Tony Blair Now a Catholic! Really?

Six months after stepping down as Britain’s prime minister, Tony Blair has completed his long-expected conversion to Roman Catholicism from Britain’s established church, Anglicanism, according to the NY Times.

Mr. Blair, now a Middle East envoy, was received into the Catholic Church during a Mass held on Friday night at a chapel in the residence of the leading Catholic in Britain, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor. It said Mr. Blair had been “received into full communion with the Catholic Church” by the cardinal.

According to the Catholic custom ordinarily followed in Britain, a convert, before acceptance at communion, is usually required to undergo the Rite of Reception, which includes the declaration, “I believe and profess all that the Holy Catholic Church believes, teaches and proclaims to be revealed by God.”

I wonder if Blair who promoted abortion, pushed gay marriage, and supported gay adoption in his time as Prime Minister said he believes “all” the Church teaches.

Some are sceptical.

“St. Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus would pale into insignificance by comparison,” John Smeaton, director of Britain’s Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, said in an interview published earlier this month in The Spectator, a weekly journal popular among conservatives. “We need to hear a full repudiation from him. Without one, having Blair as a Catholic is like having a vegetarian in a meat-eating club. It simply does not make sense”

Nice line. It will be interesting to see how this progresses. I wish him well.