IMAGE: CNS photo/Tyler Orsburn
By Mark Pattison
WASHINGTON
(CNS) — A new exhibit featuring artifacts revolving around St. Thomas More has
opened at the St. John Paul II National Shrine in Washington.
Titled “God’s
Servant First: The Life and Legacy of Thomas More,” the exhibit runs through
March 31. The title comes from what are believed to be More’s last words before
going to the chopping block where he was beheaded: “I die the king’s good servant, and God’s servant
first.”
Nearly
all of the 60 or so items in the exhibit come from Stonyhurst College in
England, according to Jan Graffius, the curator of collections at Stonyhurst, a
Jesuit institution. The Knights of Columbus and Stonyhurst’s Christian Heritage Center organized the exhibit and are its sponsors.
To be
able to have so many artifacts is remarkable, Graffius told Catholic News
Service Sept. 15, the day before the exhibit opened, as she and her team were putting
the finishing touches on the exhibit. King Henry VIII, who had St. Thomas More imprisoned
in the Tower of London for more than a year before his execution, and
subsequent monarchs had made Roman Catholicism virtually illegal and had all traces
of Catholicism wiped out.
St.
Thomas More, a lawyer and the
first layman to serve as chancellor of England, had balked at helping Henry VIII obtain an annulment so he could
marry Anne Boleyn in hopes of bearing him a son to be heir to the throne. After
the pope denied the annulment, Henry declared himself head of the church in
England, conferring upon himself the power to divorce and marry whomever he
pleased.
More, who also was a husband and father,
resigned his position as chancellor to the throne to avoid being forced to
acknowledge Henry VIII as head of the church. But after a law was passed requiring
acknowledgment by all Britons of Henry’s authority, More refused to sign a
document stating as such. He was ultimately imprisoned, convicted of a capital treason
with the help of perjured testimony, and beheaded. He has since been seen as a
champion of conscience rights.
The
luckless first wife of Henry VIII, Catherine of Aragon, spent her last days
before her own death, possibly from poisoning, embroidering grapes onto a chasuble. That
chasuble is in the exhibit.
Anne Boleyn
wasn’t all that lucky, either. After bearing a daughter — Elizabeth I — and later
miscarrying, she fell into Henry’s disfavor, was imprisoned on trumped-up
charges of adultery, incest and treason, was herself beheaded 11 months after
Thomas More, and buried not far from him, Graffius said.
Two relics
in the exhibit made their way to the United States a few months ahead of the
rest of the artifacts. One is a jawbone fragment of St. Thomas More; the other
is a ring worn by St. John Fisher, who was also martyred under Henry VIII. Both
were on exhibit during the U.S. bishops’ “Fortnight for Freedom” activities in
June and July.
The anti-Catholic
laws imposed by Henry VIII stayed on the books in England for nearly three
centuries until they were repealed in 1829. In 1886, St. Thomas More was
beatified. In 1935, both he and St. John Fisher, who had been executed a few
months before More, were both canonized. St. Thomas More was added to the
Anglican calendar of saints in 1980.
Because
of the anti-Catholic laws, Graffius said, Catholic parents had to sneak their
children out of the country, sometimes under false identities, so they could
receive a Catholic education. One of those schools was in the Spanish
Netherlands — mostly modern-day Belgium and Luxembourg — and was the
forerunner to Stonyhurst College.
St.
Thomas More was part of the martyrology proclaimed every day at the school. The
exhibit includes a schoolbook used by two brothers who eventually made their
way to the United States. On one page of the book, an illustration of two men was
defaced when one of the students sketched the men as smoking pipes. To this
day, she added, nobody knows whether the pipes were added by John Carroll, the
first Catholic archbishop in the United States, or his brother Charles Carroll,
the only Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence.
In
2000, St. John Paul II made St. Thomas More, who had already been the patron
saint of lawyers, the patron saint of statesman and politicians. The pontiff said his life and martyrdom offered a testimony that “spans the centuries” and
“speaks to people everywhere of the inalienable dignity of the human
conscience.”
Patrick Kelly, the shrine’s executive director, said in a statement that St. Thomas More’s example “remains thoroughly modern.”
“He is an
eloquent example of courageous Christian discipleship, and it is our hope that
this exhibit will inspire others to imitate his virtues and his extraordinary
fidelity to God and to a well-formed conscience,” Kelly added.
The
exhibit comes during the golden anniversary of the 1966 film biography of St.
Thomas More, “A Man for All Seasons.” Recently restored with a new Technicolor
print, “A Man for All Seasons” — based on the stage play of the same name — grossed
the fifth-best box office numbers of the year, a stunning accomplishment given
that it wasn’t released until Dec. 12 that year and the weightiness of its
subject matter.
The
movie was nominated for eight Oscars and won six, including Best Picture, Best
Director for Fred Zinneman and Best Actor for Paul Scofield as Thomas More. It
also won five British Academy Film Awards and four Golden Globes, as well as a Best
Actor award for Scofield at the Moscow International Film Festival.
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