The number of Anglican clergy members has fallen from 18,000 in the late 1960s to about 9,500, Butler said. British society has become multiracial and multicultural. He said that "the Church of England has also been squeezed by the growth of sectarian Protestantism" and other religions, while the number of Roman Catholics has risen to around 10 percent of the population.
Since the death of the previous pope, John Paul I, in 1978, the relationship between Anglicans and the Vatican has changed with the advance of ecumenical diplomacy that has altered the tone, if not the substance, of the debate.
Recall, for instance, the fairy-tale royal wedding at St. Paul's Cathedral, when Charles married Diana in 1981. It is hard to imagine an event of that scale being delayed even for the funeral of "so great a man as Pope John Paul," the columnist Stephen Glover wrote in The Daily Mail. "Prince Charles' register office nuptials, by contrast, are eminently movable."
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