On November 28, this blog said, “We need somebody prepared to act for what he considers right, regardless of party politics. Is Tony Abbott the man we are looking for? Let’s hope so. There is nobody else around who looks anything like it.”

The Liberal Party has taken this blog’s advice and elected Mr Tony Abbott as leader – for which we thank them.

However, they say it doesn’t matter who you vote for, you always end up with a politician.

* * *

The other day, Mr Abbott apparently told the Sunday Herald Sun that he had “never let his Catholic faith interfere with his policy decisions”, and would not, either as leader of the Liberal Party or as Prime Minister.

He also said, “I don’t think I am necessarily God’s gift to politics . . . .”

Such remarks make one uneasy. They have a flippant, almost American, sound to them.

Like the late President John Kennedy, first Catholic president of the United States, promising, tragically, in 1961, that his Catholicism “would not get in the way” of his decisions as president.

More hopefully, in his first off-the-cuff remarks on being elected yesterday, Mr Abbott promised that, under him, his party would provide “an alternative, not an echo . . . a choice, not a copy”.

I think nobody, including Mr Abbott himself, really believes that Tony Abbott will ever act as anything but a Catholic. He may have lapses, but he is a believer with a conscience moulded and dominated by the Faith.

* * *

One of history’s greatest heroes was Sir Thomas More — who died suddenly at the age of 57 by having his head cut off on the orders of his ex-friend, King Henry the Eighth.

Before his death, Thomas More said, “I die the king’s faithful servant, but God’s first.”

There are plenty of people who will be after Tony Abbott’s head, simply because he is a Catholic.

Pray then, that Mr Abbott will be, not merely a servant of the Liberal Party, or of the Australian nation, but first of all a faithful servant of God.

Then, when he dies, he will not have lived in vain.

That’s what we should all do.