So when does the conversion kick in?

I know we're not supposed to pull out the tares and all that...but surely we're not supposed to plant them ourselves.

Tony joined the Roman Catholic Church to become a better Anglican.

When Blair first converted I fought back against those who immediately questioned his sincerity. I said we should give the benefit of the doubt that he renounced all positions contrary to Church teaching until he should prove otherwise.

Well, he's proved otherwise.

Still not too late, Anthony. We have this wonderful thing in the Church called Confession. Use it!

He's not being any more stupid than people who were raised Catholic and who should know better.

Lord, we believe. Help thou our unbelief! (And help me stop saying stupid things....)

Rome wasn't built in a day. The guy should be fraternally corrected (ASAP) but also given some slack. Speaking personally, my conversion to Catholicism was initially closely linked with an intellectual acceptance of the Apostolic Succession and a desire for union with the Church as an historical entity (it wasn't entirely that, but that was significant). My own development was within Liberal Modernism. It took me a while to come around on some issues, particularly because the RCIA process was fairly liberal.

Liberalism is a powerful and encompassing Weltanschauung. It can take a while even for an intellectually active person to shake loose of it. Look at how many Catholics are capitalists, for example.

Tony should peruse the Irish pententials from the Dark Ages if he is not going to accept God's word in Romans 1....nor the catechism.
Therein in the Canons of Gregory, such sodomy is given 15 years fasting as penance while murder is given only 7 years; likewise in Egbert ca. 750, it is 7 years for sodomy and 4-5 years for murder. Yes, the Irish monks could have had their priorities a bit skewed in favor of violence which explains a lot for those of us who grew up in heavily Irish cities near the Atlantic. Pseudo-Egbert ca.800 had them at least closer together: 7 for murder and 10 years for sodomy....maybe that is why they called him pseudo.
Fasting seems to have meant living on bread and water only at that time. It is an interesting option if we went back to that at reduced spans of time. "For your penance, my son.....one month of tap water and acme sandwich white....no using the tomato basil bread from Panera's with seltzer...I'm no liberal like Father so and so."

If a person has a LONG and PUBLIC record of disagreement with Church teachings, and were received into the Church, would one not expect the man had changed his views?

If that same man were personally instructed by a Cardinal's right-hand-man, and then personally received into the Church by said Cardinal, would one not expect that the Cardinal had found no fault in the man's views?

If that same man happened to be a former British Prime Minister, and continued to publically dissent, would one not expect that the Cardinal infact approved of Mr. Blair's views?

It seems the problem may not be Mr. Blair, but the one responsible for Mr. Blair being Catholic.

I thought the "little puff peice" was a very good defense on faith and reason. Certainly more than I have heard any American politician say, Catholic or otherwise.

To be fair, the Irish were traditionally very lenient about murder in the (post-Christian) civil law. As long as you just up and killed the guy openly, that is. "Secret murder" showed malice aforethought and lack of penitence afterward, as well as an evident wish to deprive the family of compensation and raise suspicion and discord.

I suspect that the severity of punishment for sodomy in the Irish penitentials is the result of similar reasoning. Sodomy took some forethought, some afterthought, and a lot of not caring for the state of other people's souls, as well as being a way of going at it that, in the medieval view, clearly treated the other person like a farm animal. Anybody could have a sudden fit of murder.

Maureen
Remind me never to beat you at billiards.

Wish I wasn't English!

"The guy should be fraternally corrected (ASAP) but also given some slack."

The guy should be given a rope as well ;)

Maureen, right on. I used to read about weirgilds (compensation for manslaughter or death without malice), the courts of medieval Wales vs. England, etc. Hotblooded murder and manslaughter were treated differently than cold-blooded murder.

Also, I would never be afraid of beating you at billiards, unless I cheated. :)

Broad: the problem (one) with Blair's speech is that when he says "faith", he in fact means religion. He is talking about a human virtue, or action, or phenomenon. And for him, "faith" is, it appears, just that.

But it's not.

You can't equate the natural human awareness of the desireability of giving honour to God, with Revelation. You confuse natural and supernatural in doing so.

Does that make any sense?

Well, I have to sort of defend Tony Blair.
This engagement was probably scheduled while he was still PM and probably he could not have refused with out it being a political statement.

At least that's how I hope it went.

I want to give the man a chance. It's early yet.

Regarding penances for Sodomy & Murder: the intent was and still is to recover grace and prevent the soul's corruption. Willful murder damages the murderer's soul, not the victim's. Sodomy, heresy, et al spread (proximately and ultimately)to corrupt additional souls, hence the harsher penalties.