Not that he had ever made a secret of his religiosity when he was Britain's Prime Minister, openly converting to Catholicism after he left office. But, as he explained to his Westminster audience, for various reasons connected with the culture in Britain and parts of Europe, politicians are not expected to "do God".
Freed from those constraints, however, Mr Blair spoke, with characteristic eloquence, in terms of faith "giving the use of reason a purpose and society a soul and human beings a sense of the divine".
This is a life purpose, he said, "that cannot be found in constitutions, speeches, stirring art or rhetoric.
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