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”.
