Thomas More, Saint

For John, BLUF:  True heroes are hard to find.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

As Law Professor Gail Hariot points out today, at InstaPundet, today would have been Writer Robert Bolt's 95th Birthday.  She links tothis post at The Volokh Conspiracy, "Today Is the 95th Anniversary of Playwright Robert Bolt's Birth", which she also authored.

Thus this article at the Wanderer, "St. Thomas More Didn’t Die For This — Did He?”, seemed appropriate. 

More exemplified two very distinct Catholic virtues, ones that Americans instinctively embrace and totalitarians of any stripe — Elizabethan, socialist, or fascist, for example — instinctively reject.

First and foremost is the role of conscience in public life.  Not the sort of gnostic conscience that embraces some abstract personal truth, nor the slavish devotion to rules.  Rather, conscience properly formed that understands the subjective and objective qualities of its purpose are directed toward one end — to conform to the just and to the good.

Second and perhaps less discussed is the surrender of Christian pluralism to totalitarianism, something Bolt clearly communicates in A Man for All Seasons but is somewhat lost today.  Critics of More will claim that he extended very little religious freedom to those who fought against the Catholic Church while ignoring the bloodthirsty nature of both Cromwell and the Elizabethan pogroms that followed the death of Queen Mary.  Yet More’s defense regarding his silence is what touches the Catholic heart.  We quote Bolt’s play in full:

“I am the King’s true subject, and I pray for him and all the realm.  I do none harm.  I say none harm.  I think none harm.  And if this be not enough to keep a man alive, then in good faith I long not to live.”

Considering the events of the present day, and it is becoming increasingly clear to many faithful Catholics that our silence — our willingness to live good lives, to do none harm, say none harm, and think none harm — will not be enough.

Saint Thomas more lived 500 years ago, but left us a model of how to live, and die.  His parting words were:

I die the King's good servant, and God's first.

Regards  —  Cliff