Below The Beltway

I’ve seen this rumor floating around for awhile now, but it seems as though the soon to be former British Prime Minister Tony Blair is about to become a member of the Catholic Church:

Tony Blair is “certain” to become a Roman Catholic shortly after he steps down from office next week, friends of the British PM have said. They believe it will happen “sooner rather than later”.

Mr Blair is likely to discuss his conversion with Pope Benedict XVI, with whom he will hold talks in Rome tomorrow after attending his last summit of European Union leaders in Brussels.

Aides say that in the private one-to-one meeting, he will also discuss his plans to set up a Blair Inter-Faith Foundation aimed at fostering closer links between people from different religions.

There have been persistent rumours that the Prime Minister would convert to Catholicism but Downing Street has always insisted that he remains a member of the Church of England.

Now friends say Mr Blair will formalise his already close affiliation to the Catholic Church. They say his “spiritual guide” in making the decision has been his wife, Cherie. They have brought up their four children as Catholics.

Before he became Prime Minister, Mr Blair regularly took communion with his wife and children at a Catholic church in Islington, north London. He ceased doing so in public after an intervention by the late Cardinal Hume, when he was leader of the Catholic Church in England and Wales.

It is believed that Mr Blair decided to remain an Anglican while he was Prime Minister because of the possible legal and political difficulties of converting while in office.

Although Britain has never had a Catholic prime minister, the church has said there would be no constitutional bar to Mr Blair joining while he was still in office. But some lawyers believe the 1829 Emancipation Act, which granted civil rights to Roman Catholics, may still prevent a Catholic from becoming Prime Minister. It says that no Catholic adviser to the monarch can hold civil or military office.

Interestingly enough, it seems that Blair ’s successor in office is seeking to divest the Prime Minister from any religious affiliation:

As Prime Minister, Mr Blair makes recommendations to the Queen on the appointment of Church of England bishops - a role that Gordon Brown intends to hand back to the church when he succeeds Mr Blair as part of a raft of constitutional reforms.

Separation of Church and State in the U.K. Wow, it only took them 231 years to figure it out.

H/T: Joy Loy @ IrishTrojan.com