Tony Blair - Catholic

[Cian]

According to Sky News, Blair converted last night.

Was there any legal reason he couldn't do this while PM? If not, its somewhat... strange that he held off until he'd faded from the public eye a bit.

 

[tedebear]

Really? How bizarre - I had always assumed he was Catholic. Given his ability to reproduce and church attendance...

Is it a slow news day?

 

[Soton Seagull]

Hooray a new addition to the enemies of sense & reason!

 

[tedebear]

I guess it does beg the question of why he felt the need not to declare this during his Premiership, I mean it does say that no matter how much the world is trying to discredit religion - that it really does matter?? Who knows....

Is it that bad to be a Catholic and not an Anglican? Food for thought I spose...

 

[Lord Bracknell]

As a catholic, he can be attacked for what people assume he believes.

As an anglican, nobody had a clue what he believed.

 

[Grendel]

There isn't any legal reason why he couldn't have done so when in office. The whole subject of him converting has been bandied around for so long it doesn't really come as any surprise.

 

[hart's shirt]

It'll take more than a few trips to confession to clear his conscience in sending British troops to Iraq.

 

[cannedheat]

It'll take more than a few trips to confession to clear his conscience in sending British troops to Iraq.

Blimey that's going to be a lot of hail marys when he comes out the box.

 

[The Clown of Pevensey Bay]

According to Sky News, Blair converted last night.

Was there any legal reason he couldn't do this while PM? If not, its somewhat... strange that he held off until he'd faded from the public eye a bit.

There used to be some ancient legislation that said PMs could not be Roman Catholic. It was all caught up in the Act of Settlement... the law (still in force) which says Royals cannot be Catholic or marry one, and still expect to inherit the throne.

It's been widely speculated that Blair was uneasy about being a Catholic prime minister because of the PM's power to appoint Anglican bishops.

I wish he'd converted in office and then disestablished the Church of England but ho hum.

(Also, leaking the news today is a handy way for Blair to cover up the fact that he lied profusely about blocking the fraud inquiry into BAe and Saudi Arabia)

 

[The Clown of Pevensey Bay]

(By the way, Iain Duncan Smith and Charles Kennedy are both RC.. presumably they had harboured ambitions of being PM at some point... so to suggest you can't be Catholic and PM is guff).

For the uninitiated, here is a basic explanation of the tenets of Catholicism

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[bigc]

(By the way, Iain Duncan Smith and Charles Kennedy are both RC.. presumably they had harboured ambitions of being PM at some point... so to suggest you can't be Catholic and PM is guff).

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In IDS's case, I wouldn't be so sure...

 

[RexCathedra]

As a Catholic, he can be attacked for what people assume he believes.
As an Anglican, nobody had a clue what he believed.

First rate! I shall steal this and use it as my own.

 

[fatbadger]

He's been a catholic for a long time - now he's a Roman Catholic. Big deal. I really don't see why he couldn't do it before. I also don't see why he's done it. As an Anglo-Catholic he had all the good traits of catholicism (historicism, for instance), but converting to the Church of Rome means he is now allied with the absurdities of the first Vatican Council. Silly boy.

 

[Deleted member 2719]

I thought Catholics were suppose to be loyal to their wifes - cos he has well and truly f*cked most British citizens in this country over the past ten years.

 

[leonidas]

To join the Roman Catholic church you must swear that you agree with the teachings of the church. Fair enough, but his stance in government regarding abortion and Iraq went against the teachings of Rome so it would have been difficult for him to convert while in office.
I'm just sad that an educated, experianced, worldly man such as him can be taken in by the utter bollocks that is religion, ANY bloody religion.
Oh what a lovely, peacefull world we could all live in if we didn't have religion tearing us all apart.

 

[Gully]

Plus he would have had difficulty as a Roman Catholic leading a government that put forward the bill relating to Civil Parnerships, I don't believe that church tolerates homosexuality, possibly one of the greater achievements of his time in office.

 

[Leekbrookgull]

Spot on Leon.Iraq and Abortion are history.

 

[Cian]

Plus he would have had difficulty as a Roman Catholic leading a government that put forward the bill relating to Civil Parnerships, I don't believe that church tolerates homosexuality, possibly one of the greater achievements of his time in office.

And removing Section 28; but the allegedly Catholic prime minister and president here in 1993 had no issues signing off on the decriminalisation bill; indeed the president in question had been the trial lawyer on the court case that forced its drafting...

That said Robinson was never popular with the church, before or after that!

 

[ATFC Seagull]

Slightly hypocritical statement I'm making here, but I think its important to remember that whilst the Catholic Church has some well-known standpoints, in reality its followers are incredibly prone to picking-and-choosing their own views and not necessarily strictly following the Church's line, in many cases quite liberal, certainly more so than a large amount of Protestant denominations.

Blair being Catholic in office would not have bound him to make decisions by the laws of the church, as MYOB has pointed out this is not the case in Ireland, Italy, Spain, Phillipines etc.

John Kerry (Catholic) being the "pro-choice" option against Protestant Bush in 2004 is a case in point...

 

[Gully]

...probably the reason my Granny thought that Robinson was the best thing to hit Ireland since sliced bread!