He reads his kids the catechism over lunch every Sunday
RELIGION occupies a central place in the life of Jacob Rees-Mogg – overriding even politics. Friends have revealed that he has had a private chapel built at his house in Somerset, where Catholic Mass is said occasionally and which he uses as a place of contemplation.
He also reads the catechism to his children over lunch every Sunday as a way of passing on to them the teachings of the Church.
His wife is not thought to have converted from Anglicanism yet, although one friend says he believes she may do so in future.
His strong faith helped to convince Daily Mail journalist Glenys Roberts – a Conservative councillor in the West End ward of Mayfair for almost 20 years until 2018 – to ask Rees-Mogg in 2006 to be her godfather when she decided to convert to Catholicism. At the time, she was in her 60s and he was 37, yet the age gap did not concern her in the least, however unusual it is for a godfather to be so much younger than his goddaughter.
‘I got to know Jacob through local politics,’ she says. ‘His mother was a councillor with me for a term and he and [his sister] Annunziata, who shared a house in Mayfair, were on the ward committee. We used to talk about Catholicism over a glass of champagne at his usual table in Claridge’s.’
A further indication of the strength of his religious views lies in the fact that at a ceremony at the Brompton Oratory in London in 2009, he became a Knight of Malta, an ancient order devoted to Christian virtue and charity and involved in humanitarian issues. To say this is an exclusive club would be an understatement. There are only 300 British Knights of Malta among a global membership of about 13,000.
His views on abortion are trenchant. He opposes it entirely, describing it as ‘morally indefensible’.
He told a TV interviewer in 2017: ‘With same-sex marriage, that is something that people are doing for themselves.
‘With abortion, it is something that is done to the unborn child.’
He then confirmed that he is opposed to abortion even if a woman has been raped or subjected to incest, explaining: ‘Life is sacrosanct and begins at the point of conception.’