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Tony Blair & religion;; former PM's views & comments
Topic Started: Sunday, 24. June 2007, 17:35 (1,203 Views)
PJD


"He cited two authors - Karen Armstrong, a heretic, and Stephen Dawkins, an atheist whom he claimed to have influenced his thinking."

To be fair William; since he has become a Catholic, does he retain that influence?

I mean has anyone asked him? - probably not I suppose.

PJD
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Quicunque vult

PJD

Come off it! He cited Karen Armstrong with approbation - let us remember that she is a former nun who broke her vows to pursue a media career promoting anti-Christian and pro-Islamic polemics. He also made clear his sympathy for liberation theology, despite its repudiation by the Church.

Christ did not get a single mention in the speech. And this speech was given in the presence of Our Lord in a Catholic Cathedral, directly underneath a relic of the True Cross.

An absolute disgrace!

QV
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Rose of York
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If you are someone ‘of faith’ it is the focal point of belief in your life. There is no conceivable way that it wouldn’t affect your politics.

But there is a reason why my former press secretary, Alastair Campbell once famously said
‘We don’t do God’. In our culture, here in Britain and in many other parts of Europe, to admit to having faith leads to a whole series of suppositions, none of which are very helpful to the practising politician.

First, you may be considered weird. Normal people aren’t supposed to ‘do God’.

Second, there is an assumption that before you take a decision, you engage in some slightly cultish interaction with your religion – ‘So, God, tell me what you think of City Academies or Health Service Reform or nuclear power’ i.e. people assume that your religion makes you act, as a leader, at the promptings of an inscrutable deity, free from reason rather than in accordance with it.

Third, you want to impose your religious faith on others.


Fourth, you are pretending to be better than the next person.


For every person of faith, whether it be the One True Faith or another one, there are times when it would be easy to take the line of least resistance and keep our mouths shut about the fact that we believe in God, pray and go to Church. I long suspected Tony Blair was delaying his reception into the Catholic Church, until he had stepped down from being Prime Minister. Was he scared to admit the truth in case it turned people off him?

Has this man never heard of Saint Thomas More (Chancellor to Henry VIII), who laid down his life rather than deny his faith?
Keep the Faith!

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Rose of York
Apr 7 2008, 12:10 AM
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If you are someone ‘of faith’ it is the focal point of belief in your life. There is no conceivable way that it wouldn’t affect your politics.

But there is a reason why my former press secretary, Alastair Campbell once famously said
‘We don’t do God’. In our culture, here in Britain and in many other parts of Europe, to admit to having faith leads to a whole series of suppositions, none of which are very helpful to the practising politician.

First, you may be considered weird. Normal people aren’t supposed to ‘do God’.

Second, there is an assumption that before you take a decision, you engage in some slightly cultish interaction with your religion – ‘So, God, tell me what you think of City Academies or Health Service Reform or nuclear power’ i.e. people assume that your religion makes you act, as a leader, at the promptings of an inscrutable deity, free from reason rather than in accordance with it.

Third, you want to impose your religious faith on others.


Fourth, you are pretending to be better than the next person.


For every person of faith, whether it be the One True Faith or another one, there are times when it would be easy to take the line of least resistance and keep our mouths shut about the fact that we believe in God, pray and go to Church. I long suspected Tony Blair was delaying his reception into the Catholic Church, until he had stepped down from being Prime Minister. Was he scared to admit the truth in case it turned people off him?

Has this man never heard of Saint Thomas More (Chancellor to Henry VIII), who laid down his life rather than deny his faith?

That part of his speech could easily have come from a disgruntled teenager trying to get out of going to Mass with his family. I am appalled.
"Normal" Catholics - all practising Christians in fact - face those sorts of difficulties at work. They don't feel it necessary to pretend that they are other than what they are in order to avoid ridicule. We have several Catholic MPs who are not afraid to speak out on moral issues e.g. Jim Dobbin, Anne Widdecombe and others.It is not necessary to wear a badge saying "I am a Catholic"; just to live your life in accordance with the tenets of the faith to the best of your ability
This was a speech by a recent convert to Catholicism, yet he cited an atheist and a dissident with approbation. I'd like to know who was responsible for his catechises.
I'm afraid so far as this speech goes, I am entirely in agreement with QV.

KatyA
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Rose of York
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KatyA
Apr 7 2008, 12:46 AM

I'm afraid so far as this speech goes, I am entirely in agreement with QV.

KatyA

Hear, hear!

KatyA
Apr 7 2008, 12:46 AM
I'd like to know who was responsible for his catechises.

Was it not the Franciscan priest who was saying Mass at the Blair's home every Sunday for "security reasons", on the grounds that the family would be in danger from terrorists if they went to Mass in a public church? Cheri sits in court, as a judge and barrister. She does lecture tours. Their children go to school. The Queen walks to church at Balmoral and Sandringham. The Pope and the Queen both stand on balconies, where they are sitting ducks for marksmen (or markswomen).

My feeling is Tony Blair sent men and women to an illegal war, but he either is scared of going to Mass in public in case somebody takes a pot shot at him, or he did not want to be seen, or perhaps did not want to rub shoulders with the riff raff of the public. Shame!

I am knocking Blair, and I am knocking the senior clergy who allowed him to give this lecture in our Mother Cathedral, the house of God.
Keep the Faith!

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Derekap
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Spoken like an Irish Tyke, Rose!
Derekap
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Rose of York
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Tony Blair
 
And finally and worst of all, that you are somehow messianically trying to co-opt God to bestow a divine legitimacy on your politics.


So when Alastair said it, he didn’t mean politicians shouldn’t have faith; just that it was always a packet of trouble to talk about it.
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Finally, and worse of all A packet of trouble talking about it?

Tough!

Jesus said "Go ye and teach all nations".
Keep the Faith!

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PJD


"Come off it! He cited Karen Armstrong with approbation - let us remember that she is a former nun who broke her vows to pursue a media career promoting anti-Christian and pro-Islamic polemics."

I accept that QV - let's hope you are right and that he receives proper catechesis from whoever guides him. For in spiritual terms of St. John of The Cross I suppose he can be described as a 'beginner' - and has a lot to learn and a lot to adapt too - at least again I hope so.

PJD
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Gerard

Rose,

Thanks for the video link.
What I enjoyed best was the noise from the protesters outside which lasted for the whole speech.

Gerry
"The institutional and charismatic aspects are quasi coessential to the Church's constitution" (Pope John Paul II, 1998).
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Rose of York
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The Cardinal's Lecture, 3rd April 2008.

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Anthony Blair
 


I am not a religious leader.






Wow! Tony got that bit right.
Keep the Faith!

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A different view of the speech from Angela Kitching, a Parliamentary Officer and member of the Editorial Board of Thinking Faith.
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Tony Blair closes his speech by identifying faith as ‘a guide to humanity on its path to the future’, something that will support ‘humanity on its journey to fulfilment’. For a prominent man who has recently become more public about his faith it is unsurprising that he would set out his views in this way but for a man who has spent his professional life in political office it is surprising that he rejects the positive role politics could play in globalisation. He says, ‘This [faith] is the life purpose that cannot be found in constitutions, speeches, stirring art or rhetoric. It is a purpose uniquely centred around kneeling before God.’ Tony Blair seems to have lost his faith in a purely political solution, but in the way he presents faith – analysing its support base, the climate which surrounds it, the strengths and weaknesses of its public position and the solutions he believes it can deliver to global problems – we can see that Blair’s practical response to faith is formed by his political experience.

Thinking Faith
To me, his speech was about "faith" being some kind (any kind) of belief in a deity and his new found Catholic Faith was little in evidence.

KatyA
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PJD


"we can see that Blair’s practical response to faith is formed by his political experience."

In the case of a politician, one of the first things a spiritual director should concentrate upon is teaching him/her on how to get out of the habit of flirting with the 8th Commandment.

PJD
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LONDON - 9 May 2008 - 480 words

Cardinal Cormac calls for dialogue between believers and non-believers

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, in a lecture at Westminster Cathedral last night, called for improved dialogue between believers and non-believers to establish the shared values that sustain our society.

This dialogue needs to be based on mutual esteem, he said, grounded in humility and respect for the other, rather than a rejection of difference. He warned that our life together in Britain cannot be a God-free zone, with religion banished to the private sphere, both because of religion's contribution to the common good but also to enable individuals' search for truth and meaning.

The Cardinal questioned the basis on which some prominent atheists attacked faith. In dismissing faith as, a priori, without reason they appear unable to cope with the notion of an intelligent, reflective Christian faith. Indeed, the Catholic Christian tradition is characterised by a close relationship between reasoned understanding and religious faith.

"The interesting question about atheism is what is the theism that being denied? Have you ever met anyone who believes what Richard Dawkins does not believe in? I usually find that the God that is being rejected by such people is a God I don't believe in either."

Doubt lies at the heart of what it is to be human and is shared by believers and non-believers alike, argued the Cardinal. Thus the certainty of those attacking faith should not be met with a closed attitude by believers. They both need to recognise each other better, more accurately, more appreciatively and with deep esteem.

Pope Benedict wrote, when Fr Joseph Ratzinger, in 1968 that the doubt that exists in the believer could become the basis for an open dialogue with those who do not believe. "Both the believer and the non-believer share, each in his own way, doubt and belief, if they do not hide from themselves and from the truth of their being Perhaps in precisely this way doubt, which saves both sides from being shut up in their own worlds, could become the avenue of communication."

The Cardinal was speaking, in a wide-ranging and personal lecture, at a packed Westminster Cathedral in the final week of his Faith and Life in Britain lecture series.

"I wanted this Cathedral to be a place for people to listen to matters pertaining to religion in the secular society in which we live here in Britain," he said.

"I wanted religion to be, and to be seen to be, open to the questions of those who do not believe detect among many people a sense of loss, of not being in touch with living sources that can nourish them. They want to live by shared values that can sustain our society but do not know where to find them. They want to find a context that can give their lives a deep meaning, but, again, are unable to find it. There are unspoken aspirations in people's lives that modern culture does not permit them to express."

Expanding on the idea of spiritual homelessness amid material and technological wealth, the Cardinal said religion had a particular and important role to play in society.

"My hope and prayer is that we will all continue to foster the witness of faith in Britain today. In this way we help to create a culture in which God is honoured and worshipped and all women and men cherished, valued and supported from the beginning of their lives to their end".

The Cardinal concluded his lecture with a reminder not to lose hope. The central message of the Gospels is God's unlimited love for us all, learned through families, friends and the communion of all believers.

The lecture will be available as a video download at http://www.rcdow.org.uk/lectures/

Faith and Life in Britain ­ The Cardinal's Lectures, is published by Matthew James Publishing at £7.95 http://www.matthew-james.co.uk/

Independent Catholic News used with permission
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CARLO
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Dear Cardinal Cormac

I heard him on the Radio this morning as a journalist rained pro-atheist blows on him. How dignified and modest he was in his responses although sounding tired and a little sad I thought, probably at the ferocity of the questions.

"Did you hear Dawkins on earlier?" asked the interviewer

"No" replied his Eminence with a chuckle, "I was saying my prayers!"

God Bless Him!

Sursum Corda
We lift up our hearts


CARLO
Judica me Deus
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On Friday, the former prime minister was in New York, launching the Tony Blair Faith Foundation at the headquarters of Time Warner, having told Time magazine that promoting inter-faith dialogue and co-operation was "how I want to spend the rest of my life".
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For Mr Blair, rhetorically and professionally, religion is the new politics. Introduced by Bill Clinton to a more sympathetic audience than he might receive in the UK, he said: "Religious faith will be of the same significance to the 21st century as political ideology was to the 20th century.


The full article is in Saturday's
Independent
and the Time Magazine article can be found here

Hmm..

KatyA
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