# What difference will Britain’s first "Catholic" Prime Minister make?

**By:** Corrie Douglas-Young  
**Published:** 2026-07-22T14:00:00.000Z  
**Source:** [The Catholic Herald](https://thecatholicherald.com/article/what-difference-will-britains-first-catholic-prime-minister-make)

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 On Monday, July 20, Andy Burnham made history. For the first time, a Prime Minister entered 10 Downing Street as a confirmed Catholic. Previously, they had only left within the Faith.
It did not go unnoticed. The papers have been littered with his now-famous 2009 quip that, apart from his family, three things were important in his life: Everton, the Labour Party and the Catholic Church “in that order”. 
Burnham dissents from the Church on a number of issues and does not frequently attend Mass. In 2015, he urged Pope Francis to bring the Church “into the 21st century” following the legalisation of same-sex marriage in Ireland, stating that the Church had some “serious soul searching to do”.
“Our new Pope has brought back a forgiving and warm-hearted style that seemed to characterise the Catholic Church in my youth,” he stated at the time. “He is the right man to seize this moment and, taking his cue from his flock in Ireland, bring the Church into the 21st century.”
 Nevertheless, he has said that his political formation was a religious one. In 2012, he reflected on the religious instruction he received as a youth. He said of what he used to read in the Catechism, “the enfranchisement of it on Earth was the Labour Party”. In 2010, he said that his “unshowy” form of Catholicism did not “lick the altar steps”. A development in his life, as he had grown up an altar server.
Three years ago, he met Pope Francis and gave him a signed shirt from the Argentinian Manchester United player Lisandro Martinez. Reflecting after the Pope’s death, he said he hoped the Church would build upon Francis’ legacy. “He was a leader on the world stage,” he said, “a voice we needed to hear.”
 Following his victory in the Makerfield by-election this year, vacated to propel him towards No 10, he was sworn in on a Bible. But of his formation in Catholic social teaching, he will probably take half with him to No 10 and leave the rest outside.
The relationship between the British State and Catholicism is murky, still waddling – even if as a pretence – in a swamp of post-Reformation anti-Catholic legislation.
The Act of Settlement (1700) mandates that the sovereign be “in Communion with the Church of England as by Law established” – forbidding those who “ professe the Popish religion” from inheriting, possessing, or enjoying the “Crown and Government of this Ream”. Naturally, this means that professing the Popish religion poses a significant barrier to those wanting to have and keep their crown.
The mid-19 th century saw the removal of many of the legal barriers intended to inhibit Catholics from participating in public life. However, in an 1829 and 1858 act, Catholics are forbidden from advising the Crown on the appointment of Church of England bishops.
The issue was raised in Parliament on October 13, 2025, by MP for Brentford and Isleworth Ruth Cadbury. She asked for an equalities impact assessment on the provisions in the relief acts pertaining to Catholics and Jews (1829 and 1858 respectively), specifically in appointing bishops on the advice of a Catholic or Jewish Prime Minister.
MP for Torfaen and then-Minister for the Cabinet Office Nick Thomas-Symonds answered that the Government recognised the historical restrictions and would keep the matter under review, but “given other pressing issues, this is not a current priority.”
 As a Catholic, Burnham will have to delegate another Government minister to oversee episcopal appointments.
It is perhaps as a result of this long and complicated history that Prime Ministers have generally waited to cross the Tiber, on the few occasions that has happened.
Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson was baptised Catholic, but while attending Eton he was confirmed in the Church of England. In 2021, he married Carrie Symonds, who is Catholic, in Westminster Cathedral. Johnson, who was married twice before, was allowed to do so as the previous marriages were considered invalid. The Church recognises non-Catholic marriages as valid, but not when a Catholic is involved without a dispensation.
The Archdiocese of Westminster said at the time that “in general terms, a baptised Catholic who has contracted a marriage recognised in civil law but without observing the requirements of Catholic canon law is not recognised as validly married in the eyes of the Catholic Church.”
 It said that the couple, both baptised Catholic, had undertaken the necessary steps to be married in both Church and civil law. Their first child, Wilfred, was baptised in the Church.
Tony Blair became a Catholic after leaving office as Prime Minister in 2007, after a career defined in part by bringing about the conclusion to the sectarian Troubles in Northern Ireland. His conversion followed conversations with his wife and Pope Benedict XVI. The Pope was informed of his intentions shortly before he left office, when he visited the Vatican the same year.
Blair remarked two years following his conversion that after attending Mass for some time, he “felt this was right” and that he was “coming home”.
“There was something, not just about the doctrine of the Church, but of the universal nature of the Catholic Church,” he said.
Yet in scanning the UK’s three Catholic Prime Ministers – one who converted upon leaving, one who reverted in post, and one who entered Catholic – there remains one question politically: what difference it makes.
In the 300 years since the Act of Settlement, religion has become a thoroughly private (or purely ceremonial) matter for the British elite. It has been often argued that when the elite do look to Catholic social teaching, they do so at their leisure, and find only its most convenient teachings.
That a confirmed Catholic has, for the first time, become Prime Minister is perhaps not a commentary on the Church’s victory in the public sphere, but its fatigue. And only when a premier sees the realm of religion and politics as intimately linked will we be able to finally know what difference it makes. Until then, the answer to the question is remarkably little.
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