiming.

The only time a Catholic may fight against his own government or sovereign is if that sovereign is illegitimate by its own admission or by the proper judgment of a superior. The Pope, for instance, might be such a superior in some cases, or perhaps international law, depending upon the particulars of each case.

A clear usurpation or seizure of power from the legitimate sovereign government, or an illegal invasion, may be rightly resisted by a Catholic by force of arms but even then the invasion must have been declared illegal by some superior power (e.g. by recognised international law) and, moreover, a Catholic may only do so if resistance is proportionate and there is the real prospect of winning. Otherwise, he acts immorally and sins.

On the other hand, if a foreign power seeks to overthrow an illegal or usurped government, a Catholic may be justified in assisting that foreign power to restore the legal government but, again, only proportionately and with a reasonable prospect of success.

The idea that there is a general right for any group of citizens to band together to overthrow a government that they, and they alone, have judged to be oppressive or wicked is utterly spurious and has no basis whatsoever in Catholic doctrine or, in all honesty, in right reason. It is simply a recipe for chaos and anarchy.

Revolution is an anti-Catholic creed - by definition.

Those who doubt this should read De Regimine Principum ("On the Rule of Princes") by St Thomas Aquinas.

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