Why is Thomas More a saint?

[Patricia_Lytle]

I would like to know why St. Thomas More was canonized a saint. Granted, he was very faithful to the faith and was martyred because of it, but he burned heretics. Isn’t that barbaric? Jesus was against killing people. In fact, he defended the woman caught in adultery. It seems to me executing people for their beliefs, no matter how wrong you may think they are, is not what Jesus would have done.

 

[Michelle_Arnold]

St. Thomas More should be judged by the standards of his time, not by the sensitivities of our own. In his time, spreading heresy was considered to be an even worse crime than murder because, while murder killed the body, heresy could destroy an immortal soul. In his official capacity as chancellor of England, More enforced the anti-heresy laws, just as we would expect an attorney general to enforce anti-murder laws today. Since, in his day, heresy was considered a capital crime and the death penalty was within the purview of the state, More was not wrong to enforce the death penalty, anymore than a judge today would be wrong to sentence to death someone whose case met the qualifications for doing so.

In the centuries since, both the Church and state have developed their respective understandings of when the death penalty should be levied. We now understand that while formal and deliberate heresy may still qualify as a mortal sin, neither the Church nor the state should seek the death penalty to punish it. I have no doubt that were St. Thomas More alive today, he would submit to the Church and state’s respective authorities in the matter. That’s what saints do.