PM's Iraq war 'helped drive Catholics out of Downing Street'

Tony Blair's hard line on Iraq alienated three Roman Catholics who worked for him in Downing Street. All three, who were experts in foreign affairs, were deeply worried by what they saw as the rush to war in 2003, The Independent has learnt.

The revelation comes as Mr Blair prepares for this morning's audience with Pope Benedict XVI, where he is expected to discuss his intention to convert to Roman Catholicism. He will also hear the Vatican's concerns about the Middle East.

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Mr Blair once declared that God would be the judge of whether he was right to go war in Iraq - but has not previously shown any sign of allowing the Pope or any other religious figure to influence him, despite his deeply held Christian beliefs.

Insiders have disclosed that at least two practising Catholics on Mr Blair's Downing Street staff were prompted to leave because they shared the late Pope John Paul II's concerns over his Iraq policy. They included Tim Livesey, who was seconded to the Downing Street press office in 1999 after 12 years in the Foreign Office. He left in January 2002, more than a year before the invasion, to become a public affairs adviser to Cardinal Cormac Murphy- O'Connor, the head of the Catholic Church in Britain. He is now public affairs secretary to the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The next to depart was Francis Campbell, who was also seconded to Downing Street from the Foreign Office in 1999, as a policy adviser and later as Mr Blair's private secretary. He left in 2003 to take up a post at the British embassy in Rome. He was appointed ambassador to the Holy See in December 2005.

The third was Sir Stephen Wall, the head of Mr Blair's European secretariat between 2000 and 2004, who followed Mr Livesey to take over as adviser to Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor.

The three joined forces in Downing Street with Fiona Millar, the partner of Alastair Campbell, to give vocal opposition to the war. Ms Millar, who is not a Catholic, worked for Cherie Blair, but left in September 2003.

The Middle East is expected to be high on the agenda during Mr Blair's audience with the Pope, scheduled for 11am this morning. Tony and Cherie Blair have also been invited to lunch with Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor at the Venerable English College in Rome. He will be the first serving Prime Minister to visit the college, founded in 1579 to train priests for England and Wales, where they faced persecution.

Tony Blair is one of the most devout Christians to occupy No 10, and there has been speculation for more than a decade that he would convert to Catholicism after he left office. There is no constitutional bar to a non-Anglican holding the office of Prime Minister, but no precedent either. Mrs Blair is a lifelong Catholic. The Blair children attended Catholic schools and Mr Blair frequently attended Mass. In 1996, he was told by Cardinal Basil Hume to stop receiving communion at Mass because he was not a Catholic. He is rumoured to have taken communion from the late Pope John Paul when he visited the Vatican in 2003, but this has never been confirmed. Interviewed by Michael Parkinson last year on how - as a Christian - he lived with the decision to go war in Iraq, Mr Blair replied: "If you have faith about these things then you realise that judgement is made by other people. If you believe in God, it's made by God as well."

His office refused to be drawn on whether he intends to convert. A spokesman repeated the official line that "he remains a member of the Church of England".

The 'journey of faith'

* If the Prime Minister has formed the intellectual conviction that the Roman Catholic Church is the true church, if he has the "good will to believe", and if he has been through the required preparation, the church is strictly bound by the gospel to accept him. But Mr Blair will be required to go through a "journey into faith" so complex that the official guidebook, entitled Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, covers 44 pages and over 400 clauses. The Church will demand deep "inner adherence" to it. He will have to receive "doctrinal and spiritual preparation" and go through a profession of faith, and confession. The handbook says: "If the profession of faith and reception take place within Mass, the candidate, according to his or her own conscience, should make a confession of sins beforehand, first informing the confessor that he or she is about to be received into full communion." It continues: "At the reception, the candidate should be accompanied by a sponsor and may even have two sponsors. If someone has had the principal part in guiding or preparing the candidate, he or she should be the sponsor." Mr Blair has had spiritual guidance from several people, including Fr John Walsh, an RAF chaplain. But if he has only one sponsor, it is expected to be his wife, Cherie, a lifelong Catholic.