This past weekend saw a royal wedding and a beatification. Watching bits and pieces of them both, it struck me that the dominant difference between the two was the sense of divine providence operating in them. At the beatification, the notion of God's providence, of divine call and human response, pervaded the scene. John Paul II was presented as called by God to play a special role in the life of the church and in the world. Sometimes at great cost, he answered the call with his whole heart.In contrast, most of the television commentators defended the English monarchy by invoking raw tradition--without its normative underpinnings: "It's our thing. . . because it's been our thing for a long time. . . " The family and the people that happened to be the major players in the event were depicted as marked by luck, or chance, but were in essence no different from anyone else. They won (or lost, depending upon your perspective) some sort of cosmic lottery. They were super-celebrities, yes. More than that , well, no. The underlying religious cosmology --the idea that God has chosen this people, this family, this country for something remarkable--was missing from the coverage. Some hints of it, however, were included in the religious service, including the hymn "Jerusalem," based on Blake's poem.But in Christian Europe, the imagery for the higher clergy and for monarchical rulers was long been intertwined. Both the papacy and the monarchy saw themselves as institutions founded by God, ruled by those who were specially chosen by God. In England, in fact, the notion of the "divine right of kings" was highly influential in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries:; here is a bit from King James I's treatise on the topic,which seems over-the-top too us now, but gives a sense of how far things have come in a few hundred years.The state of monarchy is the supremest thing upon earth; for kings are not only God's lieutenants upon earth, and sit upon God's throne, but even by God himself are called gods. There be three principal similitudes that illustrate the state of monarchy: one taken out of the word of God; and the two other out of the grounds of policy and philosophy. In the Scriptures kings are called gods, and so their power after a certain relation compared to the divine power. Kings are also compared to fathers of families: for a king is truly Parens patriae, the politique father of his people. And lastly, kings are compared to the head of this microcosm of the body of man.Kings are justly called gods, for that they exercise a manner or resemblance of divine power upon earth: for if you will consider the attributes to God, you shall see how they agree in the person of a king. God hath power to create or destrov make or unmake at his pleasure, to give life or send death, to judge all and to be judged nor accountable to none; to raise low things and to make high things low at his pleasure, and to God are both souls and body due. And the like power have kings: they make and unmake their subjects, thev have power of raising and casting down, of life and of death, judges over all their subjects and in all causes and yet accountable to none but God only. . . .--from King James I, Works, (1609).The late Richard Rorty wrote about the "disenchantment" of the world that comes with modernity. The disenchantment of the English monarchy, I think, leaves in its wake merely super-celebrity. Celebrity, in fact, seems to be the remnant of providence and vocation in modern Western liberal democracies.Can the disenchantment of the papacy be far behind? Some, of course, have argued that Pope John Paul II's "celebrity" status was a sign of just that. But others disagree. If not, what will prevent it? And if disenchantment is inevitable, does that mean that the only alternative is "celebrity"--even for Popes?