AMDG
St. Thomas Moore (1478 - 1535), a very learned lawyer and holy man
with a deep prayer life, was first Speaker of the House of Commons, adviser to
King Henry VIII who appointed him as Lord Chancellor (Prime Minister).
Thomas More wrote the novel, "Utopia" and a history of
Richard III among others which inspired a Shakespearean play. He was a staunch defender of the faith in a
half million word volume, "The Confutation" against William Tyndale
and other writings against Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation.
Martin Luther attacked his critic,
Henry VIII in print, calling him a “pig, dolt, and liar”. Apparently such name calling was acceptable
then than now . At the request of Henry
VIII, Thomas More set about composing a rebuttal. The resulting Responsio ad Lutherum (Latin was the international language of the
day) was published at the end of 1523. In the Responsio, More defended the
supremacy of the papacy, the sacraments, and other church traditions. More’s
language, like Luther’s, was virulent, and he branded Luther an “ape”, a
“drunkard”, and a “lousy little friar” amongst other insults. This shows that Thomas More had his faults
and was, like all of us, a saint under construction until his death 12 years
later.
Thomas More was a close friend and confidant of the King Henry VIII. He was always loyal to the King in temporal
matters, but loyal to the Pope in spiritual and Church matters. Thus he could not recognize the King's
supremacy as the head of the Catholic Church in England and refused to
recognize the divorce of the King's first wife, Catherine of Aragon. When Henry VIII separated the Church of
England from Rome, St. Thomas More opposed it.
Furthermore, he refused to take an oath accepting the First Succession
Act which recognized the daughter (Elizabeth) of his second wife as the
successor to the crown over Mary, the daughter of his divorced first wife.
Refusing to sign a statement of allegiance to the King as the Head of
the Church in England despite pressure from his wife and four children, he was executed
in the Tower of London. A man of great
wit, he jokingly told his executioner in a friendly way to be careful not to
cut his beard. Just before being
beheaded, he said: “I die as the King's loyal servant, but God's first." St.
John Fisher, the Bishop of Rochester was executed for similar reasons.
More was greatly admired by Anglican writers Jonathan Swift and Samuel
Johnson. Johnson said that ""He was the person of the greatest virtue
these islands ever produced".
Winston
Churchill wrote about Thomas More in the History of the English-Speaking
Peoples: "The resistance of More and Fisher to the royal supremacy in
Church government was a noble and heroic stand. They realized the defects of
the existing Catholic system, but they hated and feared the aggressive
nationalism which was destroying the unity of Christendom". In 1966, St. Thomas More's life inspired the
hit Academy Award winning movie: "A Man For All Seasons".
Thomas More was canonized Pope
Pius XI in 1935 and named the patron saint of lawyers. Under Queen Elizabeth and successors,
persecution of Catholics was so intense, that any priest found, was dismembered
by a team of horses and his impaled head was placed at one of the London
bridges.
Two prayers that this saint composed give insights into the character
and holiness of St. Thomas More as a True Man of God.
Grant me, O Lord,
good digestion,
and also something to digest.
Grant me a healthy body, and
the necessary good humor to maintain it.
Grant me a simple soul that knows to
treasure all that is good and that
doesn’t frighten easily at the sight of evil,
but rather finds the means to put things
back in their place.
Give me a soul that knows not boredom,
grumblings, sighs and laments,
nor excess of stress, because of that
obstructing thing called “I.”
Grant me, O Lord, a sense of good humor.
Allow me the grace to be able to take a joke
to discover in life a bit of joy,
and to be able to share it with others.
and also something to digest.
Grant me a healthy body, and
the necessary good humor to maintain it.
Grant me a simple soul that knows to
treasure all that is good and that
doesn’t frighten easily at the sight of evil,
but rather finds the means to put things
back in their place.
Give me a soul that knows not boredom,
grumblings, sighs and laments,
nor excess of stress, because of that
obstructing thing called “I.”
Grant me, O Lord, a sense of good humor.
Allow me the grace to be able to take a joke
to discover in life a bit of joy,
and to be able to share it with others.
Give me the grace, Good Lord
To set the world at naught. To
set the mind firmly on You and not to hang upon the words of men's mouths.
To be content to be solitary.
Not to long for worldly pleasures. Little by little utterly to cast off the
world and rid my mind of all its business.
Not to long to hear of earthly
things, but that the hearing of worldly fancies may be displeasing to me.
Gladly to be thinking of God,
piteously to call for His help. To lean into the comfort of God. Busily to labor to love Him.
To know my own vileness and
wretchedness. To humble myself under the
mighty hand of God. To bewail my sins
and, for the purging of them, patiently to suffer adversity.
Gladly to bear my purgatory
here. To be joyful in tribulations. To walk the narrow way that leads to life.
To have the last thing in
remembrance. To have ever before my eyes my death that is ever at hand. To make
death no stranger to me. To foresee and consider the everlasting fire of Hell.
To pray for pardon before the judge comes.
To have continually in mind the
passion that Christ suffered for me. For His benefits unceasingly to give Him
thanks.
To buy the time again that I
have lost. To abstain from vain conversations. To shun foolish mirth and
gladness. To cut off unnecessary recreations.
Of worldly substance, friends,
liberty, life and all, to set the loss at naught, for the winning of Christ.
To think my worst enemies my
best friends, for the brethren of Joseph could never have done him so much good
with their love and favor as they did him with their malice and hatred.
These minds are more to be
desired of every man than all the treasures of all the princes and kings,
Christian and heathen, were it gathered and laid together all in one heap.
AmenSt. Thomas More and Politicians Today
By John Barger
"By
the age of fifty-five, as a lawyer, officer of the realm, husband, father,
popular citizen, speaker, and writer, he had achieved as much fame, wealth,
professional success, and genuine affection as any person could desire."
Barack Obama?
Joe Biden?
"Nevertheless, for what most called a foolish scruple of
conscience, he threw all that away and died three years later -- alone -- in
broken health. His closest political colleagues abandoned him; he was condemned
as a traitor, beheaded, and his head placed on a spike on a bridge."
These
days, faithful Catholics
lose elections; in Thomas More's day, they lost their lives.
Thomas More knew that.
He knew that the lustful Henry VIII might kill him for his fidelity to the Church.
. . . which is why More
constantly asked,
"How much evil can I tolerate? Where must I take my stand?"
Those were dangerous
questions
in a dangerous time, yet as a politician --- a Catholic politician --- fear never caused Thomas More to waver: "In a storm," he said, "you don't abandon ship just because you can't control the wind." * Today, winds of a fierce new anti-Catholicism buffet us. Just two days ago, the most powerful political party in America declared the following:
That's you and me they oppose
. . . and any Catholic politician who agrees with the Church that abortion is murder.
*
When that threatening clause was debated, did a new Thomas More risk his life by rising to denounce it?
Did even one major
Catholic Democrat
risk the displeasure of his party by staying faithful to the Church?
*
Far from it!
Indeed, the Party's
nominee for Vice-President
(a position equivalent in power to Thomas More's) is a Mass-going Catholic whose support for so- called "abortion rights" was just declared "seriously wrong" by the Archbishop of Denver, Charles Chaput.
So wrong, says the Archbishop, that
"I presume his integrity will lead him to refrain from presenting himself for Communion."
Henry
VIII was also once
a Mass-going Catholic . . .
. . . a politician with faith so strong he wrote A
Defense of the Seven Sacraments, one of the most successful works
of Catholic apologetics that had yet been produced.
Indeed, Pope Leo X personally bestowed on Henry the title, Defender
of the Faith, never guessing that a short decade later, Henry
would be the mortal enemy of the Faith he had just so ably defended.
*
Our fathers' generation also saw Catholic politicians repudiate the Faith they once held dear.
Before World War II, in the pews, pubs, and union halls of
America's cities, millions of poor European immigrants and their children
pledged allegiance to the Church of Rome and the party of FDR: the blue-collar,
pro-family, pro-life Democratic Party that strongly identified itself with
Catholic social teachings.
Born in among these people was Catholic author David Carlin,
who grew up in working-class Rhode Island in that time when Catholic Faith
and the Democratic Party seemed almost synonymous.
For four decades Carlin faithfully served the party he loved
--- twelve years as a state senator and once as the Democratic candidate for
Congress.
Then
the betrayal!
As Thomas More watched helplessly as Henry abandoned his wife
and took up with enemies of the Church, so David Carlin watched helplessly as
his Party's leaders abandoned their blue-collar, pro-life, and religious constituencies
and took up with NOW, Hollywood, and the abortion lobby.
*
You know, Thomas More was a Catholic, not a partisan. With the ax that would kill him hovering near, his last words saluted the very politician who had condemned him to death: "I die the King's good servant, but God's first."
Like Thomas More, David Carlin
is a Catholic, not a partisan --- a 21st Century Catholic who yearns to be his Party's good servant, but God's first.
Which is why three years ago, his anguish drove him to determine
which principles and policies you and I as Catholics are bound in conscience
to support, and which we cannot abide if we choose to remain Catholic.
Armed with that knowledge, and proceeding with the patience
and clear-sightedness of a lifelong Catholic knowing that he may soon be
called to account by God, Carlin then evaluated the many policies of his
Party that trouble him (policies that some would now have the Republican
Party embrace, too).
The result is Can a Catholic Be a Democrat?, the
most lucid, informative, even-handed Catholic evaluation of the Democratic
Party available today.
With great sorrow, Carlin concludes that, on issues concerned with human life, sex, faith, morality, suffering --- and the public policies that stem from them --- his once beloved Democratic Party has become, like Henry VIII, the enemy of the Catholic Faith.
*
As did St. Thomas More before him, Carlin then asks, "As a believing Catholic, how much can I tolerate?" "Where must I take my stand?"
*
What about you?
As politicians
in both Parties embrace ever more positions that attack central teachings of
our Church, can you stay silent . . . or even vote for them?
And if
you do, will you,
at the end of the day, be able to face God and say, "I die my Party's good servant, but God's first"?
*
"In a storm," Thomas More said, "don't abandon ship just because you can't control the wind."
You and I can't control the anti-Catholic winds blowing
through the major political parties today, but, with David Carlin's help, we
can learn what, as Catholics, we can do --- nay, must do ---
if, as did St. Thomas More, we are to stay engaged in politics and faithful
to God and His Church.
*
Can a Catholic Be a Democrat? will:
May St. Thomas More pray for us, and for all Catholic politicians!
John Barger
Publisher |
||||
Can a Catholic Be a Democrat?
by David Carlin $14.95 paperback 256 pages ORDER ONLINE or call: 1-800-888-9344 1-603-641-9344
(Please forward this
e-mail to others
who might be interested in it.) |
||||
No comments:
Post a Comment