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I don’t think that the Catholic Church is the right faith community for Tony Blair. (Clara’s thoughts here.) From the sounds of it, he’s a very good protestant. “Last month Father Michael Seed, a Westminster priest close to the Blairs, predicted that Mr Blair would become a Catholic. But he later told The Times he did not know if Mr Blair would ever be received ‘formally’ into the Roman Catholic Church.” Will never “formally” be received into the Church? I don’t know what his plan is, but it sounds fishy. Apparently, Benedict wasn’t overly impressed with Blair’s plan for Great Britain over these past ten years; abortion, gay adoption and stem cell research highlighted the discussion between the two men, reports the London Times.
But this was an interesting part of the Times‘ article:
Some commentators saw the fact that the Blairs gave Pope Benedict three period photographs of Cardinal John Henry Newman, a famous nineteenth century British convert to Catholicism, as a symbolic gesture signalling Mr Blair’s own imminent conversion.
On the other hand Vatican sources point out that as a young theology student at Freising the Pope made a special study of Cardinal Newman, writing his doctorate on Newman’s theology of conscience, and has supported moves to make him a saint.
What does the author of the article mean, “on the other hand”? I didn’t know that Benedict had made a study of Newman. Wasn’t Newman one of the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council?
Oh, another thing I wanted to mention: we can judge from the photographs of their meeting that Benedict doesn’t think he’s a Catholic yet, however upstanding of a protestant he may be. Notice that Benedict doesn’t appear in the photographs with the red cape thingy (forgive my poor knowledge of liturgical nomenclature) and stole, as he does when Catholic politicians visit.
Another article here.
St. Louis-Marie de Montfort,
Pope St. Pius X,
St. Joseph,
St. Ambrose of Milan,
St. Thomas Aquinas,
St. Francis (and St. Clare),
St. Catherine of Siena,
St. Alphonsus Ligouri,
St. John Chrysostom,
For selfish prideful reasons I’d like to see Blair convert to the Catholic Church. I work with anti-Catholic British military officers and it would be fun to have their Prime Minister or former-PM convert. It’s great bragging rights for Catholics.
However, as Iosephus points outs, Blair is probably still a protestant and not fully Catholic in terms of beliefs in faith and morals. So, it will be better for his immortal soul if he stays a protestant until he accepts the Catholic Church 100%. It would be far worse at his Judgment to be a bad Catholic than to be a protestant - Being a Catholic would just be one more thing piled onto him as he suffers eternal hellfire.
I don’t think Cardinal Newman was a father of the Second Vatican Council, seeing as he was dead at that point. I’m sure you meant the First Vatican Council. He may have gone to the Council, but my understanding is that Cardinal Newman didn’t like the papal infallibility thing when it was being discussed, but of course accepted what the Church taught about it after it was defined. I don’t think he was a Father of it though, but I could be wrong.
And we should pray for Tony Blair. I think he ought to actually accept what the Church teaches if he wants to convert sincerely and ‘formally’. I don’t know how the hierarchy is in Britain compared to the U.S., but I would hope that they could guide him to renounce his apparent views concerning moral issues (gay adoption, abortion, etc.) because such a public and sincere conversion like that sends a powerful message to the non-believers and non-Catholic Christians in secular Britain and Europe.
Andrew, I was just kidding about Newman and VII - that’s what’s often said, that Newman was a sort of spiritual predecessor to the Spirit of Vatican II, which is complete nonsense.
As I mentioned before, I really wasn’t, in my post, considering whether Blair should be a deacon, so much as what the aftermath of it would be if he did become one. But it occurred to me later that it would also be delightful, in a different way, if Papa told him to go away and think for awhile about some of his wrong, unCatholic views, and come back when he’s really ready to convert. Which might be more or less what did happen, though the story isn’t clear.
One thing I hate about these kinds of reports, though. They always throw the war in Iraq in with other moral issues as if they’re on equal footing. That might be the Vatican’s fault as much as the media’s, actually, but I hear it all the time and I constantly need to explain: political matters (i.e. whether the invasion of Iraq was justified or not) involve prudential considerations, about which the Church does not claim to be infallible. The Vatican has been sounding more and more pacifist in recent years, and we’re obliged to give them a respectful hearing but faithful Catholics may still disagree about particular political judgments like this.
The other issues are entirely different. All faithful Catholics must agree that abortion is an abomination, and that homosexual marriage is an impossibility (and sodomy a mortal sin). Everyone reading this blog knows all this, of course, but I wish other, silly people would get it straight, and as I say, the fact that they don’t may be as much the Vatican’s fault as anybody else’s. Obviously I care particularly about this, because I do disagree with some of the Vatican’s political judgments. But I’m right nonetheless that this distinction needs to be explained more clearly. Blair can convert to the one true faith without repenting the invasion of Iraq. But he would need to repent his support of abortion, gay marriage and so forth, in order to truly convert.
Read the comments at the bottom of the link Iosephus sent! The level of hostility against the faith is almost humorous.
Well said, Clara
As I recall, Newman wasn’t so much opposed to infallibility, but rather didn’t think it was a good time to define it.
Would Newman have been allowed to participate in a Council, since he wasn’t a bishop? Or was he actually a bishop as well? I was under the impression that he wasn’t.
Royce, I’ve heard the same about Cardinal Newman’s position. I’ve never figured out how the vindication and clarification of dogma for the exaltation of the Church could be imprudently timed.