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Church of England to soften rules on divorcees

LONDON: Divorcees may soon be allowed to re-marry in church if the Church of England approves the recommendations of a report published Tuesday Ñ but heir to the throne Prince Charles may not benefit.

According to press reports, a working party set up by the Church to study the matter is to recommend changing old regulations forbidding marriage services for divorcees whose former partners are still living.

While the working party insists that its preferred option is that marriage is for life, it acknowledges the growing number of divorces in Britain.

The report will eventually go to the Church of England's lawmaking body, the Synod, which is widely expected to go along with the recommendations.

Although Prince Charles is not mentioned in the working party report, his situation is being closely watched.

If an when he becomes king he also becomes head of the Church of England. Yet he is divorced, as is his long-term mistress Camilla Parker Bowles, whose former husband is still alive.

Charles's former wife, Princess Diana, died in a car crash in Paris in the early hours of August 31, 1997.

In theory, then, they would be able to remarry in church. But there is one further complication in his case Ñ under the new rules, clergy would be told not to allow a second wedding in church where it would "compound a wrong" and "consecrate an infidelity. AFP