PM's Iraq war 'helped drive Catholics out of Downing Street'

[IndianaGreen]

Blair needs the Pope to become Catholic? Bollocks! Any priest will do! It is an open secret that Blair is a Catholic convert. His wife is Catholic. His children attend Catholic schools.

Too bad that Blair didn't listen to Pope John Paul II's warning that if US & UK went into Iraq, they would do so without God.

PM's Iraq war 'helped drive Catholics out of Downing Street'

By Andrew Grice and Andy McSmith
Published: 23 June 2007

Tony Blair's hard line on Iraq alienated three Roman Catholics who worked for him in Downing Street. All three, who were experts in foreign affairs, were deeply worried by what they saw as the rush to war in 2003, The Independent has learnt.

The revelation comes as Mr Blair prepares for this morning's audience with Pope Benedict XVI, where he is expected to discuss his intention to convert to Roman Catholicism. He will also hear the Vatican's concerns about the Middle East.

Mr Blair once declared that God would be the judge of whether he was right to go war in Iraq - but has not previously shown any sign of allowing the Pope or any other religious figure to influence him, despite his deeply held Christian beliefs.

Insiders have disclosed that at least two practising Catholics on Mr Blair's Downing Street staff were prompted to leave because they shared the late Pope John Paul II's concerns over his Iraq policy. They included Tim Livesey, who was seconded to the Downing Street press office in 1999 after 12 years in the Foreign Office. He left in January 2002, more than a year before the invasion, to become a public affairs adviser to Cardinal Cormac Murphy- O'Connor, the head of the Catholic Church in Britain. He is now public affairs secretary to the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The next to depart was Francis Campbell, who was also seconded to Downing Street from the Foreign Office in 1999, as a policy adviser and later as Mr Blair's private secretary. He left in 2003 to take up a post at the British embassy in Rome. He was appointed ambassador to the Holy See in December 2005.

The third was Sir Stephen Wall, the head of Mr Blair's European secretariat between 2000 and 2004, who followed Mr Livesey to take over as adviser to Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor.

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article2697838.ece

[Kagemusha]

1. FYI, the story I heard was that meeting with the Pope isn't to become Catholic.

It's to prepare him for becoming Catholic.

Any priest will do for actually becoming Catholic and that process will happen a lot closer to home.

And you only become a Catholic convert when the church says you are. Until then you're.. hmm.. how about: wannabe?

[Peace Patriot]

2. Oh, yeah, they leak that out NOW, to salve their tender consciences, but why

didn't they say something about this unjust, heinous war, when it would have mattered?

They remind me of all the double-speaking politicians over here, who have suddenly gotten religion over Iraq.

Makes you want to puke.

[ShortnFiery]

3. Opus Dei n/t