According to the article in The Irish Independent, Tony has been a closeted (not to say, Cloistered :) follower of the Faith for a long time, but feared to make it Official whilst still PM because of potential constitutional difficulties:
Tony Blair is “certain” to become a Roman Catholic shortly after he steps down from office next week, friends of the British PM have said. They believe it will happen “sooner rather than later”.
Mr Blair is likely to discuss his conversion with Pope Benedict XVI, with whom he will hold talks in Rome tomorrow after attending his last summit of European Union leaders in Brussels.
…There have been persistent rumours that the Prime Minister would convert to Catholicism but Downing Street has always insisted that he remains a member of the Church of England.
Now friends say Mr Blair will formalise his already close affiliation to the Catholic Church. They say his “spiritual guide” in making the decision has been his wife, Cherie. They have brought up their four children as Catholics.
…It is believed that Mr Blair decided to remain an Anglican while he was Prime Minister because of the possible legal and political difficulties of converting while in office.
Although Britain has never had a Catholic prime minister, the church has said there would be no constitutional bar to Mr Blair joining while he was still in office. But some lawyers believe the 1829 Emancipation Act, which granted civil rights to Roman Catholics, may still prevent a Catholic from becoming Prime Minister. It says that no Catholic adviser to the monarch can hold civil or military office.
…As Prime Minister Mr Blair has been cautious about his religious beliefs. As Alastair Campbell, his former director of communications, once famously said: “We don’t do God.”
PS: In other news of British spiritual practices :), the Ministry of Justice has created its own home team of morris dancers ~
A team of morris dancing civil servants from the new Ministry of Justice have been given permission to call themselves the Lord Chancellor’s Folk.
The Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer, gave the go-ahead after considering a two page report prepared by an official in his private office.
…In the two page submission, leaked to The Times newspaper, a member of Lord Falconer’s private office briefs him on the history of morris dancing.
The document says the newly-formed Ministry of Justice group dance in the Cotswolds’ Tradition and in the Barmpton Style, which involves the “use of handkerchiefs and sticks”.
…It adds: “Morris dancing is currently one of the Icons of England on the Department of Culture, Media and Sport site, alongside a cup of tea, a stiff upper lip and a bowler hat.”
….a Ministry of Justice spokesman denied time had been wasted on the issue and said staff members were entitled to a hobby.
[Spot on. / ~ the civilservantpensioner guestclogger :]
…The Ministry of Justice has recently been under fire after Lord Falconer announcing 25,000 prisoners could be released early on licence to ease prison overcrowding in England and Wales.
June 22nd, 2007 at 2:53:02 pm
Heh. Can you imagine a top aide to the American president saying, “We don’t do God”? There’d be rioting in the streets of Kansas. :)
June 22nd, 2007 at 2:55:43 pm
They have Streets in Kansas? ;]
June 22nd, 2007 at 3:02:20 pm
I don’t know why, (I’m sure it has something VERY MUCH to do with being raised in an Irish-Catholic household…so, I guess I do know why) but I find it very satisfying that a Catholic has been running the show in Britain.
SUCK ON IT CROMWELL!!!
June 22nd, 2007 at 3:04:45 pm
Words that I never thought I’d read on this blog, especially written with such passion: “Suck on it Cromwell.” LOL.
June 22nd, 2007 at 3:17:44 pm
I think his wife is an open Catholic, you know, out of the closet. I remember reading that awhile ago. Blair often went to Catholic services I think.
June 22nd, 2007 at 3:31:23 pm
I wish the U.S. would take religion in stride like this. Instead of “Mormon-this!” and “intelligent design-that!” and “Tinky Winky is GAY!”
Ironic, too, because Britain seems to have more institutional constraints on religion that our “separation of church and state” seems to allow in practice.
June 22nd, 2007 at 3:35:39 pm
And additionally a big Waw haw haw, thebeef :)
It occurs to me that Tony’s longstanding Popish Fellowtravelerhood :) may well have Facilitated his rather remarkable willingness ~ determination, really ~ to empower (proportionately) the long-oppressed Catholic minority in Northern Ireland. / Obviously that ~ and the concomitant Reining-in of the formerly Unbridled power of the triumphalist Protestant majority ~ was a Necessity if peace & devolved governance were ever to be achieved. But perhaps having some personal Empathy with the minority helped strengthen the PM for his tortuous trek along that rocky road.
June 22nd, 2007 at 3:50:27 pm
Hand it to the British to be freaking over this when they essentially had a Jew running the country in the 1800s (though Disraeli “converted,” I don’t know if Jews really “convert”).
June 22nd, 2007 at 5:35:57 pm
Tony Blair rocks.
Watch the movie The Queen.
If the Tony Blair in that movie is true to life, then I love Tony Blair.
June 22nd, 2007 at 5:41:37 pm
Yeah, I don’t think Jews “convert” either. It’s more of a “let’s go ahead and read Part II”
June 22nd, 2007 at 5:52:18 pm
Does anyone else find irony in the fact that the term “out of the closet” is being used to describe a “Catholic”?
June 22nd, 2007 at 5:58:58 pm
Joe, that was my first thought too! Considering how the British have treated some former heads of state suspected of “popery”, I’m surprised Tony hasn’t a) lost his head; or b) faced a Dutch invasion!
Honestly, I’d love to be the fly on a wall in a pub in the Shankill, listening to all the grumbling of the old timers, talking about how the world must be going to hell in a handbasket.
June 22nd, 2007 at 6:26:42 pm
A&A - so what’s the big deal about us Brits having *already* had a Jewish Prime Minister, a gay Prime Minister, and a female Prime Minister ?
It should be no surprise for us to have a Prime Minister whose wife and kids are practising Catholics …
Now, when are the party *you* support going to put up credible candidates of any of those types for President ? Remember, credible, not token like Geraldine Ferraro !
June 22nd, 2007 at 6:49:28 pm
Now, when are the party *you* support going to put up credible candidates of any of those types for President ?
John F. Kennedy ring a bell?
When is party *you* support going to put up someone credible who isn’t a WASP?
June 22nd, 2007 at 7:41:49 pm
Like our trusty fiere Laird Alasdair himself, soon-to-be-PM Gordon Brown is a bold Scot, David K. / Now to Thee & Mee that may sound Anglo-Saxon but I know of Some clansmen who’d dispute such ancestry & with claymore broadswords too if ye put too fine a Point on it ;> so I guess you can just take yer Pict.
Alasdair, I get the references to ol’ Binyamin Disraeli & Dame Maggie the Ironlady, but I hereby ventilate my ignorance by Asking: who’s that 3rd one you cite, there? (MacMillan??? / I know it can’t be Sir Roger Casement, sodom-&-begorrah :>, since he never sought the Prime Ministry, though he might have made a foine future Taoiseach had his Hanging for High Treason not all-untimely intervened. :)
June 22nd, 2007 at 7:59:46 pm
Does anyone else picture Mr. Joe Loy as a well-educated, worldly, insightful pirate?
I love it.
June 22nd, 2007 at 10:23:20 pm
[…] Joy Loy @ IrishTrojan.com […]
June 23rd, 2007 at 1:48:04 am
kcatnd, I thankee :)
> well-eddycated, Nay.
> worrrldly, Aye, morrre’s th’ Pittee ;>
> insightful, the Jurrry remains Out :}
> Fires them muskets & I cuts young ‘arrrkins’ t’roat. Arrr. :]
June 23rd, 2007 at 8:13:06 am
Esteemed Elder Loy - Ted Heath was our gay Prime Minister …
David - hmmm … OK - I’ll ask … which of gay/Jewish/female was JFK ?
June 23rd, 2007 at 12:50:08 pm
JFK was a gay Jewish female. Don’t you read your history books, Alasdair? ;)
In fairness to David, if you re-read your post, your phrase “those types” was preceded by references to “a Jewish Prime Minister, a gay Prime Minister, and a female Prime Minister” AND “a Prime Minister whose wife and kids are practising Catholics.” So I think David’s response — including Catholicism as one of your “types” — is reasonable. At the least, your comment is left open to interpretation in this regard.
In any event, your point is stupid, since the party YOU support (in this country) hasn’t put up any Jews, gays or females for president either… nor any Catholics, for that matter! (But a Mormon? Soon, maybe.) And the Democrats have put a Jew for vice president (cough cough, Joe Lieberman), and a woman for vice president, which is more than the Republicans can say. Now, personally, I think this is a stupid argument to be having in the first place — I don’t think John F. Kennedy, Geraldine Ferraro and Joe Lieberman “prove” that the Dems are “tolerant” or whatever, and in general I despise identity politics anyway — but you brought it up. All I’m saying is, don’t distort/ignore relevant facts. If we care about this particular “record” — and I’m not sure we should, but you seem to — the Dems do have a better record to date than the Repubs do.
June 23rd, 2007 at 12:54:05 pm
P.S. How is Geraldine Ferraro a “token”? She was the NATIONAL PARTY NOMINEE FOR VICE PRESIDENT for f**k’s sake. Are you saying she was “token” because Mondale lost in a landslide? Does that mean Jack Kemp was a “token” VP nominee too? Was Barry Goldwater a “token” presidential nominee in ‘64? Give me a break. You can (and should) dismiss the non-credible primary candidates like Sharpton, Moseley-Braun, Elizabeth Dole, etc., but dismissing the party’s national nominee as a “token” makes no sense.
June 25th, 2007 at 6:01:10 pm
Brendan - ask the folk who remember watching the debate(s) in which Ms Ferraro was involved …
She was woefully unprepared …
I initially had been pleasantly astonished to see the US equivalent of the Labour Party choosing a female VP candidate - such things are a characteristic of conservative parties, up til now, mostly … but I gave her the benefit of the doubt until I heard her speak … at that point, I learned that she was a token or quota pick, and not a credible candidate … with 20/20 hindsight, I have to suspect that she became VP candidate cuz the powers-that-be in the Democratic Party back then were already resigned to losing the Presidential election, and didn’t want to waste a credible VP candidate at that time …
I’m also not convinced that it’s fair to compare an actual elected Prime Minister with VP candidates … given security measures and the general state of healthcare nowadays, the chances of a VP becoming Preseident without winning the Presidential election as a Presidential candidate are increasingly slim … or are you telling me that Dan Quayle should be considered as a serious Presidential potential ?
When Dan Quayle was debating, even *he* did orders of magnitude better than Geraldine Ferraro had done …
So feel free to call my point “stupid” - I didn’t attempt to say that the GOP had put forward any known gay or female or Jewish (or even black) candidate for President or VP … I’m not sure this country is ready for such a President … I do still believe, however, that the first such a President will be GOP, not Dem …
I don’t see the mainstream of the GOP running anti-Mormon scare articles and ads … the MSM has already started to, in ways that I suspect Elder Loy is finding at least making him uncomfortable … *almost* enough to cause me to take my kids down to the LA Museum of Tolerance, again … lest we forget …
June 25th, 2007 at 6:27:07 pm
The McCain, Giuliani and Brownback campaigns have all had to apologize to Romney for anti-Mormon remarks by their own campaign aides. Is that “mainstream” enough for you? Of course it’s not a centralized, orchestrated campaign of prejudice against him, but God knows if it were Democratic campaign aides doing it, you’d use it as evidence of prejudice on the Left (even if the candidates later apologized).
In any event, if Ferraro was a “token” pick, that still doesn’t explain Joe Lieberman, who came within 537 votes in Florida of winning the vice presidency. And as for whether “it’s fair to compare an actual elected Prime Minister with VP candidates,” I never said it was. I wasn’t responding to that at all. I was responding to your question to David, which was, “Now, when are the party *you* support going to put up credible candidates of any of those types [Jewish/black/female] for President?” To which I replied that neither party has done so, but at least the Democrats (unlike the Republicans) have put up a Jew and a female for Vice President, which is more than the Republicans can say.
As I said, I think this whole line of discussion is pointless and unproductive, but you’re the one who raised it as a topic with your question to David. Now you claim, “I didn’t attempt to say that the GOP had put forward any known gay or female or Jewish (or even black) candidate for President or VP,” which is technically true, but then what on earth was the significance of your loaded question “when are the party *you* support going to put up credible candidates of any of those types [Jewish/black/female] for President?” when in fact that is true of BOTH parties? It’d be like if you, in trying to argue for Scotland’s superiority over America, challenged me by saying, “Well, when is AMERICA going to put a man on Mars?” To which I would reply, “Well, um, granted we haven’t put a man on Mars, but neither have you, and we at least have put a man on the Moon, which is more than you can say.” Your argumentative question to David simply makes no sense.
July 4th, 2007 at 7:04:48 am
This is exactly what I expected to find out after reading the title Report: Blair will convert to Catholicism. Thanks for informative article