ANY hope that Tony Blair had of enjoying a happy, Catholic Easter with his family will be crushed today by the Pope.

John Paul II is issuing a new encyclical that The Times has learnt will explicitly forbid Protestants like the Prime Minister taking Communion with Catholics such as Cherie Blair and their children.

The 83-year-old Pope has chosen Holy Week to stamp on what he sees as dangerously “liberal” interpretations of the Roman Catholic doctrine that only those “in full communion with Rome” can take part in the Eucharist.

Mr Blair, who remains a committed, if ecumenical, member of the Church of England, regularly attends Catholic Mass with his family. He also used to take Communion with them at the St Joan of Arc church in Islington.

But in 1996, he received a letter from Cardinal Basil Hume asking him to desist. In his reply, Mr Blair did not conceal his dismay at such theological conservatism. Saying that he merely wished to worship with his family but had not realised his behaviour was causing offence, he promised he would not do so again. The letter added: “I wonder what Jesus would have made of it?”

Since then Mr Blair, who admits he is strongly drawn to Catholicism, has more than once explored the limits of this doctrine. Britain has never had a Catholic prime minister and in 1998 he had to deny reports he had converted after being spotted going to Westminster Cathedral for Mass unaccompanied by his family. Suggestions that he had received the Eucharist on this occasion were never confirmed.

There have also been rumours that when Mr Blair is on holiday abroad he has taken Communion with his family.

The Pope’s fourteenth encyclical slams the door on the many Catholics and Protestants who currently take Communion together and represents a setback for Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who is a firm advocate of ecumenism. When Mr Blair visited the Pope at the Vatican last month, he may have got a hint of what was to come. While his family went to take Communion with the Pope, the Prime Minister only received a blessing. The Pope also made it clear that he disagreed with Mr Blair about war in Iraq.

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