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CATHOLIC-BLAIR Jun-7-2005 (490 words) xxxi
Cherie Blair says parenthood influenced her return to Catholic faith
By Simon Caldwell
Catholic News Service
LONDON (CNS) -- The wife of British Prime Minister Tony Blair said being a parent helped her return to her Catholic faith.
In her most candid public reflection on her religious beliefs, Cherie Blair described herself as a feminist with an "enduring soft spot for the Virgin Mary."
"She, for me, is an important part of Catholicism, because I passionately believe there is no more important role in life than motherhood," Blair said in The Independent newspaper June 5.
"I admire her self-sacrifice, her ability to accept God's will and her trust in him. I sometimes find trusting in God hard," she said.
Blair, a mother of four children, is a successful lawyer who practices under her maiden name, Cherie Booth, and who specializes in the area of human rights.
On June 6, she gave a sold-out talk in Washington called "The Goldfish Bowl of No. 10," which is also the name of her book. The title is a reference to No. 10 Downing St., the London residence where her family has lived since 1997 when her husband was selected as prime minister.
The article on her religious faith was an extract from the upcoming book "Why I Am Still a Catholic" by Catholic journalist Peter Stanford.
In the essay, Blair reflected on how she was shaped by her working-class background in Liverpool, England.
"My Catholicism comes from my background, and so do my politics. We were a working-class family. Catholicism and socialism were the ways we thought things were going to get better. Catholicism gave us the aspiration that we should all be equal," she said.
Blair said she lapsed from the faith while studying law, and she still disagrees with the church's attitude on the role of women and its prohibition on contraception.
But she returned to the faith when her children were young; her Catholicism since has become "much more public than I ever expected," she said.
"I never felt I left the church," she said. "But, like many others, it was once I became a parent that I started to go back to Mass regularly again.
"I wanted my children to be brought up as Catholics, with a sense of religion and the routine of religion.
"What I found when I did start attending Mass regularly, with the children, at our local church -- and what remains a strong attraction for me in Catholicism -- is a sense of community. That was increased because the children all went to the local parish primary school," she said.
"Living in Downing Street, of course, makes it harder to find because of the security arrangements that have to surround us. But I look back on our time in a parish in north London as among the happiest in our family life, and I look forward to getting back to that one day in the future," she said.
END
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