TONY BLAIR has been attending private Roman Catholic masses in Downing Street conducted by a Franciscan friar renowned for helping convert members of the Establishment to Catholicism.

The prime minister, an Anglican, participates in the services, although he does not take Communion with his wife Cherie, a Catholic, and their children.

Sources disclosed that the ceremonies are conducted in the sitting room by Father Michael Seed, the friar who prepared the Conservative MPs John Gummer and Ann Widdecombe to become Catholics.

The Blairs, whose four children are Catholics, have been quietly attending mass at Downing Street and Chequers since 2003 because security worries curtailed visits to Westminster Cathedral and to other Catholic churches.

News of the services may rekindle speculation that Blair is interested in converting to Rome under Seed’s guidance after he leaves office. He has previously said he has no plans to convert and only attends services so the family can worship together.

For the Downing Street services, Seed normally dresses in the dark brown habit of a Franciscan Friar of the Atonement, over which he wears vestments. A chalice and paten for the bread are placed on a table covered by a white cloth in the Blairs’ sitting room. Members of the family are understood to take part in readings in the services.

Private services of mixed denominations are rare, although an increasing number of non-Catholics attend mass in churches. There has never been a Catholic British prime minister and Cherie is the first Downing Street spouse to be a member of the Roman church.

The Blairs have made similar private arrangements at Chequers, the prime minister’s country residence in Buckinghamshire.

The family previously worshipped at the Catholic church in nearby Great Missenden where they were regularly treated to the anti-war opinions of Father Timothy Russ, the parish priest.

Russ has also conducted services inside Chequers. Other priests conducting masses at the weekend retreat include a Royal Air Force chaplain and a Dominican from Oxford.

The Blairs first had to modify their church-going in the security alert which followed the Al-Qaeda attacks on America on September 11, 2001. They then visited a range of London churches on Sundays and holy days in a “random rotation” so no regular pattern of attendance could be detected by potential assassins.

The switch to masses at Downing Street occurred because of raised security following the invasion of Iraq.

Seed declined to comment this weekend on his contacts with the Blairs. Downing Street also refused to comment on “a private matter”.

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