The Blair regime in Downing Street became infamous for Alistair Campbell saying that “We don’t do God.” But Cherie Blair loses little time in correcting this political myth after we meet in her mews-like office in north Mayfair on the day that Liz Truss became PM. “Faith and Labour politics” is what originally brought Cherie and her husband Tony together as young lawyers, so when Campbell made that remark Cherie disagreed. “I did say to Tony at the time: “But you DO do GOD”.
What did he reply? “Well, he does God first of all. I mean, he knows that. But I also know that there is an important position here about a secular society and the separation between your private beliefs and what you do in the public sphere.”
Tony Blair left his formal conversion to the Roman Faith until after he left office as prime minister. But it is clear that he was pretty much an honorary Catholic, even when prime minister. How much of his conversion was down to her?
“I would say that his conversion was down to him. I was his sponsor. When I was at LSE [where she got a first class law degree] no one talked about faith, so it was quite strange when I met Tony at the Bar for me to meet someone who was happy to talk about and even raise religious matters, and so strangely enough religion was always there in our relationship. And when the children came along there was no question in my mind that they should be brought up Catholic and Tony was perfect happy for that to be the case.”
Cherie credits an Anglican Australian friend from Oxford, Peter Thompson – who ironically became a headmaster who once employed Boris Johnson – for “bringing Tony into the church”. Aged 21, Tony was confirmed in the Church of England. Cherie had been an active member of the Young Christian Students when at school. Today she supports an interfaith chaplaincy at LSE, the London School of Economics.
I brought up President John F Kennedy’s view that faith was a private matter for politicians. I wondered if she felt that Catholic leaders could entirely hide their beliefs away quite so easily? When Tony was prime minister did she find herself having any disagreements with him on matters of faith or conscience; or find herself siding with cross-party Catholic MPs rather than with the Labour party line?
“It was quite strange really because throughout my childhood and growing up, being a Catholic was very much a minority and I think you were very conscious of being a minority. I came from Liverpool and when I was at school [Seafield Convent Grammar] our big feast day was St Patrick’s Day. Many of the nuns were Irish and my grandmother’s cousin was a parish priest.”
Although known as Cherie, she was actually christened “Theresa Cara” at her grandmother’s insistence so she was named after a saint. After her actor father left her mother – actress Gale Howard – when Cherie was eight, she was brought up by her paternal grandmother, Vera Booth, who was a devout Irish Catholic.
Did you ever consider becoming a nun?
“No! You used to pray for vocations. Most of the girls, I think, would pray, “Please not me!” Fortunately God didn’t call me, so I’m very happy.”
Cherie’s was a deeply religious family. Two of her father’s cousins became priests, one of whom was only three years older than Cherie. “He was being groomed to become a bishop before he tragically died in his 40s.”
On the subject of Joe Biden, did she empathise with the conflict between his Catholic faith – which clearly forbids abortion – and his pro-choice stance on abortion?
“Of course I feel sympathy with him,” she says. “In the end the priests and the bishops are there for a pastoral role and to turn your back on somebody because of what they do in their job I think is a sad thing. Many priests I know would think differently about how you treat the person and how you treat the policy.”
Isn’t the dignity of human life one of the most important parts of the Catholic creed? “I totally agree with the dignity of human life and you know I’ve said myself that abortion is not something I would hope I would ever have to contemplate. Indeed when Leo [her son] was born and they wanted me to have an amniocentesis [to check for foetal abnormalities] because I was an elderly mother before he was born, I said no because I didn’t want the risk.”
Could she understand why certain priests in America would refuse to give Biden Holy Communion and regard it as hypocrisy to publicly identify as a Catholic but at the same time say it’s perfectly acceptable to end human life?
“I do feel quite strongly about this – it’s about ‘hate the sin, love the sinner’ – and you can have your personal beliefs but the Church should be open, I think, to everyone who wants to come and participate. So I’m not in favour of denying Communion to people.”
Was it difficult to live a normal Catholic life during her Downing Street years? Was it easy to receive the sacraments?
“Not really,” she says. “But we were very lucky, especially at Chequers as we could go to Fr Tim Russ in Great Missenden. And we’d go every Sunday, with the kids. Tony would go with us even before he was a convert.” Various other priests played an important role in Blair family life including the priest at Sedgefield who baptised their children, and Fr John Walsh who was the chaplain at RAF Walton. “He still is a family friend and said Mass for our 25th wedding anniversary when we had a party at Chequers.”
Then there were the various Vatican audiences. Tony Blair has met with the three most recent popes. When he met John Paul II in 2003 the prime minister (then an Anglican) received Holy Communion from the pope.
“We were very fortunate to have a meeting with John Paul but Downing Street quite rightly were very insistent that it was a private visit. It was an amazing experience in the Vatican. I was all in black. We didn’t stay at the embassy; we stayed at the Irish College. There was a debate as to whether to put us in the best room but then they decided they shouldn’t as it was usually for a bishop and they were worried that it wouldn’t be right to have a married couple to sleep there – which I thought was quite amusing!”
The intense experience of talking with John Paul II was such that she felt her Irish grandmother “looking down” on her in disbelief that she had actually met the pope. “He spoke to Tony and then we all came in and he presented us with gifts. And Leo, he was very sweet with Leo. And on the next day on Sunday he said Mass for us in his own chapel and we were taken in to private parts of the Vatican.”
Singers at the Mass were from the English, Scottish and Irish colleges in Rome. When she walked in she saw the pope sitting there looking “frail and making his personal prayers. Then he stood up as though transformed.”
“It was a very important moment for the whole family,” she recalls. “I was in school when the 40 Martyrs were beatified and I was there thinking all these years later: this is the first time a British prime minister had Mass said to him by the pope in a very personal way. And I think at the time, Tony spoke to the pope about becoming a Catholic but he wasn’t going to actually convert until after he stood down because of the question of appointing the [Anglican] bishops.”
Other than his conversations with various popes, was there any other priest who helped convert Tony Blair? “It was the effort of a number, but the actual conversion was done by Fr Mark O’Toole (now Archbishop of Cardiff). He did Tony’s formation. I think it happened in Westminster Cathedral.” Cardinal Hume and Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor also played their part, she said.
Has you both being Catholic changed your marriage at all? “I don’t think so as it was a gradual process for years; since our children were born Tony always came to the Catholic church.” Does he take an active interest in Vatican politics and church affairs? “Well, not so much the politics of the Vatican but he is interested, obviously, in those things. Not least because after he left office he set up his Faith Foundation [now part of the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change]which was very much about interfaith relations. He would read the Bible every night and still does, and says his prayers and has done that for as long as I can remember.”
Do the Blairs ever go to Latin Mass? “No,” says Cherie. “But I can remember when even the Epistle and the Gospels were in Latin.”
We moved on to Catholic writers. Was she a fan of Graham Greene (who David Cameron once said was his favourite novelist). “Well of course, but not particularly because he was Catholic”. What about Evelyn Waugh? There was a hesitant pause before she answered. “Not especially, but I quite enjoyed Scoop. He was a bit too posh for my liking”.
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