I was not surprised by Tony Blair’s performance at the Chilcot Enquiry into the war in Iraq, because there were no surprises – he was sad about the deaths, naturally, but he had few regrets and still believed history would consider him in the right.

I had a letter published in the press back in 2003 when he originally stated his faith in history, in which I wrote he was therefore likely to appear in a revised edition of Barbara L Tuchman’s The March of Folly, a seminal study of how states pursued polices contrary to their interest.

I’m no pacifist. I’d seen Blair’s wars at first hand – as an aid worker I’d gone to Sierra Leone and Kosovo alongside the British forces – and in Sierra Leone in particular I realized what an impact for good military intervention could have.  But Iraq was different. Different place, politics, world post-9/11. War is not like the movies… it is messy, unpredictable and cruel seen from the ground and I don’t think it’s much of a surprise to find the last people who invariably want it are the generals.

So I went on the marches, I signed the petitions, wrote to the papers, although at the time it felt as if my practical concerns placed me in something of a minority – many of the protesters appeared angry because they felt in their guts it was wrong, while the PM was going to war because he felt in his guts it was right – God was on his side, and, as he said, would be his judge.

It’s ironic that Tony Blair went on to convert to Catholicism because the then Pope John Paul was one of the war’s most ardent critics, a position I suspect would be supported by his successor, although not necessarily for the reasons one would immediately expect. 

Benedict is very keen to emphasize the dual Christian traditions of faith and logos – Reason. This sprung from the earliest requirement of Christianity to marry the “revelation” of Christ with the Greco-Roman philosophical heritage. It needed to do this if it was going to gain acceptance in Roman society. Historically of course, logos has ebbed and flowed, but the German Pope, having himself experienced the terrifying consequences of Utopian un-Reason growing up under Nazism is understandably keen to reaffirm this bond.

The God of Benedict would by definition not expect one to do something that was intrinsically unreasonable. For God embodies Reason and Reason is how we discriminate between what is truly divine and just our egos, emotions or whatever. For Benedict, as for me, faith alone is not enough. 

For Tony Blair and George Bush however, it is apparently all. Never mind that they call themselves Christians – their God has far more in common with the Jewish, Islamic or, dare I say it, Crusader God.

Seemingly relying upon faith alone, they believed they were acting in the name of God, and they reaped what they sowed.

I don’t believe in Heaven anywhere other than upon this earth. There are no pearly gates, palm-fringed vacation resorts beyond our mortal life. But I do have a sense that each moment has an eternal element to it – although we pass through the length of our lives in a chronological arc, every day resonates infinitely.

Tony Blair told the enquiry that not a single day passes by that I do not think about that responsibility... and I do not doubt that he does. I don't believe he is a liar. But as he reclines in the comforting embrace of his certain faith, that nagging question disturbing his rest is God too: logos judging him, each day and forever.