A few hours before Tony Blair walked into the classroom for his “Faith and Globalization” seminar, he spoke with reporters at the President’s House on Hillhouse Avenue this morning.

In the half-hour discussion, Blair spoke about his belief that “if you want to understand the modern world you’ve got to be religiously literate” and answered a question from the News about the Danish cartoon controversy at Yale.

“The whole fury is an example of how it’s important to get a better and easier way of having a dialogue about things of religious sensitivity, for sure,” Blair said. “I really think from Yale’s perspective it made the right decision. Because this is not a piece of original research that Yale has suppressed. That would obviously be a completely different issue. The question is does it reignite a controversy that has already been there or not. I think it was an entirely responsible and sensible thing that they did.”

For more on Blair’s visit to Yale, check back at yaledailynews.com and see Friday’s paper.