Questions have swirled around UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s religious affiliation in the wake of his marriage to long-time partner in a private ceremony in the Catholic cathedral at Westminster at the end of last month. He was the first prime minister to marry in office since Robert Banks Jenkinson in 1822, and only the second prime minister ever to have divorced and remarried while in office.

Although Mr Johnson had been married twice before, his previous unions were not recognised by the Catholic Church, which requires Catholics to observe canonical regulations in order to receive the Sacrament of Matrimony. Although Mr Johnson was baptised a Catholic, he converted to Anglicanism when he was in school; nonetheless, the Catholic Church considers him canonically still Catholic. His wife, Carrie Symonds is a baptised Catholic who has never married.