Abbey-Roads2

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Two martyrs. 

One was a Bishop, the other was a married layman who worked in government.  Both were beheaded for their fidelity to the Pope and standing up for marriage.  Sounds like something that would happen in a communist country, or amongst a pagan tribe in Africa…decades ago maybe.  But it happened in a civilized,  Catholic country.  Indeed centuries ago, but the issues are ever so contemporary.

The men were St. John Fisher (the only Bishop in all of England who denounced the King’s actions), and St. Thomas Moore, beheaded for resisting King Henry VIII’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon to marry Ann Boleyn, which meant they stood in defense of the teachings of the Church and supported the Holy Father.  (Couldn’t they have just pretended to approve?  Or better yet, they could have said their personal beliefs had nothing to do with their politics.)

Something from Chesterton:

“Blessed Thomas Moore is more important at this moment than at any moment since his death, even perhaps the great moment of his dying; but he is not quite so important as he will be in about a hundred years time.  He may come to be counted the greatest Englishman, or at least the greatest historical character in English history.  For he was above all things historic; he represented at once a type, a turning point and an ultimate destiny.  If there had not happened to be that particular man at that particular moment, the whole of history would have been different.”
–G. K. Chesterson, “A Turning Point in History”