Religious Bigotry Lives

Tony Blair converted to Catholicism today. Read about it in this article from the Globe and Mail.

A number of interesting observations. First, religion matters even to "sophisticated world leaders" like Blair. Second, Blair, who has been flirting with Catholicsims for many years, waited until after he resigned as PM to officially convert. He sensed, correctly in my opinion, that he would be unlikely to be elected as a Catholic, and that a Catholic PM would arouse all sorts of latent English anti-Catholicism. (After all, the British monarch is, is by law, not allowed to be or to marry a Catholic.)

Finally, anti-Catholic bigotry is just under the surface of much of the Protestant world, even here in Canada. Us Jews needn't feel so special! The Globe and Mail article sited above has elicited 87 comments so far - many more then any other article in the online G&M. And many are openly anti-Catholic. A representative list includes these gems:

• Another empty seat at the next screening of the Golden Compass.
• Once upon a time this would have been considered treason.
• Blair's IRA sympathies have been known for a long time.
• Is Tony shooting for a management position at the Vatican?
• So now Tony has to disregard The Theory of Evolution, start believing that the Universe is 6000 years old, and only Catholics go to Heaven?
• I wonder if Tony and Ratzinger discussed the plight of all those victims of Roman Catholic child molesters...?
• Another failure in judgment...they keep adding up.
• I'm sure that Guy Fawkes is pleased with this news.
• But maybe Tony is attracted to old-school Catholicism, as in the Albigensian Crusade massacre of Cathars in the French town of Beziers. 'Today your Holiness, twenty thousand heretics were put to the sword, regardless of rank, age, or sex.' - Abbot of Citeaux to Pope Innocent III, 1209.