When Tony Blair — ex-Prime-Minister of Britain — converted to Catholicism, I wanted to ask him: “So, what do you think about abortion now?” It did not seem possible that he could convert without being reconciled on that issue to Catholic teaching. And, since Tony Blair had been involved in much support for abortion in Britain, conversion must surely have been an incredible wrenching experience. On that issue, and a host of other issues.

But it seems it may have been conversion-lite. On homosexuality, Blair has shown evident opposition to consistent Catholic teaching. He described the difference between the Pope’s position, and Blair’s own, as a “huge generational difference”. Blair evidently thinks that as time goes by, teachings will change, and old thinking will fade, to be replaced by new stuff. Blair has all the key phrases for this: “rethinking is good”, “evolve over time”, “evolving attitudes becomes part of the discipline”, etc, etc. The thought that the Church may have the right position, a solid position, which can built on (and sometimes in unexpected ways) seems not to have crossed his mind. Or, it has never been made to cross his mind by those responsible for teaching him. And the Church has noticed this.

And so, like so many, he believes in the Church of Shangri La; a nice comfortable parish run by a gently wizened old priest where happiness abounds, isolated from hardship, and where the soft winds of the changes of time bring only the breath of delights.