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We need more Thomas More's
By Michael Coren
August 6, 2009
Michael Coren
The cell at the Tower of London in which Thomas More spent his final months is no longer open to the public. It’s simply too small to accommodate the 2.5-million tourists who visit this unique historical location every year and, anyway, when it was formerly part of the open display one particularly zealous pilgrim threw herself on the stone floor in a crucifix position and could not be removed for four hours.
The great Sir Thomas, renowned for his sense of humour, would surely have appreciated the pithy absurdity of the situation. He certainly appreciated his own dilemma and also the ease with which the doors could have opened and his freedom and reputation restored. All he had to do was deny church teaching, agree to an end to papal supremacy and abandon his support for genuine marriage.
The great Sir Thomas, renowned for his sense of humour, would surely have appreciated the pithy absurdity of the situation. He certainly appreciated his own dilemma and also the ease with which the doors could have opened and his freedom and reputation restored. All he had to do was deny church teaching, agree to an end to papal supremacy and abandon his support for genuine marriage.
So it’s impossible not to understand in this harsh, compellingly beautiful but coldly unforgiving room the contemporary resonance of More’s heroism when we compare him as a statesman to those men and women in Canadian politics who claim to be Catholic but work and vote against fundamental Catholic doctrine. They do so with the usual chant that we must separate church and state and that their personal views must not influence their public policies. Which is one of the most disingenuous utterances ever to bruise the body politic.
Truth is not geographical. If it’s true in a church or a home it’s true in a parliament or a courtroom. If it’s true, it’s true. If unborn life is sacred, if marriage can only be between a man and a woman, if unjust war is wrong, if exploitation of the poor and weak is immoral, it’s always the case. We would think little of a man who loved his wife when in Canada but was unfaithful when on vacation. Or someone who told the truth to one person, an untruth to another. The first is an adulterer, the second a liar.
On the abortion and marriage issues in particular it is not that ostensibly Catholic politicians have found the matters complex but that they have found them inconvenient. Good Lord, if it’s a life or a sacrament it’s not trivial, not a fashion statement, not something mutable and passing like a party platform position. If they’re genuinely Catholic they should be ashamed, if they’re just cultural Catholics they should have the courage to admit the truth.
What so much of it all comes down to, of course, are men and women not living out their Catholic faith. They also failed during Thomas More’s era, when legions of politicians, priests, prelates and people gave in and gave up. That was for the sake of their lives. Today MPs do the same for the sake of their limousines. It would be easier to take if they just told us that their careers were in danger if they voted for the Catholic rather than the party line. Instead they obfuscate with arguments about church and state separation and representing all and not just some of their constituents.
Nonsense! It’s long been established that an MP is not a mere delegate and is elected to guide as well as represent. On the subject of the death penalty, for example, it may well be that the majority of a riding support capital punishment but few MPs would then feel obliged to vote for hanging. This is about pleasing media rather than the masses. Certainly more about media than Holy Masses.
When it comes to the separation of church and state, this American and not Canadian concept concerns the protection of the freedom of individual Christians rather than the threat of the interference of Christian ethics into national politics. Anybody who does not understand that does not understand the history of a country formed by people like Baptist minister Tommy Douglas or Catholic priests and nuns building public hospitals and establishing free education.
Thomas More loved life, was not physically brave and had so much for which to live. But he had more for which to die. Truth and the church. As important now as it was in the 16th century. A photo of the cell in the Tower to everyone in Ottawa please.
Truth is not geographical. If it’s true in a church or a home it’s true in a parliament or a courtroom. If it’s true, it’s true. If unborn life is sacred, if marriage can only be between a man and a woman, if unjust war is wrong, if exploitation of the poor and weak is immoral, it’s always the case. We would think little of a man who loved his wife when in Canada but was unfaithful when on vacation. Or someone who told the truth to one person, an untruth to another. The first is an adulterer, the second a liar.
On the abortion and marriage issues in particular it is not that ostensibly Catholic politicians have found the matters complex but that they have found them inconvenient. Good Lord, if it’s a life or a sacrament it’s not trivial, not a fashion statement, not something mutable and passing like a party platform position. If they’re genuinely Catholic they should be ashamed, if they’re just cultural Catholics they should have the courage to admit the truth.
What so much of it all comes down to, of course, are men and women not living out their Catholic faith. They also failed during Thomas More’s era, when legions of politicians, priests, prelates and people gave in and gave up. That was for the sake of their lives. Today MPs do the same for the sake of their limousines. It would be easier to take if they just told us that their careers were in danger if they voted for the Catholic rather than the party line. Instead they obfuscate with arguments about church and state separation and representing all and not just some of their constituents.
Nonsense! It’s long been established that an MP is not a mere delegate and is elected to guide as well as represent. On the subject of the death penalty, for example, it may well be that the majority of a riding support capital punishment but few MPs would then feel obliged to vote for hanging. This is about pleasing media rather than the masses. Certainly more about media than Holy Masses.
When it comes to the separation of church and state, this American and not Canadian concept concerns the protection of the freedom of individual Christians rather than the threat of the interference of Christian ethics into national politics. Anybody who does not understand that does not understand the history of a country formed by people like Baptist minister Tommy Douglas or Catholic priests and nuns building public hospitals and establishing free education.
Thomas More loved life, was not physically brave and had so much for which to live. But he had more for which to die. Truth and the church. As important now as it was in the 16th century. A photo of the cell in the Tower to everyone in Ottawa please.
Michael Coren