Trump Marks 850 Years Since Archbishop Thomas Becket’s Murder By Calling For End To Religious Persecution
By Jon Brown
Dec 29, 2020
DailyWire.com
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President Donald Trump issued a proclamation Monday commemorating the 850th anniversary of St. Thomas Becket’s martyrdom and used his example to call for an end to religious persecution worldwide.
“Today is the 850th anniversary of the martyrdom of Saint Thomas Becket on December 29, 1170. Thomas Becket was a statesman, a scholar, a chancellor, a priest, an archbishop, and a lion of religious liberty,” Trump’s proclamation began.
“Before the Magna Carta was drafted, before the right to free exercise of religion was enshrined as America’s first freedom in our glorious Constitution, Thomas gave his life so that, as he said, ‘the Church will attain liberty and peace,” he continued. . . .
. . . Trump went on to briefly sketch out Becket’s biography: an English archbishop who was murdered by four knights of King Henry II in Canterbury Cathedral on Dec. 29, 1170, after famously resisting the monarch’s attempts to curb the power of the church with the Constitutions of Clarendon.
When Becket refused to agree to the king’s legislation, the proclamation explained, “the furious King Henry II threatened to hold him in contempt of royal authority and questioned why this ‘poor and humble’ priest would dare defy him, Archbishop Becket responded ‘God is the supreme ruler, above Kings’ and ‘we ought to obey God rather than men.'”
Tracing Becket’s legacy through the Magna Carta and to the religious liberty enshrined in American law, the proclamation continued:
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Because Thomas would not assent to rendering the church subservient to the state, he was forced to forfeit all his property and flee his own country. Years later, after the intervention of the Pope, Becket was allowed to return — and continued to resist the King’s oppressive interferences into the life of the church. Finally, the King had enough of Thomas Becket’s stalwart defense of religious faith and reportedly exclaimed in consternation: “Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?” . . .
