Tony Blair's Catholic Tastes

(A guest blog by Richard Owen, Rome, in The Times Online)

Goodness, what a media frenzy over Tony Blair's plans to convert to Roman Catholicism. It has been known for months, if not years, that he was as close to being a Catholic as an Anglican be: it was also known that he would meet the Pope last Saturday. Put the two together and - according to some of the more excitable headlines in the UK press at the end of last week - you have a "Pope to bless Blair's conversion" story.

Well, not quite. I don't want to be holier than thou about this, but The Times was not among the more excitable media outlets on this occasion - and I like to think with good reason. The problem with the story has always been (though some news editors are clearly not interested in such nuances, or don't know enough about it) that a) conversion is, as one Vatican spokesman put it to me in terms last Friday, "an intensely private and personal matter", and b) that some of the laws passed during the Blair ten years are absolutely anathema to the Vatican - from gay adoption, abortion and same sex unions to stem cell research.

Hardly surprising then that Benedict and Mr Blair had what the Vatican called a "frank confrontation" on these issues, and of course on Iraq. The most audible sound in Rome at the moment is of correspondents who went too far rowing back. Perhaps Mr Blair will convert, quietly, in due course: or perhaps, as one veteran Vatican watcher put it to me, he already has, and it is a question of how and when to announce it. But the Vatican was not amused at suggestions that the Pope would be involved. That is not how the Vatican operates.

True, it was highly unusual for the Pope and Mr Blair to be joined by Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor, the Archbishop of Westminster: unusual too (indeed unprecedented) for Mr Blair to then enter the Venerable English College (he was was the first serving PM to do so). Then there was the symbolism of Mr Blair giving Benedict period photographs of Cardinal Newman, perhaps the most celebrated Anglican convert to Catholicism.

But then Newman is also a symbol of British links with Rome - and the young Joseph Ratzinger made a special study of Newman as a theology student in Germany. As much a thoughtful gift as a symbolic one , then. What the Pope and Mr Blair actually talked about was Mr Blair's plans to work for Middle East peace and interreligious dialogue.

Then there was Mr Blair's remark to our colleague Robert Crampton, a feature writer on The Times, who followed him around on his farewell tour of the world, to the effect that the issue of his religious beliefs was complex and that he was nervous about discussing his faith with the Pope. "It's difficult with some of these things," Mr Blair told Robert. "Things aren't always as resolved as they might be."

No indeed. We all know that Cherie is a Roman Catholic, that the couple's children have attended Catholic schools, that Mr Blair has regularly attended Catholic rather than Anglican services, and that for constitutional reasons he could not have converted while in office. But when Benedict asked us during the Sunday Angelus - in English! - to pray for "true conversion", just a day after the frenzy over his meeting with Blair, you could not help but wonder if he meant "as opposed to conversion in a blaze of media hysteria".

We started the ball rolling ourselves, admittedly, when The Times reported last month that "Father Michael Seed, who is known for bringing high-profile politicians and aristocrats into the Catholic fold and who says Mass for the Blairs in Downing Street each week when they are in London" had predicted to friends at a memorial service that Mr Blair would convert.

But we added that Father Seed had said he did not know if Mr Blair would ever be received "formally" into the Roman Catholic Church, and we quoted Downing Street as saying "This story is always circulating in one form or another. The PM remains a member of the Church of England."

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