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The agony and ecstasy of Blair’s conversion out of london

— Photo: AP/L’Osservatore Romano

In this file photo made available by the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, Pope Benedict XVI with the outgoing British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, during a private audience at the Vatican in June.

Britain’s latent Christian divide, with tensions between the Church of England and the Catholic Church bubbling under the surface, has been ripped open by the former Prime Minister, Tony Blair’s decision, finally, to jump the fence and embrace Catholicism.

It was something he wanted to do for a long time but couldn’t while in office as a Catholic Prime Minister remains an oddity in Britain even today. Although there is no constitutional bar, Britain has never had a Catholic Prime Minister, and it is a sign of the sensitivities that surround the issue that Mr. Blair was advised to wait until he left office in order to avoid any awkwardness. After all, it is a country where the monarch can, theoretically, marry a Muslim, a Hindu or a Sikh but not a Catholic.

No wonder, Mr. Blair’s conversion (his wife and children were already Catholics) has been portrayed in Catholic quarters as a victory over the Church of England, which is often derided by its own followers for its rather freewheeling doctrine and a lack of authority as against the certainties of the Catholic Church — and its power.

Britain’s Catholic minority sees the “defection” of such a high-profile figure from the Church of England as a coup. One Catholic priest, close to Mr. Blair, was ecstatic. “It’s a great joy — I’m lost for words,” he said, prompting a Protestant commentator to note wryly that it seemed the “Church has come to Blair, rather than Blair going to the Church.”

But not all Catholics are happy. “Here comes trouble, Father,” ran a headline in The Sunday Times over a report that Mr. Blair’s conversion had “angered” some Catholics, who believed that his position on abortion, gays and stem cell research went against the teachings of the Catholic Church.

As Prime Minister, Mr. Blair had voted for liberal abortion laws, same-sex civil partnerships and the controversial legislation allowing stem cell research for medical purposes, though, on the latter, he was reported to have commented that he believed “we are acting beyond our competence.”

Ann Widdecombe, a former Tory Minister and herself a Catholic convert, wanted Mr. Blair to publicly repudiate his previous views on these issues.

“If you look at Tony Blair’s voting record in the House of Commons, he’s gone against Church teaching on more than one occasion. On things, for example, like abortion. … My question would be, ‘has he changed his mind on that?’” she said on the BBC.

Critics have argued that becoming a Catholic means embracing “everything the Church teaches to be revealed truth,” and that means Mr. Blair having to say that he has changed his previous position on issues such as abortion to bring it in line with Catholic teachings.

“We need to hear a full repudiation from him. Without one, having Blair as a Catholic is like having a vegetarian in a man-eating club,” argued John Smeaton, head of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children.

This has a touch of the fundamentalist portrayal of Islam as a take-it-or-leave-it-package, and raises the question whether fundamentalists — whether Muslim or Christian — can dictate the choices an individual makes on social and political issues of the day in a liberal and secular society?

Mr. Blair, who never tires of criticising the Muslim community for not standing up to the fanatics in its fold, now faces a test: will he have the courage to practise what he has been preaching to others? Mr. Blair continues to be a public figure and what he says on issues on which the Catholic Church has views different from his own will be watched with interest.

Curiously, despite the Vatican’s strong anti-war position, Mr. Blair’s conduct over Iraq has gone unquestioned in the debate over his commitment to Catholic beliefs. Ironically, he has defended the decision to invade Iraq in almost religious terms as something flowing from his sense of right and wrong as a man of faith.

Only one Catholic public figure — Labour MP and former Minister Peter Kilfoyle — has raised the issue and suggested that he show some “contrition.”

“If he showed just one ounce of contrition over Iraq, then he would be closer to the body of morality that is the Catholic Church,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Church of England, battling to keep a dwindling flock together, is putting on a brave face over Mr. Blair’s desertion, with the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams wishing him “good wishes as he takes this step in his Christian pilgrimage.” Some are even saying “good riddance,” claiming that he had become an embarrassment to the Church of England because of his hobnobbing with the Catholic Church. Dr. Williams was also deeply unhappy over Iraq and had criticised Mr. Blair’s anti-terror agenda as a threat to human rights.

But deep down, there is concern about the state of the Church of England’s health, with reports claiming that it had been “overtaken” by Catholics as the country’s dominant group, ending its 400-year-old supremacy. “Britain: a Catholic country,” proclaimed The Sunday Telegraph in a front-page splash, claiming that attendance at Anglican Church services had dropped to an alarming level while more people were flocking to the Catholic Sunday Mass — a claim which the Church of England promptly rejected.

And the former Anglican Bishop of Oxford, Reverend Richard Harries, sneeringly noted that for all the apparent virtues of the Catholic Church, he was grateful to belong to a “Church with women priests, which backs scientific medicine, [and] encourages latitude of conscience on a range of issues…”

No marks for guessing which Church that is: the Church of England, of course.

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