When I was in America this past spring, in those first heady hours and days of the war in Iraq, I was the recipient of many messages of support and gratitude for Britain and specifically for our prime minister, Tony Blair, at that time rapidly to be acquiring folk-hero status in the United States.

“Tell Tony Blair we're really grateful to him,” people would say, or, “You tell Mr. Blair that he's wonderful!”

Well, I haven't met Blair personally, so I have had no opportunity to pass on the messages of good will. But I would like to answer some of the questions that were also asked of me about Blair — and have continued from American Catholic friends. “Is it true that Tony Blair is a Catholic?” “Don't his kids go to a Catholic school?” “Is it true that the Blair family goes to Mass together regularly?”

Here, I am on surer ground. The answer to the first question is No. Blair is an Anglican. But his wife, Cherie, is a Catholic, and their sons have been attending the London Oratory School, one of Britain's best-known Catholic schools (and one that I know well — I was a governor of the school for several years and the headmaster is a family friend). And finally — yes, it is certainly true that the Blair family attends Mass together.

A couple of years ago I was at the 9:15 Mass at Westminster Cathedral. This is not a sung Mass but a fairly brisk we're-all-busy-people-so-let's- get-on-with-it affair, without choir or trimmings. A family hurried into a pew just ahead of me. I noticed that the father, who was holding the baby, looked tired. Then I suddenly recognized him as the prime minister!

It all looked like the classic modern Catholic family — Dad in denim jeans, teen-age kids, exchange of affectionate greetings with one another at the sign of peace. The baby yelled a bit and mother and daughter took turns holding him. Blair later took the child into a side aisle and walked up and down, soothing him in the way that tired dads do.

And that's about it — except that as we all trooped out at the end of Mass they got a special greeting from the priest and stood chatting for a while (while, inevitably, the rest of us gawked a bit).

I was quite impressed. Lots of politicians (most?) only attend church when there is a good photo opportunity and it's a formal affair with - the kids scrubbed up nicely and Mum in a smart hat. This was an ordinary Mass. The cathedral is the nearest Catholic church to Downing Street and the family's attendance had an air of naturalness.

If you have read this far and were already a fan of Blair then you'll be very reassured. The hero turns out to be even better than we thought. But wait. Before you get carried away, let's get down to some other facts.

Blair's personal religious faith obviously means something to him. His wife is well known as a Catholic and has recently begun speaking about religious matters. But she has made it clear she opposes the Church in certain crucial areas, recently hosting a fund-raising reception at 10 Downing Street for the International Planned Parenthood Federation.

The reception was under the slogan “Lust for Life,” a new Planned Parenthood campaign promoting condoms. They market these through a special company that gives all profits to the organization. The “Lust for Life” Web site advertises the condoms lavishly — using language and detail that are not possible to reprint in a family newspaper. At the reception, Mrs. Blair was quoted as saying she was glad to support the campaign as her own children were now in their late teens.

The International Planned Parenthood Federation is the world's leading pro-abortion lobby group. Tony Blair has a 100% record of opposing any attempts to restrict abortion in any way or to ban human cloning. He has gone out of his way to vote pro-abortion on every occasion when such matters have come up in Parliament. His government is working on a scheme for civil registration of “same-sex partnerships” (homosexual marriage).

He and Mrs. Blair attended the big celebration at London's Royal Albert Hall hosted by Stonewall, Britain's leading militant homosexual-rights lobby group. At this event, the displays, jokes and presentations were sexually explicit. One of the stunts involved young men dressed as Boy Scouts. The Scout Association later protested in the strongest terms.

As I write this, Blair's government is working on plans for a form of euthanasia by legalizing the withdrawal of food and fluids from gravely ill unconscious people. Under the proposed law, a doctor who tried to administer fluids after being instructed not to do so could be guilty of assault.

Cherie Blair was recently the guest speaker at the Tyburn Lecture, sponsored by the Tyburn Nuns (enclosed Benedictine sisters whose convent is on the site where our English martyrs were butchered for the Catholic faith, from the reign of Queen Elizabeth I onward for two centuries).

The sisters — who wear traditional habits and are known for their orthodoxy and loyalty to the Church — seem to have been embarrassed by Mrs. Blair's speech, which claimed that the Church failed to use women's talents properly and hinted at support for the idea that women should be priests. The speech was widely hailed in the media as being a challenging criticism of the Church's teachings. But Mrs. Blair showed an unfamiliarity with Church documents and an inability to grasp the idea of unchanging and unchangeable truths revealed by God and taught by the Church.

So there you have it. In irreligious modern Britain, it is something to have a prime minister who attends church with his wife and children. However, at a time when abortion, cloning, homosexual activity and forms of euthanasia are all being promoted by the government, it is distressing to have a prime minister who leads all this but proclaims his Christianity.

Next time someone asks you about Tony Blair, show him this article.

Joanna Bogle writes from London.