October 16, 2004
TONY THE HIGH TORY (via Tom Corcoran):
Blair quells speculation over conversion to Catholicism (Sydney Morning Herald, October 16, 2004)
British Prime Minister Tony Blair has dismissed speculation that he intends to convert to Roman Catholicism.Blair is an Anglican but has accompanied his wife Cherie, a Catholic, and their children to Mass regularly, triggering several reports in recent years that he might switch faiths.
Several British newspapers on Friday quoted a Catholic priest, who regularly presides over services at Blair's country estate Chequers, as saying he thought Blair might convert.
"If you ask me do you think he wants to become a Catholic, I would say yes," Father Timothy Russ, was quoted as saying.
The Guardian newspaper quoted Russ as saying: "He didn't say to me, 'Can I become a Catholic?' What he said to me was 'Can the prime minister be a Catholic?"'
Blair dismissed the reports, when asked about them by reporters accompanying him to a political summit in Hungary.
"I am saying no. Don't they run this once a year?" he said, referring to the regular surfacing of the story. "I think they do. Every year I get this. My wife is a Roman Catholic," Britain's news agency Press Association quoted him as saying.
He's waiting until he leaves office. Posted by Orrin Judd at October 16, 2004 10:14 AM
Blair has the guts to do this when he firmly believes Catholicism to be true. Saying he'll wait paints him as a wheedling coward.
Posted by: JimGooding at October 16, 2004 10:51 AMIt would be seen in Middle England as a betrayal of the Protestant majority in Ulster, and might torpedo his administration because the swing vote would swing against him. In the past decade, he has forced the Protestants in Ulster to compromise with terrorist thugs again and again and again. Gerry Adams and his bunch should all be hanging from the gallows, but are instead treated as 'partners for peace' so long as they limit themselves to murdering people in Ulster alone.
It would end any residual support for the PUP and push the Protestants entirely into Paisley's camp, setting the stage for an escalation of the 'Troubles.'
Posted by: Bart at October 16, 2004 11:21 AM