Politicians worldwide wrote a letter to the Holy Father requesting that Saint Thomas More be declared patron of governors and politicians. The Pope's affirmative response was announced Thursday. Following is the text of the politicians letter to John Paul II.Most Blessed Father, for centuries the figure of the martyr Saint Thomas More has inspired sincere veneration by Christian people. Moreover, the world of culture and politics goes deeply into the multiple aspects of his life and work, with ever more detailed studies and growing interest, both in the ambit of theoretical as well as practical knowledge. The specialized bibliography constantly increases and presents significant characteristics: in the first place, it unites authors of different churches and Christian communities (Sir Thomas More appears in the liturgical calendar of the Anglican Church as "martyr"), as well as several religious confessions, and agnostics are not missing from their number, a fact that evidences a truly universal interest. Moreover, from the study of that bibliography is derived an admiration that, beyond the contribution of Saint Thomas More in the different sectors in which he acted -- as humanist, apologist, judge and legislator, diplomat and statesman, is concentrated in his human figure: if sanctity is always of itself the fullness of the human, in the case of Saint Thomas More this fact is especially tangible.
Already Your Holiness' predecessor in the chair of Peter, Pope Pius XI, in the Bull of Canonization, proposed him as model of proven integrity of customs for all Christians and defined him "laicorum hominum decus et omamentum." And the growing attraction that this extraordinary figure exercises precisely among the laity, speaks to us of a presence that with the passage of time becomes ever more alive, incisive, and permanently actual.
Saint Thomas More appears as the model of that unity of life in which Your Holiness articulated the specific expression of sanctity for the laity: "The unity of life of the lay faithful has great importance. In fact, they must sanctify themselves in ordinary professional and social life. Therefore, in order that they be able to respond to their vocation, the lay faithful must consider the activities of daily life as an occasion of union with God and fulfillment of his will, as well as of service to other men" (apostolic exhortation "Christifidelis Laici," n. 17). In Saint Thomas More there was no sign whatever of that break between faith and culture, between principles and daily life, which Vatican Council II laments "as one of the gravest errors of our age" (pastoral constitution "Gaudium et Spes," n. 43).
In humanistic activity, in which he cultivated English, Latin and Greek, as well as philosophy, especially political philosophy, and theology, he united study and piety, culture and asceticism, thirst for truth and quest for virtue through a hard but joyful interior struggle. As lawyer and judge, he directed the interpretation and formulation of laws (he is considered, precisely, one of the founders of the science of English common law) to the tutelage of true social justice and the construction of peace among individuals and nations. More concerned with eliminating violence in its causes than in suppressing it, he did not separate the passionate but prudent promotion of the common good from the constant practice of charity: in fact, his fellow-citizens named him "patron of the poor." Benevolent and unconditional dedication to justice in respect for liberty and the human person was the guide of his conduct as magistrate. Serving each man, Saint Thomas More was conscious of serving his King, that is to say, the State, but above all, he wanted to serve God.
This tension toward God permeated all his conduct. His family, for whom he made efforts to give a high level of moral instruction, was called by his contemporaries a "Christian academy." In his facet as a public man he demonstrated that he was an absolute enemy of favoritism and the privileges of power: he professed an exemplary detachment from honors and posts and at the same time, lived his condition of most high servant of the King in simplicity and humility.
Faithful until the last consequences of his civil duties, he exposed himself to extreme risks to serve his own country. He was able to be a perfect servant of the State because he struggled to be a perfect Christian. "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's" (Mt 22,21): Saint Thomas More understood that these words of Christ, which on one hand affirm the relative autonomy of the temporal in relation to the spiritual, and on the other - in so far as pronounced by God himself - oblige the conscience of the Christian to project the Gospel values on the civil sphere, rejecting all compromise and arriving, if necessary, at the heroism of martyrdom, of a martyrdom that he faced personally with profound humility.
His martyrdom, within the limits of prudence with which the imperfect history of men must be examined, is the supreme proof of this unity of values -- fruit of the assiduous search for truth and of a no less tenacious interior struggle -- to which Saint Thomas More knew how to condition all his life. His extraordinary good humor, his perennial serenity, his attentive consideration of positions contrary to his own and sincere forgiveness of those who condemned him show how his coherence was combined with a profound respect for others' liberty.
Precisely the timeliness of this convergence of political responsibility and moral coherence, of this harmony between the supernatural and the human, of this unity of life without residues, has moved numerous public personalities of various countries of the world to express their adhesion to the Committee for the proclamation of Sir Thomas More, Saint and Martyr, as Patron of Governors. Among the signatories of the present instance there are Catholics and non-Catholics: they are men of State who exercize their activity in very heterogeneous political and cultural circumstances, but who share one same sensitivity given More's example, a fruitful example that, beyond the mere art of government, includes the indispensable virtues of good government.
For him politics was never a profession for selfish ends, but an often arduous service for which he prepared conscientiously not only with the study of history, law, and culture of his own country but, above all, through a patient examination of human nature, with its greatness and weaknesses, and of the ever perfectible conditions of social life. He found his course in politics in assiduous personal effort at understanding. Thanks to that effort he was able to show the correct hierarchy of ends that, in virtue of the primacy of Truth over power and of Good over utility, all government must pursue. He always directed his action in view of the final ends, those ends that no historical change can ever annul.
Therein lies the strength that sustained him when he had to face martyrdom. He was a martyr of liberty in the most modern sense of the term, because he was opposed to the pretension of power to dominate over consciences, a perennial temptation -- tragically attested by the history of the 20th century -- of political systems that do not recognize anything above themselves. Faithful to the institutions of his people - Ecclesia anglicana libera sit, the Magna Charta stated - and attentive to the lessons of history, which showed him that the primacy of Peter constitutes a guarantee of liberty for the local Churches, Saint Thomas More gave his life to defend a Church free from the dominion of the State. At the same time he was also defending liberty and the primacy of the citizen's conscience in face of civil power.
He was a martyr of liberty because he was a martyr of the primacy of conscience, a primacy that, solidly rooted in the search for truth, makes us fully responsible for our decisions and, therefore, free from all bonds that are not proper to the created being, that is, the bond that unites us to God. His holiness has reminded us that the moral conscience correctly understood is "testimony of God himself, whose voice and whose judgment penetrate the interior of man to the roots of his soul" (encyclical "Veritatis Splendor," n. 58). We think this is the fundamental lesson of Saint Thomas More to the men of government: the lesson of fleeing from success and easy consensus when a ban is placed on fidelity to principles that can never be given up, on which the dignity of man and the justice of civil order depend. And we think it is a highly inspiring lesson for all those who, on the threshold of the new Millennium, feel themselves called to ward off dissimulated and insidious but recurring new tyrannies.
Because of this, certain of acting for the good of the future society, and trusting that our supplication will meet with benevolent acceptance by Your Holiness, we request that Sir Thomas More, Saint and Martyr, faithful servant of the King, but above all of God, be proclaimed "Patron of the Men of Government."
