“To everyone celebrating Christmas, I send my very best wishes” Tony Blair said on the Tony Blair Faith Foundation website last week.His greeting reminds me of King Herod (pictured right) saying to the wise men: “Go and diligently inquire after the child, and when you have found him, bring me word again, that I also may come and adore him”.
Indeed, the anti-life laws and policies Tony Blair supported and promoted as prime minister and which he refuses to repudiate since his reception into the Catholic Church, continue to cost far more lives than the number of babies killed in King Herod’s massacre of the innocents, even according to the highest estimates.
The scandal of Tony Blair’s position was highlighted in Newsweek just before Christmas. The printed edition of Newsweek’s report was published on the same day as Tony Blair issued his hollow greetings “to everyone celebrating Christmas”.
Tony Blair’s message says: “On this most joyful of Christian festivals, we celebrate new light coming into the world. We rejoice in the chance of a new relationship between God and humankind and the hope which that inspires. We commemorate the birth of the Christ child, and the willingness of God to humble himself for our sake in the shape of a helpless baby. [JS: Tony, don't forget that every one of the countless thousands of unborn children who were killed because of your support, and your government's support, for abortion was a helpless baby.]
"Christmas subverts so much of the world's wisdom. God the all powerful becomes vulnerable; the king of glory whose first shelter in this world was a stable; the infinite reduced to the smallest human form. [JS: Just like newly-conceived embryos, don't you think, Tony?] Usual expectations are confounded by the Christmas story [JS: in which a teenage mother whose child was conceived out of wedlock continued the pregnancy to birth under difficult circumstances], which challenges us to look beyond the world's order and priorities. [JS: Yes, like your government's expectation and priority that teenage mothers should have abortions.]
“So, in the midst of all the celebration, let us not lose sight of the radical challenge which Christmas poses us. [JS: I'll pose you a challenge, Tony, but not too radical: just tell us whether or not you stand by your anti-life, anti-family record in parliament and government] And above all let us remember the divine care for the world which Christ's birth represents. Let us do whatever we can to show our care for the word and for all our fellow humans [JS: What are you going to do, Tony, to show that you care for unborn children?], so that the world becomes a better place in which everyone may find and fulfil their God-given potential. [JS: Amen. A pity you and your government denied that opportunity to so many people.]
“Happy Christmas. Tony Blair”
I continue to pray the Our Father daily for Barack Obama and for Tony and Cherie Blair: that they will have a change of heart - and that they will use their influence in the world to save lives and become powerful ambassadors in the world for the unborn and for the value and inviolability of human life. If you would like to join me in this prayer commitment/campaign which I launched last month, write to me at johnsmeaton@spuc.org.uk and pass on this message to others.
