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Posted on 04/23/2006 2:02:04 PM PDT by Coleus
TONY BLAIR has been attending private Roman Catholic masses in Downing Street conducted by a Franciscan friar renowned for helping convert members of the Establishment to Catholicism.
The prime minister, an Anglican, participates in the services, although he does not take Communion with his wife Cherie, a Catholic, and their children. Sources disclosed that the ceremonies are conducted in the sitting room by Father Michael Seed, the friar who prepared the Conservative MPs John Gummer and Ann Widdecombe to become Catholics.
The Blairs, whose four children are Catholics, have been quietly attending mass at Downing Street and Chequers since 2003 because security worries curtailed visits to Westminster Cathedral and to other Catholic churches. News of the services may rekindle speculation that Blair is interested in converting to Rome under Seed’s guidance after he leaves office. He has previously said he has no plans to convert and only attends services so the family can worship together.
For the Downing Street services, Seed normally dresses in the dark brown habit of a Franciscan Friar of the Atonement, over which he wears vestments. A chalice and paten for the bread are placed on a table covered by a white cloth in the Blairs’ sitting room. Members of the family are understood to take part in readings in the services. Private services of mixed denominations are rare, although an increasing number of non-Catholics attend mass in churches. There has never been a Catholic British prime minister and Cherie is the first Downing Street spouse to be a member of the Roman church.
The Blairs have made similar private arrangements at Chequers, the prime minister’s country residence in Buckinghamshire. The family previously worshipped at the Catholic church in nearby Great Missenden where they were regularly treated to the anti-war opinions of Father Timothy Russ, the parish priest. Russ has also conducted services inside Chequers. Other priests conducting masses at the weekend retreat include a Royal Air Force chaplain and a Dominican from Oxford.
The Blairs first had to modify their church-going in the security alert which followed the Al-Qaeda attacks on America on September 11, 2001. They then visited a range of London churches on Sundays and holy days in a “random rotation” so no regular pattern of attendance could be detected by potential assassins. The switch to masses at Downing Street occurred because of raised security following the invasion of Iraq.
Seed declined to comment this weekend on his contacts with the Blairs. Downing Street also refused to comment on “a private matter”.
You mean the Labour Party knows about and allows this? You mean a British PM and his wife are allowed to believe in God? Surely, this is grounds for a vote of no confidence!
I thought liberals hated religion.
Good for the Blairs. Its nice to see that Cherie has some use after all! ;-)
Actually whats amazing here is members of the 'European Ruling Class' seriously practicing Christianity instead of New Age 'fill-in-the-blank' or the latest craze ....Islam!
Prince "Elephant Ears" Charles seems to be the one into Islam.
Ping!
The Royals attend church each Sunday
I thoght Blair converted YEARS ago.
Blair may have converted. But the English have a long history of anti-Catholicism, and until fairly recent times excluded Catholics from the government.
After all, one of Blair's jobs is to suggest names to the Queen for appointment as Archbishop of Canterbury, and such measures as that. The Queen is still nominally the head of the Anglican Church, but of course she does what her Prime Minister tells her to do.
What's curious is that Blair and his wife appear to be flaming liberals on social matters. You wouldn't think that would draw them to Catholicism. When I saw Franciscan friar, my first thought was liberal priest; but it says Franciscan Friar of the Atonement, and I'm not sure where that order stands.
I don't think he's allowed. Don't forget there are guidelines for royalty and holding public office and, I think, one of them is to be Anglican.
True if you count the early 19th century as 'recent'. The Catholic Emancipation Act was passed in 1829!
Royalty, yes; holding public office, emphatically not (since 1829 - see previous post).
Hillaire Belloc was opposed for Salford in 1905 with the in-your-face campaign slogan, "Don't vote for a Frenchman and a Catholic" (he was only half French.)
Belloc, never one to avoid a fight, stood up at a public meeting and delivered the following:
"Gentlemen, I am a Catholic," he said, and took his rosary out of his pocket. "As far as possible, I go to Mass every day. This is a rosary: as far as possible, I kneel down and tell these beads every day. If you reject me on account of my religion, I shall thank God that he has spared me the indignity of being your representative."
He got a standing O for that - and took the seat by some 800 votes.
. . . but it just goes to show that there's substantial anti-Catholic prejudice still obtaining in Britain. Read Charles Kingsley's The Water Babies and Westward Ho! . . . it's obvious and offensive. I ignore it and enjoy the stories anyhow, because much of the rabid anti-Catholicism in England is originally political and grew out of the wars with Spain and the problems with Ireland.
I'm not sure that the two examples you quote - both over 100 years old - are very convincing as evidence for the 'still'! I must say that in our own time I see very little sign of it (too few of us British, alas, are that exercised by religion of any sort).
Incidentally, worth pointing out that there have plenty of examples of devout Catholics holding senior posts in government, of which the most notable current example is Secretary of State for Education Ruth Kelly.
I was over in Scotland in the 90s, and anti-Catholicism was alive and well there!
Scene on the Forth Bridge, late one night:
"Don't jump, for the sake o' good old Ranger!"
"Ah doan support Ranger."
"Ah well then (a life's at stake) for the sake o' good old Celtic."
"Ah doan support Celtic."
"Aweel, then, jump, ye bluidy atheist!"
No, it's perfectly true, although it's diminishing. I grew up an Episcopalian, have English relatives. Catholics are "not quite the thing."
I spent a year at Jesus College, Cambridge, as a visiting scholar. One thing I found I simply couldn't talk about even with the greatest circumspection was Ireland. They were totally irrational on the subject of the Irish.
Perhaps some of that is breaking down, but there's an old, old, knee-jerk response to Catholics. Blair would want to keep it to himself until he leaves office.
Scotland I grant you - especially in the Western central belt and the Western Isles - but that's another country! Far less easy to make a case for it being an issue still in England.
But socially I'm sure there's still a problem, because unless you're an old English Catholic family the religion's associated with the Irish . . . who seem to be the Mexicans of England.
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