Gossip over Blair's Catholic tastes provoke talk

Tony Blair, the Labour leader and an Anglican, has been taking communion at a Roman Catholic church in Highbury, according to the Universe, the largest-circulation Catholic weekly.

Such an act would not be a breach of Anglican rules, and may well be legal in Roman Catholic terms. Cherie Blair is a Roman Catholic, and it is well known that many priests take a charitable view of the difficulties which devout couples may encounter where one is a Catholic and the other an Anglican.

Members of other churches may take communion in the Church of England as a general rule. Roman Catholic priests may give the eucharist to members of other churches who accept the Catholic doctrine of the real presence, and who have no church of their own denomination available. Mr Blair could argue that in the busy life of a politician, he does not have time to attend church twice on a Sunday, once for his wife's communion and once for his own.

The Universe goes on to suggest that Mr Blair may be contemplating conversion to Rome. It quotes an anonymous "church official" as saying, "Receiving communion without becoming a Catholic is a cowardly thing to do. Why should a politician feel that he cannot bear witness to his creed?"

However, Clifford Longley, the acting editor of the Tablet, the heavyweight Catholic weekly, said that Mr Blair's behaviour had been an open secret for years, and proved, if anything, that he was a convinced Anglican, to whom the rules and regulations of the Catholic Church could be over- ridden by common sense.

"I will believe that Blair is about to become a Catholic if he stops receiving communion," Mr Longley said. "That would mean that he was taking the rules seriously."