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Austen IvereighJanuary 07, 2008
The reception on Dec. 21 into the Catholic Church of the UKs former prime minister, Tony Blair, has echoes of Americas JFK moment, when the old ghosts of suspicion about divided allegiances (Rome or home?) were laid to rest. Yet the fact that it has happened some months after resigning as prime minister points to the difficulties Catholics continue to face in public lifethat is the reason he himself has given.

His formal instruction began four months ago, under the care of Cardinal Cormac Murphy-OConnors private secretary. The announcement of his reception was originally planned for June, when Blairthen still prime ministersaw Pope Benedict. But he was advised, on that occasion, to wait until after he stepped down. Things were not as resolved as they might be, he told the London Times at the time, giving a clue to some of the delicate negotiations behind the scenes.

Blair opted, instead, for a highly symbolic gesture, presenting Pope Benedict with three framed pictures of John Henry Newman, the famous nineteenth-century convert from Anglicanism who popedas Anglicans then scornfully put itin 1845, and became a cardinal in 1879. Here is a well-known convert who is on his way to sainthood, Blair told Benedict XVI. Ah yes, sighed the pope. But the trouble is that miracles in England are rather hard to come by.

There followed what the British papers called the papal chiding. Hes not the Messiah, hes a very naughty boy!, one paper headlined the meeting, quoting Monty Pythons film "Life of Brian." The Vaticans spokesman, Fr Lombardi, described it as un franco confronto, which The Times said was Vatican-speak for a row, but which Fr Lombardi insisted meant full, direct and friendly. Whatever it was, it was over hot-button issues with which Blairs premiership has been identified in Catholic minds: embryonic stem-cell research, gay marriage, abortion, the Iraq war. The Vaticans secretary of state was speaking to him on this occasion as a head of government; but that meeting was followed by another, ten-minute private one between the two men which Cardinal Cormac Murphy-OConnor was also hastily summoned to attend. It was at this meeting that the pope, the cardinal and the prime minister discussed the journey of his soul.

That journey has many starting points: his growing religious convictions at university, under the influence of an Australian Anglican priest, which led him into politics; his 1980 marriage to Cherie, and the Liverpool working-class Irish Catholicism of her family; and his own, developing political philosophy, which increasingly synched with the churchs social teaching. The distinguishing philosophical feature of the Christian religion, he told Third Way magazine in 1993, was the way it tied individual responsibility to that of society. This had led him, he said, to reinterpret the socialist message: social responsibility is important to reinforce personal responsibility, not as a substitute for it."

Faith and British Politics

But he was careful to keep his faith well below the radar as prime minister, for fear of being seen as a nutter," he recently told a BBC documentary. It is a grand irony that in the United States, where Church and State are separated by high constitutional walls, it is helpful for politicians to speak often of God; whereas in Britain, where the Anglican Church is by law established and the state is officially Christian, it is very advisable for politicians to steer well away from the subject. We dont do God, Blairs press secretary, Alistair Campbell, once famously remarked. And in his interview Blair explains what Campbell meant.

If you are in the American political system or others then you can talk about religious faith and people say Yes, thats fair enough and it is something they respond to quite naturally, he tells the BBC. You talk about it in our system and, frankly, people do think youre a nutter. They sort of [think] you maybe go off and sit in the corner and commune with the man upstairs and then come back and say, Right, Ive been told the answer and thats it.

He is not exaggerating. Consider the reaction to a TV interview Blair gave last year in which he spoke of his agonies over the war in Iraq. That decision has to be taken and has to be lived with, and in the end theres a judgment that, well, if I think you have faith about these things is made by other people, he said, adding: If you believe in God, its made by God as well. The headlines? GOD TOLD ME TO GO TO WAR, SAYS BLAIR.

Little surprise, then, that Blair has kept his religious views private, and even less surprise that if he was tempted to convert in office, there was no shortage of counsel against the idea. There would be a host of questions: how can a Catholic oversee 200,000 abortions a year, appoint Anglican bishops, encourage British experiments on embryos, approve gay marriage? These are not questions asked of Anglican, atheist or Protestant prime ministers, because public opinion assumes that these are not beholden in the same way to a higher authority. But for a practicing Catholic, it is a no-win. Vote with the Vatican, and you are a Roman stooge; vote against, and you are a hypocrite. Both are politically fatal.

A papist prime minister?

It is not the constitutional bars in themselves which prevent a Catholic prime minister. The head of state, the queen, on whose behalf the prime minister technically governs, must swear to uphold the Protestant faith; even poor Prince William will be unable to marry a Catholic without giving up the thronean astonishing anachronism incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights.

But the only impediment to a papist prime minister is a long-dead clause of Act of Emancipation (1829) which prevents an adviser to the queen being a Roman. The queen has had plenty of Catholic advisers over the years, so no problem. But like many elements of the unwritten British Constitution, it has never been put to the test. British politics has largely deferred to the consensus that if you start to unpick one strand of the messy ball of wool, the whole thing will unravel, and pretty soon youll have disestablishment and the horror of French secularism. In politics, Britons prefer our own form of secularism, a practical atheism beneath a thin veneer of Anglicanism.

A little indication of what would have lain in store for the Catholic Blairand a signal of why Cardinal Murphy-OConnor and the Vatican were stalling himcomes in recent Telegraph article headlined "To many of us he isnt a nutter but a hypocrite." Damian Thompson, who is editor-in-chief of the Catholic Herald, points out that Catholics have not forgotten that the former PM, although claiming to oppose abortion, consistently voted with hard-line pro-abortionists at a time when he was already attending Mass. This they regard as sickening hypocrisyand they wonder why Cardinal Murphy-OConnor is so silent on the matter.

But this assumes that somehow Blair could have voted against his own party and Government on such issues; the press coverage would have been radioactive. And it overestimates his own power: he lost a battle, earlier this year, to grant the Catholic Church an exemption from anti-discrimination laws that outlaw Catholic adoption agencies from refusing their services to gay couples. We have no idea how much he wrestled with these issues: while his government backed embryonic stem-cell research, he is known to have believed that the state was exceeding its competence on the issue.

The road to Rome

One can only imagine the struggles on his journey across the Tiber. Blairs background is in liberal Anglo-Catholicism; his favorite theologians are Leonardo Boff and Hans Kung, not Joseph Ratzinger and Hans Urs Von Balthasar. He belongs to an ecclesial tradition in which the gate is wide, and bridges more important than borders. When, many years ago, he was reprimanded by Cardinal Basil Hume, the former Archbishop of Westminster, for publicly receiving the Eucharist at Westminster Cathedral, he accepted the rebuke but in a letter to the Cardinal asked: What would Jesus have made of that?

Most Anglican converts (3,981 adults were received in 2005) are impressed by the Catholic Churchs doctrinal clarity, impatient at the Church of Englands eternal wranglings over gay priests and female ordination, admiring of Catholic churchgoing (Catholic Sunday attendance now exceeds Anglican Sunday attendance, despite there being 25m Anglicans and only 4.2m Catholics) and its confident othernessits sacramentality and very un-British mysticism and supernaturalism. Yet most attractive to Tony Blair is the churchs vast international reach, its commitment to the poor, its capacity for mobilization against injustice, and its courage to stand firm on unpopular issues.

Yet it is a big leap for him to accept the Magisterium, to assent to dogmas, to promise obedience to positions which, were he to have adopted them publicly, would have killed his political career at the starting blocks. Which is why, now that he has become a Catholic following four-month preparation, it is worth pausing before using a word like hypocrite."

It is one thing is to hold Catholics in public life to account: to question how Judge Antonin Scalia can be in favor of the death penalty, or John Kerry of abortion. But it is another to call them hypocrites, to pretend to know what choices faced them, and why they took the decisions they did. Politicians are not lackeys; they must govern in favor of the common good in a pluralist society. If a Catholic can only serve a government whose every act chimes with his conscience and with church teaching, he cannot be a politician.

Prying into a mans conscience is something we can do only with trembling, which is why it is left to spiritual directors and priests under the seal of confession. Tony Blair has satisfied them that he assents to all that the Catholic Church believes, teaches and proclaims to be revealed by God. The rest of us can only hold out our hands in welcome, rejoice at his homecoming, and be glad that our own JFK momentwhen a Catholic prime minister one day opens the door of No. 10 Downing St.has inched a little closer.

Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.
David Pendleton
16 years 10 months ago
Austen Ivereigh has struck the right tone in his article. As citizens, we ought to be appreciative of having leaders who take faith seriously and strive to balance their public obligations with personal matters of conscience. I admire former PM Blair -- and I'm an American. In this age of science, the average Tom, Dick, and Harry out there, not to mention the media elites, raise questioning eyebrows at the thought of anyone who declares a belief in sacraments, the Incarnation, sin, and the forgiveness thereof. Praise God every time anyone, including a former or current politician, acknowledges the Lordship of Jesus Christ in their lives. My prayers are with the Blair family in this Christmas season. The Catholic Church welcomes 200,000 a year in the United States. So while Blair is high profile, he's not alone in entering into full communion with the Catholic Church. This article is yet another example of the balanced, thoughtful and thoroughly Catholic journalism of which America (the magazine) is famous.
lLetha Chamberlain
16 years 10 months ago
I as one of the Mystical Body of Christ, welcome another. As I was welcomed with open arms, warts and all, and proclaimed loudly that I denounced Satan and all his empty promises--I know Mr. Blair takes this seriously (how could one not?) This vital and important turning point in my life must never be questioned by another, for Jesus, Himself, said "Judge not lest you be judged". when I catch myself slipping here--I HAVE to go to confession!
LOUIS DESTRYCKER MR
16 years 10 months ago
When Austen Ivereigh mentions
ELEANOR LUNN
16 years 10 months ago
As pointed out in the article, one should not judge another. I was taught that the magesterium of the Church is there to help us form a right conscience but ultimately it is the individual who is responsible for her conscience and for her decisions.
Tom Heneghan
16 years 10 months ago
This is both the fairest and the most informative article I've read about Tony Blair's conversion. We don't exactly know his personal reasons for it and won't unless or until he tells us himself. Lacking that essential element, most articles have highlighted other factors such as his family (which were already known) or gone political and played up the "hypocrite" line. Austen Ivereigh gives us more background about Blair's attraction to Catholicism and more insight into the issue of believers in politics than any other analysis I've seen on this. Thanks for a very instructive read.
Adele DeLine
16 years 10 months ago
I am in awe of Mr Blair's tenacity to join his family in community. His soul searching has been wide and deep and therefore, to look beyond so much of the pain at this time within our Catholic Church and to embrace our commitment to justice and service for all, deserves my congratulations for him and his family. Welcome to our imperfect community of travelers, Mr Blair, with our brother, Jesus, through His Holy Spirit toward Salvation for all.
J LANDRY
16 years 10 months ago
I found the article on Tony Blair to be disappointing. In general, the article did a nice job of sharing his background, interests in Catholicism, and the complexities of his becoming a Catholic as the British Prime Minister and now a former one. Yet, the problem was the use (by the author and the editor) of the word “convert” as a noun and a verb about Tony Blair and others who are received into full communion. This word carries ominious overtones of triumphalism, in that, it communicates the notion that we are the “one, true Church” and those other Churches are "less" than us. The author of the article, Austen Ivereigh, never implied such triumphalism, yet the word remains. In the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA), the Universal Church goes to great lengths to avoid triumphalism. In the section titled “Reception of Baptized Christians into the Full Communion of the Catholic Church,” which is how we are encouraged to talk about our separated Christian brothers and sisters entering the full communion of the Roman Catholic Church, it states: “The rite should appear clearly as a celebration of the Church and have as its high point eucharistic communion…Any appearance of triumphalism should be carefully avoided…” (RCIA #475). Moreover, in the US Bishops National Statutes for the Catechumenate, it states: “the term ‘convert’ should be reserved strictly for those converted from unbelief to Christian belief and never used of those baptized Christians who are received into the full communion of the Catholic Church” (#2). Currently, I hear many Catholics refer to their reception into full communion as "conversion", “when I converted”, or “I am a convert from the _____________ Church.” Yet, I find the teaching of our US Bishops on the problems of this word to be terribly sagacious. Personally, I find the word to be an oxymoron, for I fail to grasp how a Christian can “convert” to something they already constitute – the Body of Christ. While the author revealed the complexities of the Church-State relations faced by Tony Blair, especially in Britain where the prime minister appoints bishops, I found the article stepping backwards from ecumenism – which is what the RCIA and its corollaries seek to develop: How do we construct practices and a language of initiation that includes reception into full communion in a manner that best serves the reunification of all Christian ecclesial bodies? While the word "convert" may seem like a minor point, at best, it treats our brothers and sisters in Christ as inferior to us Catholics. At worst, it scorns their baptism. Yet, I find great hope in the reality of our not re-baptizing and celebrating this commonality.

Sincerely, Jay Freel Landry, Pastoral Associate: Little Flower Catholic Church, South Bend, Indiana
SEAN MCMANUS MR
16 years 10 months ago
In “From Thames to Tiber” (January 7-14), on the conversion of former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, Austen Ivereigh refers to the British constitutional ban on Catholics being King or Queen of England, as “ an astonishing anachronism”. It is that, of course, but it is sadly much more poisonous. The Act of Settlement, 1701 – and integral part of the unwritten and uncodified British Constitution – contains provisions that decree only a Protestant can succeed to the British throne and that if the Monarch becomes a Catholic, or marries a Catholic, he/she forfeits the Throne and “the people are absolved from their allegiance”. While this law may mean little to the average Englishman in the street, it has always been of the utmost importance to Protestant/Unionist/Orange extremists in Northern Ireland. It provides the ideological and philosophical underpinnings for their bigotry and sectarianism. For you see, the spurious but deadly logic goes, if a Catholic by law can't get the top job, then Catholics are inferior to Protestants, therefore it's okay to discriminate against them. Imagine had there been a provision in the US Constitution forbidding an African-American being president, or forbidding the president to marry a black person… imagine how that would have stoked the flames of racism and the sick ideology of white supremacy. Would it be dismissed as an anachronism? But one cannot blame the Orangemen for the Act of Settlement. The blame rests solely with the British Monarchy and Parliament. That they have not changed this inherently discriminatory law is not just anachronistic but downright shameful .It is State discrimination, enshrining anti-Catholicism at the very heart of the English establishment, Church and State.

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