Sir Keir Starmer says he does not consider in God and US President Donald Trump hardly ever speaks of faith. However each will attend the Pope’s funeral.
In any case, Catholics are the second largest spiritual group in each international locations, with six million within the UK and greater than 50 million within the US.
Right here within the UK, common church going is reported to be up from 8% to 12%, whereas the US president mentioned after Pope Francis’s demise “we’re bringing religion back” to America.
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Pope Francis at a mass in St Peter’s Sq. earlier this month. Pic: AP
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The place will Pope Francis be buried?
Pope dies newest – funeral particulars introduced
Politicians – and certainly church leaders – take be aware.
But Catholics are comparatively under-represented within the Home of Commons, much more so after final 12 months’s Labour landslide when a number of outstanding Catholic Tories had been defeated.
Surprisingly, Boris Johnson was the UK’s first Catholic prime minister, changing after virtually two years in Quantity 10 earlier than marrying his Catholic bride, Carrie Symonds.
Tony Blair, who in his youth was a Durham Cathedral chorister, grew to become a Catholic after leaving Downing Avenue.
His spouse Cherie is Catholic.
That was regardless of his spin physician Alastair Campbell notoriously telling an interviewer who requested about Mr Blair’s religion: “We don’t do God.”
Gordon Brown was famously a “son of the manse” – his father was a Presbyterian minister – and Theresa Could’s father was a Church of England vicar.
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‘Many had been in tears, I used to be in tears’
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JD Vance assembly Pope Francis on the Vatican on Easter Sunday. Pic: Vatican Media
One other former prime minister, David Cameron, then again, quite irreverently as soon as described his religion as coming and going “like Magic FM in the Chilterns”.
However regardless of Sir Keir usually being described as an atheist, two senior members of his cupboard, Training Secretary Bridget Phillipson and Cupboard Workplace minister Pat McFadden, are Catholics.
“For me, being Catholic has always been about a wider sense of social justice, social action, the value and worth of every individual,” Ms Phillipson has mentioned, although she added: “I part company on issues around abortion, contraception…”
Mr McFadden, the son of Irish Catholic dad and mom, paid tribute to the Pope after his demise: “Pope Francis served until the very end, including this Easter time. May God rest his soul.”
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‘He was the folks’s pope’
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Pope Francis with Giorgia Meloni at a convention in Rome in 2023. Pic: AP
Essentially the most overtly spiritual senior Labour minister is the overseas secretary, David Lammy, who has mentioned Jesus Christ was the inspiration for his politics in addition to his lifelong religion.
Rachel Reeves and Wes Streeting are practising Anglicans, Jonathan Reynolds chairs a gaggle referred to as Christians on the Left, and Stephen Timms is an evangelical Christian.
Among the many Conservatives, final 12 months’s crushing defeat noticed a number of senior Catholic Tories, together with serving and former cupboard ministers, lose their seats.
The casualties included cupboard ministers Gillian Keegan, Mark Harper, Therese Coffey, Liam Fox, Damian Inexperienced and Jacob Rees-Mogg, together with junior ministers Maria Caulfield and Paul Maynard and senior backbenchers Damian Collins and Daniel Kawczynski.
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Eiffel Tower falls darkish for Pope
That leaves simply the Father of the Home Sir Edward Leigh, former celebration chief Sir Iain Duncan Smith, and former cupboard minister Damian Hinds as the one remaining senior Tory Catholics left within the Commons.
Backbencher Danny Kruger, who’s main the battle in opposition to the controversial assisted dying laws, the Terminally Ailing Adults (Finish of Life) Invoice, says he is an evangelical Christian.
For world leaders like Sir Keir and Mr Trump, nonetheless, attending funerals of world statesmen or the good and the great is about greater than paying their respects.
They’re a chance for official or unofficial conferences with different world leaders, recognized within the jargon of worldwide diplomacy as a ‘bilateral’, a ‘brush-by’ or a ‘walk-and-talk’.
So anticipate loads of these on Saturday.
In any case, moreover Sir Keir and the US president, the leaders of France, Germany, Brazil, Argentina, Poland, the European Fee and certainly Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy have already introduced they are going.
It could possibly be one of many largest gatherings of world leaders exterior an official G7, G20, EU or different worldwide summit.
So, in fact, Sir Keir and President Trump shall be there.
