The British press is all atwitter about new reports that former Prime Minister Tony Blair is set to become a Catholic “within weeks.”

As the Daily Telegraph notes, however, it’s hardly a shock. It’s been rumoured for weeks, and Blair’s wife and children are all Catholic. Ruth Gledhill at The Times says he’ll make the switch in time to celebrate Christmas Mass at Westminster Cathedral. (She’s also got a blog about the whole l’affair d’Blair).

The Guardian has this little nugget about why this is such a big deal, at least on that side of the pond:

Although there is no bar to a prime minister being a Catholic and both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have had Catholic leaders in recent years, there has never been a Catholic in Number 10. Only the sovereign and heirs to the crown and their spouses are legally barred from membership of the faith because of the Act of Settlement following the Glorious Revolution, which overthrew the last Catholic monarch, James II, in 1688.