Tony Blair Converts to Catholicism

5 thoughts on “Tony Blair Converts to Catholicism”

1. The Telegraph claims that Catholics are “the country’s dominant religious group.” What? I guess I know nothing about England. Rocco Palmo has a good roundup: Reformation, Undone.

2. Let’s pray extra hard next month during the 100th anniversary of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, so that soon we can celebrate the admission of our current Prime Minister, a son of the Manse from Scotland, into the Catholic Church; and His Holiness Benedict XVI into the Orthodox Church; and His All Holiness Bartolomew into the Methodist Church; etc., etc.

3. Kaihsu, I share your sentiment.

4. It seems that the parity in churchgoing is more a matter of very few Anglicans going to church than an extraordinary rise in Catholics. This article says that the total number of Britons who consider themselves Anglican is 25 million, vs. 4.2 million Catholics.

   Also, it’s worth noting that Catholics are a plurality in the U.S., too, but it would be inaccurate to call the U.S. a Catholic country. The difference is that there is such a diversity of Protestant churches that the Catholics are merely the largest single group, but Protestants as a whole dominate.

   If one were to measure “churchgoing” in the U.S., though, I imagine certain groups might show relatively higher numbers, such as Baptists and Latter-Day Saints.

   There’s actually been a substantial amount of talk about religion in the U.S. public sphere lately, mainly because of Mormon presidential candidate Mitt Romney. A lot of people outside the West are quite unfamiliar with the Mormons, and I’ve seen an interesting mix of fear and curiosity.

5. By “the West” up there, I mean the Western U.S., not “Western [i.e., European-derived] culture.”

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