Tema: Blair se convierte al catolicismo

Se veía venir, su mujer es católica y sus hijos han sido educados en el catolicismo. No se decidió a dar esse paso antes por lo que dice el texto, motivos políticos, pero ahora que ya es libre se ha decidido a dar el paso.
No es que Blair sea uno de mis personajes favoritos, no sé si realmente cambiará en algo esto.

Hay que alegrarse que una oveja haya sido encontrada, y más si es como esta, que como dice Von-Feuer, puede llevar a más de uno a hacer lo mismo.

Es sincero? No lo creo.

Puede ser un paso (falsa conversion) motivado por el deseo de atraer catolicos al neoconismo. Hay que ser muy prudente en juzgar esta cosa.

Pues yo me inclino a ser optimista. Los católicos son minoritarios en Inglaterra y no están muy bien vistos aunque ya no se los persiga y desde 1829 hayan ido recuperando libertades. Hay que tener convicción para hacerse católico allí, y más siendo un personaje famoso. Otra cosa es que sea un católico modernista de esos que creen que se puede compaginar su fe con el liberalismo neoconservador, dado el ambiente reinante hoy en día. Pero algo es algo. Al menos ya ha entrado en la verdadera Iglesia y hay alguna esperanza de que llegue a conocer más la verdad. Siempre podemos rezar por ello.

Ha habido muchos casos de hombres que se han convertido al catolicismo por influencia de su mujer. Cherchez la femme, como dicen los franceses.

Ya hay más católicos que anglicanos. Dice Javier L., del Foro Santo Tomás Moro, que esto es una victoria de ultratumba de Felipe II, S. Guido Fawkes y Carlos de Amesquita.

Del Daily Telegraph:
Britain has become a 'Catholic country'


By Jonathan Wynne-Jones

Last Updated: 2:30am GMT 23/12/2007





Roman Catholics have overtaken Anglicans as the country's dominant religious group. More people attend Mass every Sunday than worship with the Church of England, figures seen by The Sunday Telegraph show.
Blair becomes Catholic in private ceremony
The changing face of British Christianity
Your view: What can the Church of England do to win back worshippers? This means that the established Church has lost its place as the nation's most popular Christian denomination after more than four centuries of unrivalled influence following the Reformation.

Last night, leading figures gave warning that the Church of England could become a minority faith and that the findings should act as a wake-up call.

The statistics show that attendance at Anglican Sunday services has dropped by 20 per cent since 2000. A survey of 37,000 churches, to be published in the new year, shows the number of people going to Sunday Mass in England last year averaged 861,000, compared with 852,000 Anglicans ­worshipping.

The rise of Catholicism has been bolstered by an influx of immigrants from eastern Europe and Africa, who have packed the pews of Catholic parishes that had previously been dwindling.
It is part of the changing face of churchgoing across Britain in the 21st century which has also seen a boom in the growth of Pentecostal churches, which have surpassed the Methodist Church as the country's third largest Christian denomination.
Worshipping habits have changed dramatically with a significant rise in attendance at mid-week services and at special occasions - the Church of England expects three million people to go to a parish church over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
In an attempt to combat the declining interest in traditional religion, the Anglican Church has launched radical new forms of evangelism that include nightclub chaplains, a floating church on a barge and internet congregations.
The Rev Alister McGrath, prof­essor of historical theology at Oxford University, said that the church attendance findings from the organisation Christian Research should act as a wake-up call to the Church of England.
"While it can rightly point to the weight of history, the importance of cultural memory, the largest number of church buildings and nominal church members in defence of its continued status as the established church, there is clearly a problem emerging," said Prof McGrath, one of Anglicanism's most respected figures.
"What happens if the established church becomes a minority church?"
The Catholic Church has also suffered a serious fall in the size of its congregations, but the expansion of the European Union in 2004 resulted in its numbers being bolstered by the arrival of hundreds of thousands of Poles and Lithuanians.
Attendance at Mass in 1991 was recorded as 1.3 million, a drop of 40 per cent since 1963. But over the past six years it has fallen by only 13 per cent, with the rate of decline slowed by immigrants from Catholic countries.
The Rt Rev Crispian Hollis, the Bishop of Portsmouth, said that the Roman Church had been active in trying to win back lapsed worshippers, but conceded that mass immigration had been a significant factor in swelling its numbers.
Tony takes his final step on road to Rome
Catherine Pepinster: Catholicism in from the cold
In pictures: Christmas choirs "The number of Catholics attending church has been catching the Anglicans over a number of years," he said.
"We don't want to be seen to be scoring points over the Anglican Church as we are in no way jealous of its position as the national church, but of course these figures are encouraging. It shows that the Church is no longer seen as on the fringes of society, but in fact is now at the heart of British life."
Danny Sriskandarajah, the head of migration, equalities and citizenship for the Institute for Public Policy Research, said that its research indicated that pews would not stay packed for long.
"We are already seeing numbers from eastern Europe dropping and many of them have already returned home," he said. "It is an important phenomenon, but it is likely to be temporary. I doubt we'll be seeing this level of attendance in another 10 years."
Churchgoing in Anglican and Catholic parishes had stood at about a million each for the past 10 years, though the relative equality in their numbers over recent years is surprising considering that there are 25 million people who regard themselves as Anglicans, and only 4.2 million Catholics.
"It isn't a competition. I'm delighted to see all Christian denominations flourishing," said the Rt Rev Graham Cray, the chairman of the Church of England's report on evangelism.
"Large numbers of eastern Europeans have come in to the country, which has certainly strengthened them as has happened with non-whites in central London churches."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...nchurch123.xml

Para los que no entiendan la nota que puse en inglés, El Mundo trae la noticia:


861.000 DE MEDIA ACUDEN CON REGULARIDAD A MISA
El número de católicos practicantes supera al de anglicanos en Inglaterra

EFE
LONDRES.- El número de católicos practicantes ha superado al de anglicanos en Inglaterra, según el periódico 'The Sunday Telegraph', que ha publicado esta información al día siguiente de que se anunciara la conversión al catolicismo del ex primer ministro británico Tony Blair.
Según cifras del año 2005, en Inglaterra y Gales hay 4,2 millones de católicos, el doble que musulmanes, pero menos de un quinto de los 25 millones de personas bautizadas como anglicanas. Pese a ser mayoritarios, la asistencia a los servicios religiosos de fieles anglicanos en Inglaterra ha caído un 20% desde el año 2000 hasta ser superados por los católicos.
Aunque la cifra de católicos practicantes también ha descendido, lo ha hecho en una cifra inferior, un 13%, lo que permite que en términos absolutos superen a los anglicanos practicantes. El pasado año, como media, unos 861.000 católicos fueron a misa en Inglaterra frente a los 852.000 anglicanos que asistieron a los lugares de culto.
Sin embargo, en Escocia la cifra de anglicanos que asisten a servicios religiosos, pese a haber caído un 19% desde el 2000, sigue siendo superior a la de católicos: 200.600 frente a 158.700. En Gales, la caída en asistencia a culto fue mayor entre los católicos, que, al igual que en Escocia, siguen a la zaga de los anglicanos practicantes, 36.800 frente a 55.600.
En opinión del rotativo, el aumento del catolicismo en Inglaterra está relacionado con la llegada de inmigrantes de Europa del Este y de África. Los datos se hacen públicos al día siguiente de conocerse que, tras años de conjeturas, el ex primer ministro Tony Blair, actual enviado especial del Cuarteto para Oriente Medio, se ha convertido al catolicismo, la misma religión que profesan su esposa, Cherie, y sus hijos.
La Iglesia de Inglaterra se separó de la Iglesia Católica Romana en 1534 por la oposición de ésta a que el rey Enrique VIII se divorciara de su esposa Catalina de Aragón, hija de los Reyes Católicos, para casarse con Ana Bolena. Por el llamado Acto de Supremacía, Enrique VIII se autoproclamó Cabeza de la Iglesia de Inglaterra, título que han ostentado luego sus sucesores.


http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2007/1...198442251.html

Personalmente, no soy muy optimista. Hay que tener encuenta, que el número de conversos al islam crece exponencialmente, y que la colonización de Gran Bretaña por gentes no bautizadas -es decir, moros- está alcanzando cifras escalofriantes.