As sermons go, it was a graphic moment when Cardinal William H. Keeler, addressing a prayer service on the subject of church racism, gestured to the rear balconies of the imposing basilica and admitted that the galleries were originally built as a warren for segregating black Catholics from white Catholics.
When, as president in 1999, he faced accusations from the United Nations that he was a gun runner and a diamond smuggler, he addressed a mass prayer meeting clothed from head to foot in angelic white.
And in February 2009, Mr Blair addressed a Washington, DC prayer breakfast at the behest of Barack Obama but those occasions now have as much to do with civic religion as they do with personal devotion.Much closer to home, there is one politician who claims to have had some prolonged and intense discussions with Mr Blair on the subject of religion.
Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta has addressed a multi-faith prayer service for the 67 victims of the Westgate shopping centre attack.
Jonathan Falwell, the pastor and son of the television evangelist Jerry Falwell, was scheduled to address an NRA prayer breakfast on Sunday.
The emphatic social conservatism of Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, who opened his campaign soon after addressing a "Call to Prayer" Christian gathering in Houston, would provide a bigger target.
He ended Tuesday night's address with a prayer for courage and for the people of the gulf and for a hand to "guide us through the storm towards a brighter day".
Here, for instance, is Bush the huckster-showman, wielding a distorting funhouse mirror to vastly magnify the small, torpid rat labelled Saddam Hussein, and inquiring of his audience, "Are you scared enough yet?" Here's Bin Laden on his prayer mat, addressing a shopping-list of requests to God, and finding that George W Bush is the answer to all his prayers.
On June 19th, after a week of steady — and peaceful — protests, and clashes after nightfall, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader — the man who has the last word on all matters of state, and who is an unabashed supporter of Ahmadinejad — made it clear while addressing a large congregation at Friday prayers that the demands of Moussavi and his supporters would not be met.
The Court ultimately concludes, and it will henceforth be the Law of the Land, that walking is not a "fundamental" aspect of golf. Lee v. Weisman (1992): The case addressed religious prayer at public-school graduation ceremonies, which the majority found to be unconstitutional.
