Tony Blair accepts invitation to be speaker at annual Al Smith dinner

Published: 2007-09-24

NEW YORK (CNS) -- Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair is scheduled to be the guest speaker at the 62nd Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner Oct. 18 at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. Catholic New York, the archdiocesan newspaper, reported recently that Blair had accepted Cardinal Edward M. Egan's invitation to speak. The annual $1,000-a-ticket dinner is named for former New York Gov. Alfred E. Smith, who in 1928 became the first Catholic nominated by a major party as a presidential candidate. New York Cardinal Francis Spellman began the dinner in 1945 to inaugurate a hospital wing in honor of Smith and to raise money for health care programs in the New York Archdiocese. Blair was prime minister of Great Britain from May 1997 until he stepped down June 27 of this year. The United Nations then named him special envoy to the Middle East. Among his duties are mobilizing international aid and development for the Palestinians. Blair is Anglican. His wife, Cherie, and their four children are Catholic, and he often attends Mass with them.

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