[Campion]

About the time Thomas More was proclaiming the supremacy of his conscience over the king's orders, the Catholic church was the driving force in bringing thousands of those it called heretics to their deaths.

"Thousands"? No, that's a gross exaggeration. As the article mentions, More presided over the executions of six heretics (that's *six*, not "thousands") during his time in office. The numbers around the rest of Western Europe are similar.

The real large scale religious persecutions started under Henry VIII *after* he broke with the pope -- read up on the dissolution of the monasteries sometime -- and both sides engaged in bloody atrocities, leading eventually to the massive atrocity of the Thirty Years' War.

It's an historical anachronism to project our ideas about individual freedom of religion back into More's age. Nobody believed it then, not Protestants, not Catholics, not Orthodox ... nobody. Freedom of religion in the West developed in response to the religious wars which followed the reformation, and largely developed on American shores.

The article quite correctly points out that More opposed government control of the church. That's not the same thing as opposing government interference in the religious decisions of individuals, but it is a prerequisite for it. If government controls the church (any church), it's automatically interfering in the religious decisions of individuals who belong to that church.

Give More credit for his correct opinions in the context of his age.

[count-your-change]

“Thousands”? No, that's a gross exaggeration. As the article mentions, More presided over the executions of six heretics (that's *six*, not “thousands”) during his time in office. The numbers around the rest of Western Europe are similar”

Obviously I made no reference to More's executions. Why the confusion of the two I can only guess.
The figure of thousands is correct as Papal decrees called upon secular authorities on threat of excommunication for lack of proper vigor in their work to prosecute a religious war of extermination against groups like the Waldensians of France.

“Freedom of religion in the West developed in response to the religious wars which followed the reformation, and largely developed on American shores.”

Who did Christ order his disciples to persecute and murder?

When I ask this question then come the justifications, the “other guys were worse”, and all the other hand washing arguments to justify murder.

“It's an historical anachronism to project our ideas about individual freedom of religion back into More's age. Nobody believed it then, not Protestants, not Catholics, not Orthodox ... nobody.”

Really? Even a Pharisee knew better than that. (Acts 5:33-41)