AT LAST the C of E has done something really important to justify its privileged status as England’s established church: yesterday it has released a special prayer for worshippers to call on God to imbue Prince William and Kate Middleton with the strength to be faithful to each other.
The new Anglican prayer, issued ahead of the couple’s wedding on April 29, asks the Almighty:
'I only have eyes for you': Kate and Willie gaze adoringly at each other
In your love deepen their love and strengthen their wills to keep the promises they will make, that they may continue in life-long faithfulness to each other.
The church, which has William’s nan, Queen Elizabeth, as its supreme head, advises that the prayer can be used in private, in groups or at public worship gatherings.
It has already issued a prayer for schools and young children to use in the run-up to the wedding.
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
April 8th, 2011 at 9:34 am
Wow, a special prayer for a special couple on a special day. Makes me feel kind of special too.
Yawn
April 8th, 2011 at 9:57 am
@Angie,
Just imagine if we were all special enough to warrant a special prayer of this kind. No-one would ever be unfaithful again!
April 8th, 2011 at 10:05 am
How handy is that! I’m gonna rush off and pray it right this minute.
April 8th, 2011 at 10:16 am
Not exactly all that literate is it. Repetiton of will, wills, love, love… Nah. Shite.
April 8th, 2011 at 10:18 am
The track record of the fornicating Windsors does not indicate much hope of success in the fidelity stakes. Kate may of course tire of Wills as he does seem a particularly vapid man. A C.of E. bishop gave the marriage seven years, hugely optimistic I would have thought, before Wills strayed. The bishop was obliged to back track and told to keep his mouth shut by his adulating of the Windsors boss.
How ridiculous can the church get? They are so out of touch. Imagine, someone actually sat down and wrote this junk.
April 8th, 2011 at 10:23 am
Why should schoolchildren be made to worry about the fidelity of two adults they don’t know? Are royal affairs really a matter for children to worry about? If Kate or Wills do end up straying, are kids to worry that they didn’t pray hard enough?
I’m also surprised the family themselves don’t find this intrusive.
April 8th, 2011 at 10:41 am
“Our heav’nly Father, we ask that on this day thy loving arms be near us.
Bless thou this hour, bless thou this moment, bind us in thee forever from this day.
Bless thou the ring, bless thou the promise, strengthen our love throughout each day.
All happy moments, all times of sadness, teach us to trust and share them all with thee.
O Holy Father, bless thou this moment, bless thou this hour.”
Fat lot of good this did Charles and Diana. I fear that Wills and Kate are similarly screwed.
April 8th, 2011 at 10:53 am
It’s not exactly ‘special’, either. Cheap gits just recycled an oldie:
Frankly, I’ll be happy when it’s over.
April 8th, 2011 at 11:03 am
I just had to rewrite it so it accorded more with the Bible:
Fixed!
April 8th, 2011 at 11:08 am
“God help us!”
Actually, it gives me the willies. But why on earth would anyone need some cleric to write their prayers for them? Is God so easily fooled, like some batty old schoolmaster, that he thinks it is all their own work?
April 8th, 2011 at 11:12 am
Dear god, my ultimate boss, please let the grandson of my line-manager, your representative on earth, do better than my line-manager’s son and his wife.
Loving you,
Rowan.
April 8th, 2011 at 11:22 am
Woggler: Just bear in mind that it was when they removed Princess Diana from the list of royals being prayed for in the CofE that she had that accident. Something for us all to reflect upon, I think! But wouldn’t it be a lot easier all round if the vicar just got up and said “Lord, we pray for everyone”? It would save time, and ensure that no one was left out – which reminds me of an old joke from my days as a Plymouth Brother:
An aged brother had just sat down after delivering his usual long and rambling prayer in the Prayer Meeting, when someone else sprang to his feet and said: “Lord, we pray for the Eskimos, because they’re the only ones that haven’t been prayed for”!
April 8th, 2011 at 12:25 pm
Dear Lord,
Please give religious people the strength to stop interfering in the private sexual antics of other adults…
April 8th, 2011 at 1:22 pm
While strengthening their Wills they should be strengthening their Kates too.
Aaah ….. bless !!!
April 8th, 2011 at 2:05 pm
Of course, as even an Anglican archbishop must have noticed the Royal inability to build relationships with women (once they’ve mated with one who isn’t a blood relative and produced an heir), they might just have written it to wind up the Windsors.
He’s a droll lad, our Rowan!
April 8th, 2011 at 2:12 pm
Creepy.
April 8th, 2011 at 4:58 pm
Broga,
And I thought you would have been full of joy at the wedding of this lovely and invaluable young couple……………(ho, ho)
Go to this website for a great commemorative item. I’ve got myself around half a dozen and passed them round my immediate family.
http://www.lydialeith.com
April 8th, 2011 at 5:20 pm
To be honest I find this prayer to be a bit pathetic. We have an official national church who’s job it presumably is to produce this kind of tripe, is this really the best tripe they could come up with? A group of primary school children could have done better and would possibly produced something that was a little bit cute and endearing.
Then of course there is the small matter of grown adults who actually still believe that this kind of thing has some kind of effect.
The Daily Mash has a brilliant take on this.
April 8th, 2011 at 5:23 pm
Daily Mash article here:
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/.....104083702/
Enjoy.
April 8th, 2011 at 5:48 pm
I have considered ringing William Hill to ask if they are taking bets on how long the marriage will last.
Wont be watching tv on the big day.
April 8th, 2011 at 6:22 pm
Willy Windsor looks spaced out in the photo. Wonder what he’s been taking?
I gotta get me one of those sick bags!
April 8th, 2011 at 7:30 pm
@tony e. I intend to spare no expense on the royal nuptials and, thanks to the information from you, I intend to buy the £8 top of the range Royal Wedding Sick Bags.
April 8th, 2011 at 7:34 pm
Broga:
Made from the skin of real sick royals?
April 8th, 2011 at 7:50 pm
Broga,
Ironically, and as they have been signed by the artist, I think they will become a more collectable item than any of the usual tack pushed out at a royal wedding.
April 8th, 2011 at 8:35 pm
@Graham:
he’s probably ingested something unpleasant from Duchy Herbals. A magic love potion perhaps (watered down a million times of course)?
April 9th, 2011 at 1:25 am
Well, I’m just a yankee, so set me straight on a few things, please:
The queen and her family, the royals, are vestiges of an old order that no longer exists. While they have influence, they have no authority.
The actual authority is possessed by the prime minister(elected), and parliament which consists of two entities, the House of Commons(elected) and the House of Lords (born to their position).
That the royals are rich beyond imagination because of tax money pilphered by their forefathers. That the reason the populace does not want to murder them is because they lack the power to piss them off.
I do not understand ANY degree of interest in the wedding of someone who inherited his importance from the fact that he was fertilized by the correct sperm cell (illegedly) and exited the correct pussy. I don’t pray, but, if I did, I would pray that this family of pretentious assholes get crushed back into the middle class where they belong, and where they would learn what it’s like to live like we do. A crash course in empathy.
NeoWolfe
April 9th, 2011 at 8:38 am
I’ve got the feeling there are more worth-while causes to pray for: wars to end, diseases to disappear, homo sapiens to become a species I would proudly be a member of; stuff that would benefit us all. But a prayer for the fidelity of the ‘Royal’ couple, with that family’s track-record?
Someone really lost touch with reality and should start reading the papers!
April 9th, 2011 at 9:14 am
@NeoWolfe
I don’t really get it either and I live here. It will of course be a huge extravagant bash so will presumably be of interest to the kind of people who follow celebrety weddings and read Hello magazine.
Your take on our political system is about right except that there are no heredetary lords now, lords are appointed instead. We also have 26 bishops in the House of Lords now that is an anachronism.
April 9th, 2011 at 10:55 am
Nobody wants to kill the royals for the same reason nobody wants to tear down Nelson’s Column or the Alamo. It’s a lot of effort that won’t really achieve anything.
Sure, when you’re living on beans (as I have) it can feel like they should be asset-stripped and their possessions auctioned off to someone like Golden Palace Casino or the Sultan of Brunei, but if it were done everyone would be demanding their fair share of the proceeds, which would amount to 69p each. That’s a dollar to the Americans.
Do they bring in enough tourists to cover 69p each? I really cannot be bothered to find out.
April 9th, 2011 at 11:58 am
Strangely, the royals seem to be liked in proportion to their proximity. The largely Southern press is amazed that Northerners are not applying to have street parties and hire town halls to celebrate this marriage. Familiarity hasn’t bred the expected contempt, down South, for some reason.
April 9th, 2011 at 6:20 pm
Stony said:
“Your take on our political system is about right except that there are no heredetary lords now, lords are appointed instead.”
Thank you for pointing out the particulars of my deficit of understanding. I guess I did better than I expected. But, after being made aware of my deficit, being a compulsive seeker of a clearer vision of the world, I went searching. What I found confuses me. I quote wiki:
“Unlike the House of Commons, membership of the House of Lords is not attained by election from the population as a whole, but by inheritance, by appointment, or by virtue of their ecclesiastical role within the established church (Lords Spiritual).” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Lords
I kept reading until I got a headache. Seems that recent Labour reforms have ousted all but 92 of hereditary lords, but I never got to the part where I learned who the hell was making these “appointments”. If it is the queen, perhaps I underestimated her role in government.
Regardless, I don’t give a flying fuck about a “royal wedding”. I would rather watch concrete harden.
NeoWolfe