{"id":3450,"date":"2007-06-22T15:45:00","date_gmt":"2007-06-22T15:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2007\/06\/tony-blair-doing-warm-up-laps-as-he-prepares-to-swim-the-tiber.html"},"modified":"2007-06-22T15:45:00","modified_gmt":"2007-06-22T15:45:00","slug":"tony-blair-doing-warm-up-laps-as-he-prepares-to-swim-the-tiber","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/06\/tony-blair-doing-warm-up-laps-as-he-prepares-to-swim-the-tiber.html","title":{"rendered":"Tony Blair, doing warm up laps as he prepares to swim the Tiber"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>More word circulating today that the prime minister is about to <a href=\"http:\/\/politics.guardian.co.uk\/tonyblair\/story\/0,,2108858,00.html#article_continue\">take the plunge<\/a>.  <\/p>\n<blockquote><p> According to informed sources, Mr Blair has been readied for this milestone in his spiritual life by a Royal Air Force chaplain, Father John Walsh, who for the past four years has been quietly slipping into Chequers, the prime minister&#8217;s country residence, to say mass for the Blair family on Saturday evenings.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Blair has been attending Catholic services for many years, and regularly worshipped at the 5.30pm Saturday evening service at Westminster cathedral until security considerations persuaded him to seek a private arrangement.<\/p>\n<p>He turned to Father Michael Seed, a familiar and gregarious figure in Westminster who prepared the Conservative MPs, John Gummer and Ann Widdecombe, for conversion. Father Seed became a regular visitor to Number 10, but sources say Mr Blair cast around about four years ago for a less well-known, and more discreet, spiritual counsellor.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> What next?  The <a href=\"http:\/\/deacbench.blogspot.com\/2007\/06\/deacon-blair.html\">diaconate<\/a>?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>More word circulating today that the prime minister is about to take the plunge. According to informed sources, Mr Blair has been readied for this milestone in his spiritual life by a Royal Air Force chaplain, Father John Walsh, who for the past four years has been quietly slipping into Chequers, the prime minister&#8217;s country&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":204,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Tony Blair, doing warm up laps as he prepares to swim the Tiber - The Deacon&#039;s Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/06\/tony-blair-doing-warm-up-laps-as-he-prepares-to-swim-the-tiber.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Tony Blair, doing warm up laps as he prepares to swim the Tiber - The Deacon&#039;s Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"More word circulating today that the prime minister is about to take the plunge. According to informed sources, Mr Blair has been readied for this milestone in his spiritual life by a Royal Air Force chaplain, Father John Walsh, who for the past four years has been quietly slipping into Chequers, the prime minister&#8217;s country&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/06\/tony-blair-doing-warm-up-laps-as-he-prepares-to-swim-the-tiber.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Deacon&#039;s Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-06-22T15:45:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Deacon Greg Kandra\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Tony Blair, doing warm up laps as he prepares to swim the Tiber - The Deacon&#039;s Bench","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/06\/tony-blair-doing-warm-up-laps-as-he-prepares-to-swim-the-tiber.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Tony Blair, doing warm up laps as he prepares to swim the Tiber - The Deacon&#039;s Bench","og_description":"More word circulating today that the prime minister is about to take the plunge. According to informed sources, Mr Blair has been readied for this milestone in his spiritual life by a Royal Air Force chaplain, Father John Walsh, who for the past four years has been quietly slipping into Chequers, the prime minister&#8217;s country&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/06\/tony-blair-doing-warm-up-laps-as-he-prepares-to-swim-the-tiber.html","og_site_name":"The Deacon&#039;s Bench","article_published_time":"2007-06-22T15:45:00+00:00","author":"Deacon Greg Kandra","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/06\/tony-blair-doing-warm-up-laps-as-he-prepares-to-swim-the-tiber.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/06\/tony-blair-doing-warm-up-laps-as-he-prepares-to-swim-the-tiber.html","name":"Tony Blair, doing warm up laps as he prepares to swim the Tiber - The Deacon&#039;s Bench","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#website"},"datePublished":"2007-06-22T15:45:00+00:00","dateModified":"2007-06-22T15:45:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/5a7b3c6e9d155e382842aa310ff9b1ee"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/06\/tony-blair-doing-warm-up-laps-as-he-prepares-to-swim-the-tiber.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/06\/tony-blair-doing-warm-up-laps-as-he-prepares-to-swim-the-tiber.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/06\/tony-blair-doing-warm-up-laps-as-he-prepares-to-swim-the-tiber.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Tony Blair, doing warm up laps as he prepares to swim the Tiber"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/","name":"The Deacon&#039;s Bench","description":"Where a Roman Catholic Deacon Ponders the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/5a7b3c6e9d155e382842aa310ff9b1ee","name":"Deacon Greg Kandra","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/114\/1144d939be636f641ea021e1d347f9fdx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/114\/1144d939be636f641ea021e1d347f9fdx96.jpg","caption":"Deacon Greg Kandra"},"description":"A Roman Catholic deacon serving the Diocese of Brooklyn, New York, Greg Kandra is News Director for the diocese's cable channel, NET (New Evangelization Television.) Prior to that, Deacon Greg worked for 26 years as a writer and producer for CBS News, where he contributed to \"The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric,\" \"60 Minutes II,\" \"48 Hours,\" (Emmy Award, Writers Guild of America Award) and \"Sunday Morning.\" He was co-writer for the acclaimed documentary \"9\/11,\" hosted by Robert DeNiro. (Emmy Award, Christopher Award, Peabody Award, Writers Guild of America Award.) His radio essays were featured in the bestselling book \"Deadlines and Datelines\" by Dan Rather. He's also a two-time winner of the Catholic Press Association Award. Other places you may find him: AMERICA, U.S. CATHOLIC, CATHOLIC DIGEST, REALITY (Redemptorist Communications) and THE BROOKLYN TABLET. He also contributes homiletic reflections to the parish resource CONNECT!, published by Liturgical Publications. In November 2009, he began serving a three-year term as a consultant to the Communications Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Deacon Greg grew up in Maryland (Go Terps!) but he and his wife today live in the beautiful borough of Queens, New York. You can contact Deacon Greg at dcngreg@gmail.com.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/gkandra"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/204"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3450\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}