The Roman Catholic Church is of course a global church with around a billion baptised adherents. In the UK it exists in three bishops’ conferences: those of England and Wales, Scotland, and Ireland (Northern Ireland as well as the Irish Republic). The jurisdiction of the pope in England and Wales was abolished in the 1530s by the Henricean Parliament, but the medieval structures of parishes, dioceses, cathedrals and Convocations of the Clergy continued. Roman Catholics suffered various religious, civil and political disabilities until Roman Catholic Emancipation in 1829. In 1850 the Roman Catholic episcopal hierarchy was reintroduced in England on a territorial basis, with a metropolitical see at Westminster – an action that was regarded as an outrage by many in England at the time.
In the UK the Roman Catholic Church is not ‘established’, as it is in a number of other countries, by means of a Concordat between the government and the Vatican State, involving mutual privileges and obligations. There is, however, no equation between Roman Catholic Concordat and Anglican Establishment. Arguably, the Roman Catholic Church is recognised in law, though again this does not imply any form of established status. Since the 16th century, it has been the case that ‘the Bishop of Rome hath no jurisdiction in this realm of England/Scotland’, which means that the pope has no power to decree laws for British subjects or to enforce any such decrees through the courts of the Roman Catholic Church. The Roman Catholic Church has a national distribution of churches, members and clergy. It is, however, open to discussion whether that makes it a ‘national’ church, since such a designation would depend on a church’s avowed intention to minister to the whole nation, and its ability to do so.[1] Rather, the Roman Catholic Church is perhaps best described as a universally present ‘free’ church.
[1] On the definition of a national church see Norman Doe, ‘The Notion of a National Church: A Juridical Framework’, Law and Justice, 149 (2002), 77-91; Paul Avis, Church, State and Establishment (London: SPCK, 2001), ch. 2.
