ST. THOMAS MORE, PATRON OF STATESMEN

VATICAN CITY, OCT 26, 2000 (VIS) - This morning in the Holy See Press Office, Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, president of the Central Committee for the Great Jubilee 2000, presided at a conference on the presentation by the Pope of St. Thomas More as patron saint of statesmen on October 31.

Cardinal Etchegaray affirmed that John Paul II is presenting "a great gift" to people in government in giving them St. Thomas More as their patron saint, "a patron of such high standing, one appropriate for all those who must manage public affairs."

St. Thomas More, born on February 7, 1478, was "a brilliant lawyer in the City of London. By the age of 27 he was a member of parliament, later becoming its speaker and then Lord Chancellor of the kingdom, the first layman to hold this high office. Thomas More was a source of fascination to his contemporaries throughout Europe. ... Author of the extraordinary 'Utopia', he cultivated the arts but also wore a cilice. He was a man submerged in public affairs but also an attentive father to his four children and a daily attendant at Mass. He fully lived the evangelical design: be in the world without being of the world. He took on the dual role of Martha and Maria."

The cardinal further recalled that "at the age of 55, at the height of his glory and power, he resigned for reasons of conscience, so as not to have to turn a blind eye to flagrant injustices. Three years later, he spent 15 months in prison during which he wrote his last book on Christ's Passion. He was beheaded for having refused, courteously but firmly, to cede to the will of his king who wanted to make the Church subject to the State. It was July 6, 1535." Fifteen days after his execution, Bishop John Fisher of Rochester met the same fate.

Cardinal Etchegaray said that "John Paul II, in proclaiming Thomas More as patron saint of government leaders and politicians, wishes to remind them of the absolute priority of God even in the heart of public affairs. At a time when consciences are eclipsed, the Pope shows us all a man who preferred death to life through loyalty to his conscience, a conscience that has not ceased to illuminate in the light of God and of wise counsel, one far from all fanaticism and bias."

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