A rose by any other name
Tony Blair seems to think that Catholicism has no actual content – that it’s just a name or a label attached to a set of harmless weekend habits.
Mr Blair left little doubt that it was fear of the public and media reaction that led him to delay his conversion until after he quit as PM – even though he had been attending mass for 25 years and was bringing his children up as Catholics…”There was no disrespect… for the Anglican church, it’s just that my family all go to mass, my kids are brought up as Catholic and I have been going to mass for 25 years, so to come into full communion seemed to me my natural home. There is no great… doctrinal dispute I have with the Anglican church… It wasn’t about that at all, it was a very personal decision.”
So his conversion wasn’t actually a conversion then? It was just a name-change? Does his priest know that? Does Ratzinger?
“I hope we’re not in a situation where you couldn’t have a Roman Catholic as Prime Minister. I don’t, to be honest, think it makes any difference to people at all, politically.” Describing his own faith as “the foundation of your life”, Mr Blair said he thought it “sad” that as Prime Minister he was unable to talk openly about it.
I think it’s ‘sad’ that he wanted to join a church that outlaws abortion and contraception and in vitro fertilization and homosexuality, and that declares women inferior in all but name (the euphemism is ‘complementary’). I think it’s ludicrous or worse that he thinks ‘it’ makes no difference at all. I think it’s rather shocking that he simply ignores the reactionary character of the actual existing Catholic church, and pretends it can be reduced to merely a ‘very personal decision.’ He presumably wouldn’t say that about joining any secular reactionary organization; it’s much odder than he apparently realizes that he says it about the appallingly reactionary Catholic church.
People used to think that Blair was an intelligent man. No wonder he was taken in by the WMD scam. He’s as thick as a post!
But he’s “emotionally intelligent.”
“Tony Blair held back from converting to Catholicism until after he quit as prime minister because of the “palaver” it would have caused to do it while he was in office, it was revealed today.”
Tony Blair’s wife is a Roman Catholic and his children attended Brompton Oratory school which is Roman Catholic. He also spent 25 years atending RC masses. Catholicism merely took a back pew for St Tony. He did not even have the “faith” of his own conviction to stand up and be counted. What a palaver indeed. He is such a hypocrite.
I would loved to have been a fly on the Vatican wall – listening to the pope’s conversation in the aftermath of blessed Tony’s visit. I daresay the pope had grave misgivings about the ex-prime minister.
Ne’er an iconic image of martyrdom for Catholicism, will Blair ever be.
I really was going to read about Tony Blair, and tut-tut appropriately, but I got distracted by an Editor’s Choice: “50 most ludicrous Britains.” I do hope that no tongues were lacerated in the preparation of that article; the contributors must have had them pretty firmly in their cheeks.
Sadly, “Tony” Blair is very intelligent. His intelligence is, however, used solely for the aggrandisement of “Tony” Blair.
This disgusting hypocrite will say or do anything that will further the objective of “Tony” Blair becoming President of “Europe” (if he could accept such a menial job), General Secretary of an Enhanced United Nations (not the current powerless organisation but one better equipped to save humanity), or, preferably, Supreme Commander, Known Universe.
Those of us who languished under ten years of rule of this nauseating individual will fill you in on any further details you may require.
There might have been a bit of a problem had Blair converted while in office. In that case, he would have been subject to automatic excommunication because his views on abortion do not comport with Catholic doctrine regarding the duty of public officials.
Incidentally, I don’t know how Catholic clergy in Great Britain operates, but in the U.S., they’ve frequently resorted to publicly shaming elected officials (and others who don’t tow the Vatican’s line) by denying them access to the sacraments.
Oh yeah. There was that business with Kerry, and then there were the bishops telling their subjects how to vote last month – despite the fact that a condition of churches’ tax-exempt status is that they remain entirely non-political. The bastards want to have it both ways – of course.
I can actually see Blair’s point. He’s dealing with the reality that the vast majority of Western Catholics ignore their church hierarchy when they say stupid things. The man’s been attending a Catholic church and hanging out with Catholics for awhile now; presumably he’s not found it much different than the Anglican church, since Catholics in the West tend to be fairly freethinking (Bill Donohue & Co. excepted).
My father was a pseudo-Catholic; unlike Blair, he never actually converted, but he attended Catholic church with my Catholic mother, joined the neighborhood Catholics in their weekly Rosary service, etc. But in his mind there just wasn’t enough difference between the Catholic and Lutheran churches to get all carried away and convert. He had his relationship with his God sorted out, and church doctrine mostly didn’t matter.
Jakob T., your comment really struck a nerve and reminded me of my reaction to The Queen . I was dumbstruck by how out of sync I was with the rest of my friends. See, my sympathy was entirely with Queen Elizabeth in that film. Mind you, I have no time for monarchy, but hear me out.
The film pitted staid, stoic, private Elizabeth against gregarious, weepy, “accessible” Tony and Cherie Blaire. He waxed maudlin for the cameras – and presumably, for the readers of the Daily Mail – dubbing a second-rate solypsist “The Peoples’ Princess.” Elizabeth remained stony-faced, and refused to turn a family death into a public Oprah weep-in. She got mocked for being “out of touch” with “the people,” while the film lauded the Blairs’ trumped up sentimentality as the pinnacle of modern “healthy grief.” Nevermind the whole damned country was blowing its pin money on flowers and counseling (!) for a spoiled socialite whose claim to fame was turning a pedestrian marriage into a Greek tragedy. No vulgarity (think Elton John “rewriting” Candle in the Wind ) was too much. Watching it all from the colonies, I felt like one of those grandchildren who unwittingly infected his grandparents with fatal influenza.
My friend called to ask me what I thought of the movie. I told him I loved it, and wasn’t it ridiculous how Blair and the weepers-in-the-streets insisted on blubbering at the celebrity altar and castigating anyone with a modicum of reserve. “Um. . but. . I thought the Queen was such a bitch, so out of touch, you know?” Oy.
I used to think Tony Blair was merely cynical. That he invented his “sincerity” to mask his deeply Machiavellian ambitions, and his toadying for Bush. More and more, I suspect he is that stupidly sentimental. Wearing his Catholicism on his heartsleeve so clumsily only convinces me more.
I cant think of a time when the nation was more prosperous than the Blair years Brian? we had full employment the minimum wage, major improvments in the funding of health and education, the world was rid of two brutal dictatorships and Northen Ireland was finaly at peace. Just how did you languish?
Blair is a rare creature, a British Labor politician who has shown a spine in his duty to humanity instead of acting like a grovelling sycophant of whoever can get him higher in the polls or sucking up to radical union influence-peddling. The kind of Galloway-esque pantomime characters who shriek at him from the left are in themselves excellent reasons to support him.
His catholicism moves me to deep indifference.
I will gladly second that statement Chris.
JoshS, I agree about The Queen. Elizabeth II seemed to have, to my eyes, proper reserve and dignity and basic sanity. The weepy public had none of the above.
ChrisPer, what the hell are you on about?
Josh, well, Helen Mirren did win the Oscar… perhaps you just have the wrong sort of friends?
“Tony Blair seems to think that Catholicism has no actual content “
So that’s two things I agree with him on then.
Oh but it does have content. Notice I didn’t say valid content or sensible content or worth paying attention to except to avoid it content – but it does have content. It’s packed to the rafters with rules and fiats and denunciations.
Being a pseudo-Catholic like Karen’s father is one thing, but actually converting is another; it amounts to endorsing the content. It is my considered opinion that Blair had no business doing that.
Prosperous in the Blair years? Eh? We now know that the illusion of prosperity rested on faith that house prices would go on rising at 10% a year for ever, provided that do-nothing regulators let incompetent banks lend money they hadn’t got to saps who couldn’t repay it to enable them to buy houses bigger than they needed. Just like faith in transubstantiation, come to think of it.
Cardinal Hume once asked Tony Blair not to receive Holy Communion. Fancy that indeed. Blair was not even an RC paid up union member and he found himself parading up the Westminister Cathedral aisle to chew the RC alter rails. He was obviously not cognisant of the rules. I would love to know what his thinking is with regards transubstantiation kit.
Jenavir – thanks; I’m glad to know I’m not alone in that thought.
ChrisPer – Really, I would like to know exactly what your diatribe has to do with the subject of this post – Blair’s public conversion to Catholicism. What has that to do with what he did or didn’t do in terms of economic policy? And who is “shrieking?” Did I miss an obvious connection, or was this another of your gratuitous, off-topic swipes at other commenters?
Richard, I should think you’d want to know, too, just so you could understand exactly what thought you’re seconding.
ChrisPer – My apologies; I see you were reacting to Brian’s comment, which I hadn’t noticed. I take back the charge of off-topic.
But I still want to know who’s “shrieking.” Is it Brian? Some other commentator? Are they really shrieking, or do they have serious disagreements with your point of view? And if the “shriekers” are wrong, there’s probably a more convincing way to demonstrate that than purple prose:
“Blair is a rare creature, a British Labor politician who has shown a spine in his duty to humanity . . “
Got that halo polished up yet?
Nicolas Its Blairs fault that sub prime loans were made on real estate in the U.S is that what you are saying?
The Blairs went to the Vatican for a memorial service for Pope John Paul II in 2005. TB, at the time – said, “I don’t discuss my Catholicism with anybody.”
HIS Catholicism?
He was not even an RC way back then. So what the hell was he talking about? Are there such person’s in existence who call themselves closet Catholic’s, whom I do know nothing about at all? As I have never heard of anyone putting their conversion on hold. If he was called by Jesus to become a Catholic so very long ago what has has that got to do with his political life? I am baffled by Miranda!
Now, when he is out of high office he wants to discuss, to all and sundry, worldwide, TB’s own “faith foundation”.
The very same man, I should add, does not reject Anglicanism. Ambiguous, to say the least
The conniver runs with the hare and sits with the hound. A shrewd operator, if ever there was one to be had in GB.
Richard, thanks for the clarification; that makes sense. I have no idea if you’re right or not about how the prosperity came about (my ignorance), but the separation makes sense.