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	Tony Blair to U.S. Catholic Leaders: Go Forward "Undaunted" USA Today June 26, 2009 http://content.usatoday.com/communities/religion/post/2009/06/68490037/1 Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who survived a tumultuous decade in the post, had a message today for another major global institution under constant pressure and criticism -- the Catholic Church. Go forward, "unafraid, or if afraid, undaunted" and do the work of the Catholic Church, "to demonstrate God's love and compassion and to be in the service of others. That what this church is about at its best. Always has been and always will be." But does battle-tested Blair have advice on how the U.S church could deal with, say, restructuring/shrinking parishes, overburdened priests rushing from Mass to Mass? What about potential blow-back from the deeply troubling report on decades of clergy sexual abuse of minors in Irish Catholic institutions? Or the sharp dissonance between the Church and Catholic politicians who don't follow its doctrine in their votes? If Blair does, his ideas on the nitty-gritty specifics weren't shared publicly on Thursday morning when he was the keynote speaker at the National Leadership Roundtable on Church Management annual meeting in Philadelphia. Although the theme of the two-day event is "Clarity, Candor and Conviction: Effective Communications in the Modern World," media were kicked out for the Q & A. Organizers thought Blair and the bishops, business leaders, philanthropists, academics and volunteers who belong to the Council would be more candid in private. The Council was launched after the 2002 child sexual abuse scandal revealed that U.S bishops -- chosen with the charge to teach, preach and govern their dioceses -- were ill-prepared for management. Chairman and founder Geoffrey Boisi said the aim was to bring the expertise of the secular world to strengthen the U.S. church, a $105 billion enterprise involving 69 million faithful, thousands of clergy and lay leaders. Boisi invited Blair for his 10 Downing Street experience, his interfaith efforts (Blair has a new interfaith foundation focused on health, poverty and justice), and Blair's "most meaningful and impressive act," said Boisi, his very public conversion to Catholicism last year. "People are nicer to you once you've left office," said Blair, who spoke briefly of his "sense of personal happiness and pride," in his new religion. Then he offered lessons from his decade in office, beginning with a joke about how he still has a sense of dread when the clock reaches three minutes before noon on a Wednesday -- the time he would head down the halls to take a battery of questions shouted out by members of Parliament, something he likened to being stretched on a rack. "Even now a chill comes upon me." Still he said that to face the brutal beating you can take, both in leadership and communication, you must know, "This is where I'm going" and remain focused on the central purpose of the church. "The spirit of love and compassion and a sense of service to others is what draws people to God's path." Forget hiding away in hard moments. "We have to be out there, unafraidor if afraid, undaunted. We still have to be out there." The world's worst troubles -- disease, ignorance, injustice, hunger -- like sin, will never be eliminated but the people of the Church must strive to balance these "with tremendous mercy, compassion and human solidarity." As globalization pushes people together, willingly or not, obliterating boundaries of country and culture, he said, religions can work together to humanize globalization, "give it values and root it in the shared purpose of benefiting humanity." And lastly, Blair said, you must be hopeful. "People need to hear that there is such a thing as progress and that, through God, progress will be made ... I don't think there is going to be a message that people will hold dear without hope." DO YOU THINK... The U.S. Church is as willing to be open as Tony Blair suggests? Photo by Antoine Antonio, Bloomberg news: Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, shown here addressing a conference in Paris in January, spoke to Catholic bishops and lay leaders on communication in tough times at a symposium on Thursday in Philadelphia.
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