'Blair's plan to convert began at 10 Downing Street'

LONDON: Former British prime minister Tony Blair began preparations to convert to Roman Catholicism four months before leaving office, a media report has said.

A source close to the Vatican said that Blair had actually begun the course of informal instruction with RAF chaplain Father John Walsh, in February, while still at 10 Downing Street.

One of Blair's final official engagements before leaving office was a visit to the Vatican in June, during which he met Pope Benedict XVI.

Blair was formally accepted into Roman Catholicism during a Mass led by Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, head of Catholics in England and Wales, at Archbishop's House, Westminster on Friday.

The former prime minister's conversion has ended years of speculation but raised fresh questions about whether he had renounced his views on issues such as gay rights, abortion and stem-cell research. Before receiving full communion, he would have had to confess all his sins.

His conversion followed a period of formal doctrinal and spiritual preparation under Monsignor Mark O'Toole, private secretary of Murphy-O'Connor, the Archbishop of Westminster, which began immediately after he left office in June, The Observer said.

"He has wanted to do this for some time, and now he's done it. It is something that matters to him a great deal," Blair's former spokesman Alastair Campbell was quoted as saying in the report.

While church leaders welcomed him, Catholics are likely to greet the news with "raised eyebrows", said Catherine Pepinster, editor of the Catholic newspaper the Tablet. These would include those who had disagreed with his policies on Iraq, and those who believed him to be a man with a voting record in favour of abortion, she said.