Martin Luther King once said, “If a man hasn’t found something worth dying for then he isn’t fit to live.”  Ultimately King paid the price for speaking out for the rights of black Americans.

Today we remember another person who spoke truth to power and paid with his life, Thomas More, whose feast day it is in the Catholic Church.

On the block before he was beheaded he spoke the words, “I die the Kings good servant but God’s first.”

Thomas More, who this blog is named after, was born on the 7^th February 1478 and executed 6^th July 1535. More, a lawyer, judge, social philosopher, author, statesman, and noted renaissance humanist and author of Utopia had been Lord High Chancellor under King Henry VIII.

He refused to take the Oath of Supremacy and was convicted for treason. He refused to accept Henry VIII self proclaiming himself head of the Church in England in place of the pope regarded by Catholics as the successor to Christ on earth. Henry wanted a divorce from Catherine of Aragon which Rome refused, so that he could marry Anne Boleyn.

What King Henry VIII did changed the political and religious landscape of the country right up to the present.

Thomas More proved himself one of the greatest Englishmen of history.

Today’s celebration of the life and death of Thomas More is a reminder that speaking truth to power is as important as ever. Yes racism in all its forms must go, but so too the killing of innocent life in the womb. The immutable plan of God for family life, upon which the health and well being of humanity is dependant, is under threat. The destruction of our eco systems through climate change threatens the planet and the trampling down of human dignity by ideological and power obsessed oligarchies is all too real.

“Truth crushed to the earth will one day rise again.” Martin Luther King

“One of the greatest problems of our times is that many are schooled but few are educated.” Thomas More.