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July 25, 2008 11:43:46 AM CDT

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Blair to Convert to Catholicism

Posted Nov 10, 07 2:36 PM CST in Arts & Living,  World 

(Newser) – Tony Blair will officially become a Catholic in the next few weeks, a Catholic newspaper says, after years of signing off on Anglican appointments as prime minister. The conversion isn't a shock—Blair often attended Mass with his Catholic wife and child. But the Church of England’s official status, along with British disdain for mixing religion and politics, kept Blair from converting in office.

The Church of England is nominally the national faith in England, but Britons reject overtly religious politicians, Newsweek observes, picking up on the Blair report in London's Tablet newspaper. “We don’t do God,” a Blair adviser once said. But Blair’s faith deeply influenced his interventionist foreign policy, including his partnership with George Bush over Iraq, which both saw as a righteous confrontation of evil.

Source Newsweek

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Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair speaks will convert to Catholocism in the next few weeks, a London newspaper says. (AP Photo /Johnny Green, Pool,File)   (Associated Press)
Pope Benedict XVI shakes hands with British Prime Minister Tony Blair during a private audience with Blair and wife Cherie at the Vatican, in this Saturday June 3, 2006 file photo. Blair's weekend appointment...   (Associated Press)
Pope Benedict XVI, right, meets with outgoing British Prime Minister Tony Blair during a private audience at the Vatican Saturday June 23, 2007. The Vatican on Saturday bid farewell to Tony Blair as British...   (Associated Press)
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