Rome, Italy, Sep 15, 2010 / 11:58 am
On the eve of Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to the United Kingdom this week, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair wrote an article for L’Osservatore Romano praising the “intellectual courage” of both the Holy Father and Cardinal John Henry Newman as well as their fearless defense of the truth in the face of unpopularity.
The Pope will beatify the cardinal during the papal trip.
In his front page column titled, “The Pope and Newman,” Blair underscored that Benedict XVI is “in deeply in tune with the spirit and ideas of Newman,” whose “historical studies led him to leave Anglicanism for Rome.” Blair added that the cardinal’s writings and ideas always put “spiritual truth above all other values.”
Blair recalled that when Cardinal Newman was about to formally enter the Catholic Church, he wrote, “Nobody can have a more unfavorable view of the current state of Catholics today than I.” This statement, Blair said, “isn’t very diplomatic, but he didn’t care because he did what he thought was right even if in the end it was uncomfortable or unpopular.”