<3>Blair 'converting to Catholicism'
Press Association
Friday November 9, 2007 5:48 PM


Tony Blair is to convert to Roman Catholicism within weeks, it has been claimed.

The former prime minister, whose wife Cherie and four children are Catholic, has long been expected to join the church after quitting Downing Street.

According to The Tablet, a Catholic magazine, he is to be received into the church shortly by Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the Archbishop of Westminster.

Mr Blair is thought to have delayed converting until after leaving Number 10 because of the potential constitutional complications of a Catholic prime minister.

He was also advised to avoid religion in public by his former chief spin doctor Alastair Campbell, who famously commented: "We don't do God."