Posted on 06/22/2006 7:36:40 AM PDT by Pyro7480
When Henry VIII began to dally with the idea of putting away his Queen Catherine and replacing her with Anne Boleyn, it was only natural that one of his earliest bids for support should go to John Fisher, one of the most eminent men of the day. He had been a model bishop of the Diocese of Rochester for twenty-three years, in an age when the lives of many bishops were less than edifying. For the same length of time he had been Chancellor of the University of Cambridge and had guided it out of the doldrums into new learning of the Renaissance. Erasmus, whom he had brought to Cambridge to introduce the study of Greek, said of him, "He is the one man of this tune who is incomparable for uprightness of life, for learning and greatness of soul."
Fisher had years ago been a favorite of Henry's father and grandmother. He had often been a member of the king's Privy Council, was a natural leader in the House of Lords and among the clergy, and was universally recognized for piety and learning. If at the outset the king had been able to engage the support of this venerable prelate, laden with years and honors, he could reasonably expect to avoid many difficulties.
To accomplish this treachery against his wife of 18 years, Henry affected religious scruples about the validity of his marriage. In particular, Henry's piety was troubled by the possibility that Pope Julius II had erred in granting the dispensation which made possible his marriage with Catherine. If the pope had exceeded his powers, then Henry and Catherine had been living in sin—and no wonder God had cursed them with only female issue! Henry had Wolsey, the ambitious and worldly Cardinal, put the matter to Fisher in June, 1527, after swearing the saint to secrecy. In September came his opinion: Henry and Catherine were true man and wife, their daughters were legitimate, and what God had joined no man should sunder. When Henry later objected that Fisher could not be so positive on a matter which was very obscure, Fisher replied that it was obscure only to those who had not looked into it but was quite plain to those who had studied it.
If Henry's devious purposes had not been apparent to John Fisher from the beginning, the king's ruthless determination to have his way soon became apparent to all. In the proceedings against the Queen, Fisher had been appointed one of her counsellors, yet he found it difficult to get to see her. Henry attacked from other directions. He apparently encouraged the House of Commons to raise complaints about the clergy (it was easy in those days to recite valid complaints) and to demand impossible reforms. When Bishop Fisher, spokesman for the hierarchy, rejected the reforms, Henry attacked him for being whimsical and arbitrary.
Another tactic Henry used concerned a religious visionary known as the Maid of Kent. This woman, who was probably demented, denounced the king's divorce proceedings to all and sundry, including the king himself on one occasion. When Henry learned that Fisher had once heard her denunciations, he demanded to know why the bishop had failed to report these treasonable utterances. Was he in some disloyal league with the woman?
These affronts were doubtless irksome but they in no way clouded St. John Fisher's clear perception of the issues. He had had many years of experience in which God had prepared him to confront this crucial phase of the Reformation. He was a model spiritual shepherd in his diocese, despite the demands of the university and the government—visiting his parishes, examining his clergy, inspecting religious institutions, promoting the sacraments, and preaching, a practice which he was always anxious to foster. At the end of a weary day of official duties in an out-of-the-way part of his diocese, the saintly bishop would search out the hovels of the poor, bringing the sacraments to the infirm and the healing words of the Gospel to all. And he was a man of prayer. When his goods were confiscated near the end of his life, the searchers were especially anxious to open a certain chest which Fisher had never allowed anyone to see the contents of. In it to their chagrin they found a scourge and, badly worn and crudely patched, a hair shirt.
As part of his episcopal duties Fisher had also acquired a particularly solid grasp of the new heretical ideas. He had watched the quaint old Lollard ideas dissolve into the more coherent and more pernicious Lutheran ones. To the first hand experience of these things he added the careful reflection entailed in writing half a dozen books refuting the Lutheran ideas—books which, incidentally, established his reputation for learning and wisdom throughout Europe.
A character so formed and a faith so strong was not to be deflected by Henry's intimidating ploys. Nor did the king use indirection for long. He had his new Archbishop of Canterbury grant his divorce in spite of Rome. He insisted that a convocation of England's hierarchy should confer on him the title "Protector and Supreme Head of the English Church and Clergy."
Fisher led the opposition to this, almost alone. When in his sickbed Fisher heard that nearly all the prelates had signed an oath affirming Henry's supremacy and repudiating the pope's authority, he said, "The fort is betrayed," thus laying the blame more on perfidious ecclesiastics than on the willful king. The bishops and clergy who betrayed the Church at this point—about 95%—did so sheepishly and reluctantly as men violating their consciences. Only later in the century, under Elizabeth, did there develop clerics who were zealous and self-confident protestantizers, the puritans. When someone asked Fisher why he made such a commotion about the king's bed partners, he replied that Saint John the Baptist had not disdained marriage as a cause worth giving his head for.
In April, 1534, St. John Fisher, along with St. Thomas More, were summoned to take the oath and, both refusing, were confined to London Tower. While More and Fisher were of one mind and faith, their conduct was different because of their different states in life. More, a lay lawyer and politician, could refuse to speak about a subject on everyone's lips, and his silence spoke volumes. Fisher on the other hand had a duty actively to resist the annulment of ecclesiastical authority, an especially binding duty since most ecclesiastics had refused it.
The clever chicanery which finally proved Fisher to be a traitor—why do they even bother with such travesties?—was this: In May, 1535, Richard Rich came to Fisher in the Tower with a tale that the king's tender conscience was deeply troubled about whether it was sinful for him to claim to be the supreme head of the church. He was, said Rich, a troubled Christian seeking spiritual counsel of his father in God, and Fisher's advice would reach no ears but the king's. Although a recent law had made it treasonable to say so, Fisher declared that Henry could not be supreme head. Well, naturally, a few days later Fisher's advice was paraded out in public court as evidence of a malicious defiance of royal prerogative, a treason for which the court ordered him hanged, drawn and quartered.
The king in his mercy remitted the sentence to beheading. Accordingly, on June 22, 1535, Saint John Fisher was led under powerful armed guard from the Tower to nearby Tower Hill. He was seventy-one years old, marvelously emaciated, hardly able to walk. An early biographer reports that upon the scaffold he spoke: I am come here to die for Christ's Catholic Church. And I thank God…”
"These words, or words to like effect, he then spoke with a cheerful countenance and with such a stout and constant courage as one no wit afraid but glad to suffer death. And these words spoke he so distinctly and perceivably and also with such a strong and loud voice that it made all the people astonished, and noted it in a manner as a miracle to hear so plain, strong and loud a voice come out of so old, weak and sickly a carcass.
"[When his sermon and prayers were done] he laid him down on his belly, flat on the floor of the scaffold, and laid his lean neck upon a little block....And then came quickly the executioner with a sharp and heavy ax cut asunder his neck, and so severed the head from the body, his holy soul departing to the bliss of heaven.
"Then the executioner took away his bishop's clothes and his shirt and left his headless body lying there naked upon the scaffold almost all day after. Yet one at last for pity and for humanity cast a little straw upon the dead man's privities."
His body was buried, finally, without ceremony, coffin or shroud, in the bare earth, but it soon had to be removed because of the crowds which came to venerate him.
The head was parboiled and mounted on a pole on London Bridge. There it remained for two weeks "very fresh and lively " until it was thrown into the river and its place taken by the head of St. Thomas More.
St. John Fisher was beatified on 9 December 1886 and canonized on 19 April 1935.
Sancte Johannes, ora pro nobis.
Don't you think they are directly related? Do they have anything to do with an individuals religious belief?
How would it be betrayal, if the paper was signed, and you swore allegiance...but did not believe it yourself? Wouldn't God know what was in your heart?
I have never said that I see the point in faith.
My beliefs are my property, too, since they are proper to me. If someone asks me to give them up, shouldn't I fight for what's mine? If you have a belief, but can't act upon it, you're not free. Which is why people die for their beliefs.
Jesus told us this would happen to us because of our beliefs in Him and that whoever would persevere to the end would be saved.
Why die for something you believe is the truth, when the guy next to you can say, no, that's not the truth, and you can't prove it is....
Jesus died for the truth. He proved He was the Truth through His death.
That is not to advocate we are on the same level, but that death is not always meaningless.
Would you say that a soldier fighting in defense of his country dies a meaningless death? I dare to venture that since you are on FR you would not have that mind set. Why is it any different when a Christian dies defending their beliefs?
Religious beliefs are not tangible, so I don't see any reason to die for them....you can always have them, and still stay alive. I think God will know what is in your heart, no matter what you may say.
Our beliefs on Jesus differ. A soldier fighting in defense of his country, is not fighting for his religious beliefs.
Do you try and come off as an ass intentionally?
Not really. God is.... whether we can prove it or not.
To an atheist, it's just an opinion, not a fact. In which case, according to the relativist, the atheist is equally correct.
God has his own reasons for denying all of us certainty with regard to His existence and nature. Those with faith ought not to feel superior.
Society seems better without homosexuality.
Since people have differing views, the opposite must be true as well.
Those wouldn't be in the majority so if it turns out their point of view is closer to the truth it wouldn't matter anyway.
You're unclear on the concept. The point is, it doesn't matter what you or anyone else thinks if there's no universal truth.
I think the lack of clarity belongs to you. You have adopted the "either/or", position in the debate that so many dogmatists are fond of. The fact that we exist in the universe is evidence of some kind of universal truth. Its your strawman that assumes a position for others.
But I think we'd all die for certain principles.
But that's just dumb.
You should know.
We differ in our beliefs. How would denying your religion in order to stay alive...while in your heart you know it isn't true....reduce your ability to influence, I would think the opposite. It would show that whatever you say out loud to your oppresors, doesn't mean squat, what is important, is to stay alive and keep telling others to do the same, and eventually increase your numbers enough to overcome.
Again, this truth you speak of, is relative to the individuls, as not all people agree on what is the truth and it cannot be proven...it is a belief.
I think that persevering while alive, is much more effective.
Isn't martyrdom essentially suicide...taking the easy way out, instead of possibly spending the rest of your life holding to your beliefs, yet not being able to express them?
IT would cause scandal to those who followed him as a bishop. It could lead them to disbelief, and as a father to his congregation he would have misled them. Christ said it would be better to die than to lead a child to sin, I believe this was both a literal and metaphorical statement.
In the end, it boils down to whether or not you believe truth is. What does it profit a man to gain the world but lose his soul?
But why believe if you deny it, at least publicly, the first moment the going gets hard?
Isn't that most of Christ's followers did when they heard Him preach as recorded in the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John? Did He change His message in order to stay of their good side? No, He repeated what He had said, and then asked who else was going to leave.
How could it lead to disbelief...all he would have to do, is talk to them.
How do you know your soul would be lost? Doesn't suicide mean you lose your soul?
Why not? Why should a religious belief result in pain and death? Saying smething outloud doesn't change what's in your heart, does it?
Can I use a lifeline for this?
God has his own reasons for denying all of us certainty with regard to His existence and nature. Those with faith ought not to feel superior.
Who hijacked this thread again with their smug superiority? Seems to me it was the group insisting that dying for one's faith was stupid. If you want to start a thread on the wonders of "I'm right, you're right", we won't intrude.
Those wouldn't be in the majority so if it turns out their point of view is closer to the truth it wouldn't matter anyway. Ask Robert Smith of Maryland whether the 1% of homosexuals (and their agenda) in the United States have impacted his life.
You have adopted the "either/or", position in the debate that so many dogmatists are fond of.
Dogma is absolute, not negotiable.
The fact that we exist in the universe is evidence of some kind of universal truth.
You can't prove that we exist.
Correct. But our calling is to strive for excellence, not mediocrity. Someone who folds under duress isn't less acceptable to God, but someone who displays uncommon valor in the name of Christ is worthy of even greater glory in heaven. You can pass the course with a D-, but shouldn't we be striving for A's?
I don't think there can be understanding on why martyrdom (in the Christian sense) is desirable if you don't believe we're here for a higher purpose than collecting a Social Security check when we retire. No one is asking you to believe what we believe, but don't come here and demean our faith and expect everyone to "play nice".
Why not, and who says so, and why should I believe him?
Why is it "okay" to die for a person, but no "okay" to die for an abstract idea, concept, or belief? Doesn't that violate your own relativistic creed? Maybe some people hold adherence to an idea or belief as a higher good than loyalty to a person or country. Prove to me that they shouldn't.
Thousands have seen UFOs also.
70,000 people at one time, in one place?
Well for one thing, is this particular case he would never have had the opprotunity to speak to his people and explain his position. The Catholic church was persecuted by the most barbaric of means during Henry VIII and even worse during Elizabeth. He certainly knew this would be the result.
John Fisher refused to aknowledge a falsehood as true, he did the right thing. The fact that he lost his life because of it was not his choice, but the choice of those who chose to take it. He refused to lie and it cost him his life, this is not suicide since death was not his desired result.
To say something outloud which you do not believe is to lie. Lying is most clearly forbidden by God.
We have all heard the line in some romantic movie about "I would rather die than hurt you." Well, this is it in practice. Rather than violate one of the laws established by God, and insult truth in its very existence, this man chose to die.
He loved God more than he loved himself.
All lying is not forbidden by God anymore than all killing is not forbidden by God. Many lives were spared during the holocaust as a result of lying.
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