From LifeSiteNews
By Hilary White
Until today, the website of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation (TBFF) still carried a note saying that Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor was expected to join their Advisory Council. But today a statement from the organization has said that the Cardinal will not join the Blair Foundation after all.
Parna Taylor from the Foundation told LifeSiteNews.com via e-mail, “We can totally understand Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor wanting to review his commitments” since his retirement. Taylor said that the Foundation had “always valued the private advice” given by the Cardinal.
“While they support the broad aims of the Foundation,” Taylor continued, “we do not expect the Advisory Council members to agree with Tony Blair on every aspect of policy past or present. Their role is to provide advice and guidance, alongside many other senior religious figures who provide such insights on a less formal basis.”
The Tablet news magazine reports that since Blair launched his Foundation in 2008, “it had been intended that the cardinal would join the advisory council once he had stepped down as Archbishop of Westminster.”
It is unclear precisely why the Cardinal has reconsidered joining the Foundation. However, his plans to do so had been heavily criticised by many faithful Catholics and members of the life and family movement in Britain. Tony Blair, who was received into the Catholic Church by Cardinal O’Connor in December 2007, has been described by John Smeaton, the director of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, as the “principal architect” of the culture of death in Britain during his decade as Prime Minister, largely on account of his support for abortion and embryonic stem cell research.
But Blair’s stock with the Catholic Church seems to have fallen since the installation of Archbishop Vincent Nichols as the replacement of the long-serving Cardinal O’Connor. After Blair gave an interview to a homosexualist magazine in which he chastised Pope Benedict for refusing to change the Church’s teaching on homosexuality, Nichols commented that the former Prime Minister’s strong “political instincts” have not helped his understanding of his religion.
Nichols told the Times, “Maybe he lacks a bit of experience in Catholic life.”
The Blair Foundation states that its purpose is “to promote respect and understanding about the world's major religions and show how faith is a powerful force for good in the modern world.” Blair himself has described the work of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation as encouraging "faiths" to come together, overcoming differences in "doctrine." A large part of his work, he said, is to urge religious leaders to reinterpret "religious texts" metaphorically rather than literally. He said religious leaders need "to treat religious thought and even religious texts as themselves capable of evolution over time."
But Blair has been dispraised even by many on the left for his lack of depth as a religious leader.
In May, the Guardian’s Hugh O'Shaughnessy wrote that the “wheels are coming off” Blair’s religious project. O’Shaughnessy quoted Dr. Ghada Karmi of Exeter University who called him “at best – a total irrelevancy.” O’Shaughnessy noted that having annoyed the Vatican, and given “the hostility – and ridicule – that the Blairs and their associates stir up” he is “increasingly unlikely to achieve his ambition of becoming president of the EU.”
Stephen Pound, a Catholic Labour MP said that Blair’s “hubris” is “extremely counterproductive.”
“Entrance to the Vatican is only gained through a series of iron-clad, hermetically sealed, heavily padlocked and bolted doors, and I can hear them creaking shut as we speak.”
By Hilary White
Until today, the website of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation (TBFF) still carried a note saying that Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor was expected to join their Advisory Council. But today a statement from the organization has said that the Cardinal will not join the Blair Foundation after all.Parna Taylor from the Foundation told LifeSiteNews.com via e-mail, “We can totally understand Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor wanting to review his commitments” since his retirement. Taylor said that the Foundation had “always valued the private advice” given by the Cardinal.
“While they support the broad aims of the Foundation,” Taylor continued, “we do not expect the Advisory Council members to agree with Tony Blair on every aspect of policy past or present. Their role is to provide advice and guidance, alongside many other senior religious figures who provide such insights on a less formal basis.”
The Tablet news magazine reports that since Blair launched his Foundation in 2008, “it had been intended that the cardinal would join the advisory council once he had stepped down as Archbishop of Westminster.”
It is unclear precisely why the Cardinal has reconsidered joining the Foundation. However, his plans to do so had been heavily criticised by many faithful Catholics and members of the life and family movement in Britain. Tony Blair, who was received into the Catholic Church by Cardinal O’Connor in December 2007, has been described by John Smeaton, the director of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, as the “principal architect” of the culture of death in Britain during his decade as Prime Minister, largely on account of his support for abortion and embryonic stem cell research.
But Blair’s stock with the Catholic Church seems to have fallen since the installation of Archbishop Vincent Nichols as the replacement of the long-serving Cardinal O’Connor. After Blair gave an interview to a homosexualist magazine in which he chastised Pope Benedict for refusing to change the Church’s teaching on homosexuality, Nichols commented that the former Prime Minister’s strong “political instincts” have not helped his understanding of his religion.
Nichols told the Times, “Maybe he lacks a bit of experience in Catholic life.”
The Blair Foundation states that its purpose is “to promote respect and understanding about the world's major religions and show how faith is a powerful force for good in the modern world.” Blair himself has described the work of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation as encouraging "faiths" to come together, overcoming differences in "doctrine." A large part of his work, he said, is to urge religious leaders to reinterpret "religious texts" metaphorically rather than literally. He said religious leaders need "to treat religious thought and even religious texts as themselves capable of evolution over time."
But Blair has been dispraised even by many on the left for his lack of depth as a religious leader.
In May, the Guardian’s Hugh O'Shaughnessy wrote that the “wheels are coming off” Blair’s religious project. O’Shaughnessy quoted Dr. Ghada Karmi of Exeter University who called him “at best – a total irrelevancy.” O’Shaughnessy noted that having annoyed the Vatican, and given “the hostility – and ridicule – that the Blairs and their associates stir up” he is “increasingly unlikely to achieve his ambition of becoming president of the EU.”
Stephen Pound, a Catholic Labour MP said that Blair’s “hubris” is “extremely counterproductive.”
“Entrance to the Vatican is only gained through a series of iron-clad, hermetically sealed, heavily padlocked and bolted doors, and I can hear them creaking shut as we speak.”
