Read Ruth Gledhill's blog on the Blair conversion

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair could be formally received into the Roman Catholic Church in time to celebrate Mass at Westminster Catholic cathedral at Christmas.

According to a report in today’s Tablet, Mr Blair is to be received into the Church in the next few weeks.

Mr Blair, who last month chose America’s most high-profile Catholic fundraising event as the forum to make his first important speech since leaving office, is expected to be received by Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor in his private chapel of Archbishop’s House.

There has been repeated speculation for a decade that Mr Blair, whose wife Cherie is a practising Catholic, was to convert. He has previously received communion at his wife’s church but stopped doing so after the late Cardinal Basil Hume requested he desist.

The Times reported earlier this year that he would convert after he left Downing Street.

According to The Tablet, Mr Blair has received instruction from two priests, RAF chaplain Father John Walsh and the Cardinal’s secretary, Father Mark O’Toole.

Tablet editor Catherine Pepinster says: “It is usually the convention for a candidate for reception to be received by their parish priest. The cardinal’s involvement, as if he were Mr Blair’s parish priest, would suggest that the process of conversion did in fact begin during his tenure of Number 10.”

She says Mr Blair, whose four children were all baptised Catholics, could have been received earlier, but was discouraged by his advisers who feared it could be interpreted as triumphalist. Alastair Campbell famously said: “We don’t do God.”

A spokesman for Mr Blair said: “This continues to be speculation that we are not commenting on.”

A spokesman for the Cardinal said: “It is inappropriate for the Cardinal to comment on an individual’s faith journey. It is a private and personal issue.”