On Saturday last week (3 June), Prime Minister Tony Blair – wearing black as required by Papal protocol while the Pope wore white – had yet another ‘private audience’ with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican. The meeting was said to have lasted 35 minutes.There has been intense speculation over whether Mr Blair might use the audience to invite the Pope to Britain during the next two years, but no such announcement has been made.
Instead, a statement said that the two men “discussed how ‘moderate voices’ from the world’s main religions needed to ‘work together’ to ‘tackle extremism and reduce the risk of terrorism’”. We are told that they discussed Northern Ireland and also ‘moves to end poverty in Africa’.
A Downing Street spokesman said: “The Prime Minister and the Pope talked about the challenges of globalisation and the importance of dialogue between the faiths to battle extremism and terrorism. One of the themes of discussion was how the moderate voices in all the world’s major religions need to stand up to religious extremism in all its forms.” This last comment echoes the comments of David Blunkett, the former Home Secretary, when he compared evangelical Christians to Islamic terrorists – both of whom, he said, were examples of ‘fundamentalist extremists’.
Mr Blair’s previous Papal audience was on the eve of the invasion of Iraq, when the late Pope John Paul II was advocating a peaceful solution to the crisis. Blair explained to the former Pope why he thought an attack on Saddam Hussein would be morally justified.
