![\"\"](\"http:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/Thomas-Hitton1.gif\" "\\"Thomas")
<\/a>Burned at the stake by a defender of freedom?<\/p><\/div><\/a>From <\/a>The New York Times<\/em><\/em>:<\/p>\n Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan on Friday helped kick off a national campaign opposing President Obama\u2019s health care mandates and other government policies that Roman Catholic leaders say threaten their religious freedom\u2026<\/p>\n The bishops timed the two-week campaign of prayer, fasting and letter-writing to begin on a feast day commemorating two 16th-century Catholic saints executed for their religious beliefs \u2014 SS. John Fisher and Thomas More. The campaign will conclude on the Fourth of July.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Well, so long as Dolan is clear that what he is doing is fighting for the religious freedom of Roman Catholic leaders (to use the NYT<\/em>‘s probably unintentionally accurate phraseology), fair enough. For neither More nor Fisher were in favor of religious freedom for those with whom they disagreed. Fisher (then the Archbishop of Canterbury) saw to the burning of Thomas Hitton, the man widely seen as England\u2019s first protestant martyr. As for the proto-totalitarian More, he was when England\u2019s Lord Chancellor, as I noted here<\/a>, a savage ideological enforcer, quite pleased, for example, to support the burning alive (\u201cthe short fyre\u2026[prior to] ye fyre eurlasting\u201d, as he so charmingly put it) of heretics.<\/p>\n The following (I\u2019ve linked to it before<\/a>) is an extract from the largely sympathetic biography of More by the British writer (and Roman Catholic) Peter Ackroyd:<\/p>\n [More] epitomized, in modern terms, the apparatus of the state using its power to crush those attempting to subvert it. His opponents were genuinely following their consciences, while More considered them the harbinger of the devil\u2019s reign on earth. How could there be moderation in any confrontation between them? He was, in large part, successful; he managed to check the more open expression of heretical opinion and thereby prevented it from being accepted piece by piece or gradually condoned. He also disrupted the community of \u2018newe men\u2019 in Antwerp and helped to diminish the flow of banned books into England.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n By linking his current campaign to men like More and Fisher, Dolan reveals more than he perhaps might like about what he understands by the word \u2018freedom\u2019. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From The New York Times: Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan on Friday helped kick off a national campaign opposing President Obama\u2019s health care mandates and other government policies that Roman Catholic leaders say threaten their religious freedom\u2026 The bishops timed the … Continue reading