I would like to comment on and clarify some points about the Catholic Church and its history in response to Pat LaMarche’s Dec. 26 column in which she discussed ex-Prime Minister of Britain Tony Blair’s recent conversion to the Catholic faith from the Anglican Church.

Indeed there are many ironies in this turn of events, but in my view, different causes for head-scratching than the ones LaMarche cites. One can speculate in Blair’s conversion that perhaps he was swayed to join the church that Henry VIII once outlawed after Blair’s successful peacemaking in Northern Ireland, and his new efforts in the Middle East, perhaps feeling a desire to heal divisions that have been created between people who worship the same god. No head-scratching there.

And the vast majority of historians would certainly agree that the beyond-egregious appropriation of all the cathedrals, churches, monasteries and other church property in England by the megalomaniac Henry VIII was without doubt a great wrong and one of the largest thefts in human history, a theft for which there were never any reparations made nor apology given. No reason for head-scratching there either.

(Parenthetically, I had never heard the uniquely nonsensical argument that the pope at that time, Clement VIII, was in any remote way responsible for Henry VIII’s depraved murder of his wives by not allowing him to divorce. I’m sure that’s the kind of logic Henry used to justify all his actions, but I prefer not to follow the logic of mass murderers).

Another irony, a true head-scratcher, is that Blair served under a queen in whose reign he pursued peace in Northern Ireland but who presides over a royal system which still, in this advanced day and age of pluralism and tolerance, forbids anyone in line for the throne to be Catholic. Perhaps the injustice and nonsense of it all finally got to Blair, and led to his decision to join the same church to which his forebears belonged.

I disagree, along with many other Catholics, perhaps even the Blairs, with Vatican decrees that women cannot be ordained and that clergy must not marry – but that certainly doesn’t alter the validity of the Catholic Church established by Jesus Christ through his apostle Peter, nor does it mean that females have had no place in the hierarchy of the church. Three women, St. Teresa of Avila, St. Catherine of Siena and St. Therese of Lisieux, are “Doctors of the Church,” an enormous distinction signifying their huge contributions to theology through their writings. Not only were they named saints, providing life models of holiness for others to emulate, their writings have provided spiritual guidance and leadership to millions of people over the centuries. Priests are by no means the only people who provide spiritual leadership to us.

Regarding abortion, LaMarche’s use of the word “property” when referring to women’s bodies is telling, because no part of any human being is “property” in any sense of the word. To really perceive the evil in the act of abortion requires a change in the entire way one looks at life and death. I know this firsthand, as one who had left the church of my upbringing and returned as an adult, one who believed for a while in the tragic necessity of ending untimely pregnancies – and who now appreciates life totally, in all its forms, and sees that taking care of society’s least fortunate is not only the morally correct thing to do, as I always believed, but indeed may be the reason for living, our opportunity to be Christ’s living representatives on earth.

No one has the right to take away life – not to rip it out of a uterus, or even to kill another person by execution, regardless of the sin they have committed. No one has the moral right to deliberately deprive anyone of their life, even if they have committed the mortal sin of murder, which is why the Vatican has taken a stance against not only abortion but capital punishment as well, basing their argument on several Old Testament verses, among them: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you” (Jeremiah 1:5) and on the fifth commandment “Thou shalt not kill.”

I also think it’s pretty obvious if you look at Tony and Cherie Blair’s large family, they are indeed against the use of artificial birth control, which they have every right to be. And the duration of their long and successful marriage would also lead me to believe that they think divorce is generally wrong, as the church teaches (although there are exceptions for many different mitigating circumstances).

At this special time of year when we celebrate the arrival of the Prince of Peace, let’s remember to celebrate again what Blair accomplished through his historic, groundbreaking peacemaking in Northern Ireland, as well as his new peacemaking work in the land of Christ’s birth; and also, perhaps not coincidentally, celebrate the unification of a family in the same church.

Patricia Claus of Orrington is a member of St. John’s Catholic Church.