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Blair to urge key role for faith Blair urges bigger role for faith
(about 22 hours later)
Former prime minister Tony Blair is to call for faith to be given a central role in tackling the world's problems. Former prime minister Tony Blair has called for faith to be given a central role in tackling the world's problems.
In a speech at Westminster Cathedral, Mr Blair will say failure to engage with religious groups will drive believers to apathy or fundamentalism. Mr Blair said faith should be rescued from extremism and be a force for progress, in his first speech on faith since becoming a Catholic.
Mr Blair, who recently converted to Catholicism, will outline the role of his Faith Foundation for young people. He said politicians found it difficult to talk about faith because they "may be considered weird".
Anti-war protesters from Stop The War Coalition have pledged to drown out the speech with a "wall of sound". His speech was accompanied by a noisy anti-war protest and silent vigil by Catholic peace group Pax Christi.
Catholic peace group Pax Christi also plan a silent protest before the speech. Mr Blair, who converted to Catholicism months after stepping down as prime minister last summer and is now a Middle East envoy, told an audience of 1,600 at Westminster Cathedral he was often asked if faith was important to his politics.
Since stepping down as prime minister last summer, Mr Blair has become a Roman Catholic and is now a Middle East peace envoy. "If you are someone 'of faith' it is the focal point of belief in your life. There is no conceivable way that it wouldn't affect your politics," he said.
Religion's division 'Packet of trouble'
He told the BBC last year his faith had been "hugely important" to his premiership but said he had been wary of talking about it because "frankly, people do think you're a nutter". But he said he had "no claims to moral superiority" and, referring to his former press secretary Alastair Campbell's famous remark while he was PM that "we don't do God", Mr Blair said it was "always a packet of trouble to talk about it".
In his speech this evening, he will warn that while societies across the world are adapting to meet the challenges of globalisation, religion is coping less well. He said for politicians to admit to having faith "leads to a whole series of suppositions".
It faces an internal division between fundamentalism and those who believe religion is a spent force. There is nothing I look back on now and say that as a result of my religious journey I would have done things very differently but that is expressly not to say that I got everything right Tony Blair
He will describe the aims of his Faith Foundation, due to be launched this year. These ranged from being "considered weird" to people assuming "that your religion makes you act, as a leader, at the promptings of an inscrutable deity" or that politicians desire to impose their faith on others.
Mr Blair is one of a series of speakers on faith and various aspects of life in Britain, which also includes the Conservative frontbencher William Hague and BBC director general Mark Thompson. Mr Blair said religion was not in decline and acts of terrorism had highlighted the fact that "we ignore the power of religion at our peril".
Protest planned "Religious faith is a good thing in itself that so far from being a reactionary force - it is a major part to play in shaping values which guide the modern world and can and should be a force for progress," he said.
The archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, said "It is important that the Catholic church engages with society in a positive and creative way and provides a public space for debate about religion. "But it has to be rescued on the one hand from the extremist and exclusionist tendency within religion today."
"The role of faith in our society cannot be ignored and I hope that the debate these lectures stimulate will highlight the crucial role faith can play in contributing to the common good. " Faith Foundation
But the Stop the War Coalition say they want to hold Mr Blair to account over his role in the Iraq war with their noisy protest. He said religious faith was most obviously associated with extremism in the name of Islam, but there were extremists in "virtually every religion" and those who used "their faith as a means of excluding the other person who does not share it".
Pax Christi says its silent vigil will "call to mind and to public attention, Tony Blair's involvement in the Iraq War and ongoing occupation". He said his Faith Foundation, to be launched later this year, would bring together different faiths to promote religion as a force for good.
It also opposes his involvement in the decision to replace Britain's Trident nuclear weapons system "and other aspects of his premiership that have created global polarity". We need far less religion in international negotiations, not more Terry Sanderson National Secular Society
In a question and answer session later, Mr Blair was asked if he would have done anything differently in the light of the fact that he recently converted to Catholicism.
He said: "There is nothing I look back on now and say that as a result of my religious journey I would have done things very differently but that is expressly not to say that I got everything right."
Outside the cathedral a crowd of protesters blew whistles and made noise, saying they wanted to hold Mr Blair to account over his role.
Organisers of the demonstration said they were not attacking Mr Blair's freedom of speech, but his right to be treated as a pillar of respectability.
The Catholic peace group Pax Christi also held a silent vigil before the noisy protest.
Among them was former Iraq hostage Norman Kember, who said: "What happened to me was a minor blip in my life compared to the continuing plight of Iraq and the way ordinary Iraqi citizens have suffered so much.
"I feel it is partly Mr Blair's fault and I don't like the idea of him talking in a church. I feel what he did was un-Christian."
Terry Sanderson, of the National Secular Society, said: "Mr Blair's call for religion to play a bigger role in world affairs is like trying to douse a fire by showering it with petrol."