Yet it has become clear over the last year or so that religion permeated many aspects of Blair's work in government. Last year, Blair told ITV1 that he had prayed while making his decision on committing British forces to Iraq.
"In the end, there is a judgment that, I think if you have faith about these things, you realize that judgment is made by other people . . . and if you believe in God, it's made by God as well," he said.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Friday, May 02, 2008 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 35 words Type of Material: Correction
Blair and religion: In a report in Wednesday's Section A about the religious faith of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the name of his foundation was omitted. It is the Tony Blair Faith Foundation.
That Blair's coming-out would not be easy goes without saying, and perhaps accounts for his reticence during his years at Downing Street to discuss the issue.
Britain has a long history of tension between Roman Catholics and Protestants; the Church of England, which is Protestant, has status as an official church, with its bishops sitting in the House of Lords, and the heir to the British throne is not permitted to marry a Catholic. Though relatively little of the friction remains today, the nation has never had a Catholic prime minister.
Longtime liberal commentator Rod Liddle took Blair to task for in essence invoking God on the sly. "In other words, Tony believed in God but not with sufficient conviction or fervor to allow the voters to know he believed in God," he wrote in the Sunday Times.
"The creator of the universe was an embarrassing encumbrance whom the prime minister was forced to take around with him, perhaps in his back pocket. . . . He would be retrieved from the pocket only once in a while, to offer a quiet but enthusiastic endorsement of some policy Tony was about to embark upon, and then be put back, very quietly, while nobody was looking."
Blair also has taken heat from antiabortion groups and some among Britain's 6 million Catholics, who complain that his record in support of abortion rights, homosexual civil unions, stem cell research and measures that might hasten the death of terminally ill patients belie the official teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.
John Smeaton, head of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, wants Blair to repudiate some of those positions.
"Whether he says it or not, the fact of the matter is that defending the inviolable dignity of every human life is the fundamental teaching of the Catholic Church," Smeaton said. "It would be rather like saying, 'Yes, indeed, St. Paul has converted to Christianity, but he absolutely refuses to repudiate the killing of Christians. He doesn't want to go into it."
