Thank you to those of you who responded to my OP. While I appreciated the thoughtful responses, I am always surprised by the uncharitable/snippy responses by Catholic posters on this website. But oh well…
So I see the answers to my concerns falling into a couple categories:
- Your source is flawed, therefore the question is invalid (do more research etc.)
- STM did not directly incinerate people, therefore he is not responsible.
- Other Saints slaughtered people; therefore STM is given a pass as well.
- The people burned alive deserved it because they committed other crimes.
- I don’t know how a Saint is made, therefore I can’t question who is a Saint. (i.e. the CC says it’s true, therefore it is)
Let’s look at the first answer: that my source is flawed. I only used wikipedia as a convenience citation. I would cite Peter Ackroyd, The Life of Thomas More as an authoritative work on the life of More. He is no anti-Catholic and his work is regarded with respect. He clearly shows More as authorizing the burning of six people (heretics of course). There are numerous other respected historians who back Ackroyd up…take a look for yourself if you like. I do not believe the Church even contradicts the claims of these modern historians. STM himself was a ferevent supporter of the burning of heretics as can be seen in his own writings (see More, “The confutacyon of Tyndales answere” where he calls his first victim/executed a “the devil’s stinking martyr”).
The argument that STM did not directly incinerate people therefore negating his guilt is ridiculous. Whether or not he lit the match under the peoples’ feet is irrelevant. He specifically authorized (and by all accounts I have seen) encouraged the burning of Protestant dissidents. Please show me a source that says otherwise and I would be happy to concede that he did not authorize the burning of people. There is zero evidence that he opposed these murders.
Another interesting answer to my concern was that STM is no different than St. Paul, as Paul also killed people. Of course this answer is a classic example of “two wrongs make a right” and also acts as a Red Herring. St. Paul renounced his sins against Christ and converted. There is no evidence that I have found that STM did any such thing.
A really strange argument is that the people burned alive were deserving of such treatment because, as the poster wrote: “St. Thomas More wasn’t the one who actually burned them. And many of the heretics that were burned were guilty of a number of other things, like enticing rioting, destruction and theft of Church property from their iconoclastic frenzies, the attacking of laymen and clergy, and general gang-like violence…” Certainly these alleged atrocities would not absolve STM of his complicity in burning other human beings. It doesn’t seem very “saintly” behavior at all.
The final answer to my concerns is that I don’t know how a saint is made a Saint. Well…I do (just take my word on it please). One of the posters stated that we honor STM because of his martyrdom and we do not honor him for his actions as a civil administrator. Considering he is the patron Saint of politicians, I would have to disagree with the contention that he is not to be honored for his actions as a…politician. In fact, he was martyred specifically because the political tide turned away from More in the Tudor monarchy.
I basically have a hard time swallowing the idea that a man who intentionally burned (either through participation or authorization) other people and who never renounced his actions should be Sainted. If as Catholics we cannot admit that people who incinerate other humans (unrepentant) deserve to be shunned and not venerated, how can we ever face the atrocities of our own time? Hiding behind intellectual arguments of infallibility won’t get us anywhere with people outside our faith as our justifications appear only as the flawed logic of an appeal to authority.
