Tony Blair talks God at UPenn speech

Addressing an audience at the University of Pennsylvania yesterday morning, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair stepped away from politics and focused on the divine. Specifically, the recent convert to Catholicism spoke about God.

In a 30-minute presentation to the National Leadership Roundtable of Church Management during its sixth annual membership meeting at the Wharton School, Blair talked about how to communicate for God and with God's purpose.

"Faith, if divisive, can pull people apart at the point of which globalization is pushing them together," Blair said.

But faith can also "humanize" people and give them a shared sense of purpose in bettering the world, said Blair, who after leaving office in 2007 established the Tony Blair Faith Foundation and is now a U.N. envoy to the Middle East.

With anecdotes that often left the audience chuckling, Blair listed the keys of communication.

Leaders must have clarity and conviction about their direction to get others to understand and adopt it, he said.

When times are rough, Blair advised the 150 people in attendance, don't hide from problems but confront them with transparency while "balancing the picture" with good news.

"Alongside the errings that humans do . . . there are areas of mercy, compassion, and human solidarity," he said.

Love inspires, Blair said, and "faith gives hope that we can, despite all our bad ways and errors, be better people."

The roundtable is composed of senior-level Catholic executives from the religious and secular worlds and aims to "promote best practices and excellence in management, finances, and human-resources development within the Catholic Church," said Kerry Robinson, executive director. This year's theme is "Clarity, Candor, and Conviction: Effective Communications for a Global Church."

Blair said that he has been reading the letters of St. Paul and finds that the communication environments of then and now are not just separated by 2,000 years but seem to be on "a different planet almost."

This new environment is powered by round-the-clock news coverage and the ability to be constantly plugged into it, and the church must understand and navigate it, Blair said.

Blair left the Church of England and converted to Catholicism in December 2007.

"I'm a very new member," he said, "but I've felt a sense, coming into the Catholic Church, a sense of homecoming."