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As part of a denomination which welcomes anyone who professes belief in Christ to join us in communion (I'd say about ten percent of the members where I attend are former Roman Catholics) I can't say I understand the reasoning for this, but if that's the rule it's none of my business. Those that don't agree, including Mr. Blair, have lots of alternatives.

For instance, he could take the lunge and become Catholic. I'm not aware of many doctrinal differeneces between the Church of England and Rome so, except for how it fits with British history, it shouldn't really be too great a leap.

Rumors are that he will inded convert once he is finished in office. There are no legal boundaries to a Catholic being prime minister, but it would not play politically.

Wilder rumors are that he has already, secretly converted.

I'm not aware of many doctrinal differeneces between the Church of England and Rome so, except for how it fits with British history, it shouldn't really be too great a leap.

It's a common misconception of non-Anglican Protestants (particularly in America, I'm afraid) to not be aware of the MANY differences between firmly Protestant traditional Anglican/Episcopalean beliefs and Roman Catholic beliefs. It stems from, I think, the fact that Anglican worship is very "high church" or Catholic APPEARING, yet as we all know, appearances can be decieving.

Besides not acknowledging the Pope, traditional Anglicans (not the liberals...they believe all kinds of strange stuff) accept the the "solas" of Protestantism, that is "sola fide, sola gracia, solo scriptura, solus Christus, sola Deo gloria" (only through faith, only by grace, scripture alone, Christ alone, all for God's glory alone). Henry the VIII may have liked Roman doctrine, (except on divorce...) but those who came after did not--the very UN-Roman Catholic "Westminister Confession" of Presbyterianism was formulated by Puritan Anglicans, who also made the Church of England unquestionably very traditionally Protestant (not quite Presbyterian though...) in its core beliefs.

The confusion is that most modern Protestants aren't used to the high-church/liturgical style of worship found in Anglican churches, and since that part does resemble Roman Catholic worship, we assume their beliefs are also similar...when in fact they are not.Also from the very beginning the Church of England, being a national church, had a "big tent" philosophy--having people that were practically Roman Catholic in beliefs (like Henry) to those who could have easily been Lutheran or Presbyterian. (I suspect Blair is like England's first Protestant monarch. Let's hope his religious descendents are more like Elizabeth I, and not like bloody Mary...)

Function does not always follow form.

** (I'd say about ten percent of the members where I attend are former Roman Catholics)**

These people are still Catholics and are invited to return at any time.

We are sponsoring our third class entitled "Catholics Can Come Home Again" guidebook, by Carried Kemp.

In the two classes we have conducted so far we had nearly 25 former Catholics attending and about 20 of those come back to the Catholic Church. It's a wonderful program. Tell your friends to look for it in their area!