Blair "conversion" comments

Speculation seems to have increased recently that Tony Blair may be about to be received into the Catholic Church. I was left a message saying that someone was looking for a quote on this. I'll be up in town today to speak at the School of Evangelisation so I hope some of the following might be of help...

If Tony Blair were to convert to Catholicism, I would welcome that warmly. But conversion involves the acceptance of Catholic teaching such as the teaching that abortion and embryo experimentation are evil because all human life is sacred from the moment of conception, and that laws introducing homosexual civil unions are wrong and should be opposed by Catholic legislators.

In public office, Mr Blair has supported abortion, embryo experimentation and homosexual civil unions. Conversion to the Catholic faith would imply that he now accepts Catholic teaching and is willing to witness publicly to it.

I pray for Mr Blair's conversion to the Catholic faith. It would be wonderful if he were to be a public supporter of the pro-life cause in reparation for the damage done to human life under his government. But simply going through a ceremony will be of little value if he remains committed to the anti-life legislation that he and his government supported.

Previous relevant posts:

Blair & Pope: "frank exchange"
Tony Blair at the English College
Tony Blair's "little skip" at first gay marriage
More "Blair to become Catholic" news
Blair to promote Britain as ESCR world capital

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