We live in a world that desperately needs Thomas More’s wisdom. We need his understanding of God, his understanding of virtue, and his understanding of the complexities of the human person. The Essential Works of Thomas More, edited by Gerard B. Wegemer and Stephen W. Smith (1520 pages, Yale University Press, 2020) Though he’s only [...]
Friendship is a receptive disposition of the soul which is ready to act for the good of the other when called upon, but which does not demand to be called upon. A man has to respect the freedom of his friend, or else a man will end up seeking out his own will to the [...]
The final word on the legacy of John Fisher and Thomas More, and the final judgment (under God) on why we should see them as heroes, is given by G. K. Chesterton, a man who proves in his very self that the killing of More and Fisher did not kill learning, laughter or holiness: "There [...]
The Catholic Church canonized Saints Thomas More and John Fisher in 1935, only two years after the appearance of "The English Way," a work edited by one of the most important Christian humanists and publishers of the twentieth century, Maisie Ward, and which looks at the lives, ideas, and deaths of the great Roman Catholic [...]
If our hearts were truly not in this world but in heaven, all the torments that the world could devise would give us no pain. Let us therefore send our hearts to heaven by sending our wealth there. A Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation, by Thomas More (248 pages, Cluny Media) XIII. Concerning the wise [...]
As the gulf between classical and postmodern notions of conscience and government grows ever wider and their clashes more explosive, it is high time for the jury to give renewed attention to the nuances of Thomas More’s understanding of the apparently competing, but ultimately harmonious, demands of divine, natural, and human law. In August of [...]
Several centuries before Edmund Burke, Thomas More warned against theorizing about the perfect society and advised statesmen to do their best with the form of government their people have passed on to them. Though he himself favored one form of government over another, he admitted that we rarely have the power to create the government [...]
In times of chaos, it’s profoundly necessary to remember those who have come before us and the innumerable sacrifices they made. Each of these great men, whatever his individual faults, sought to live according to the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. They preserved, and they conserved. As a way of perceiving and a habit [...]
In dark days we all need saints and heroes to inspire us. There is no doubt that we live in very dark days, and there is equally no doubt that Anthony Esolen is a great inspiration. It is not for any of us to canonize him, claiming that he is a saint, but anyone who [...]
By thinking through the limits and possibilities of political life, as presented in “Utopia,” the careful reader imitates Cicero and Thomas More by preparing for politics through the careful study of great literature. “The struggle is not merely over an isolated work of genius but over a whole culture”—so says Stephen Greenblatt about Thomas More’s [...]
As we enter a new era, in which successive generations of “post-Christian” policy, ideology, and cultural disintegration render us a largely non-Christian society, the signal importance of Christian Humanism becomes clear. The Common Mind: Politics, Society and Christian Humanism from Thomas More to Russell Kirk, by Andre Gushurst-Moore (264 pages, Angelico Press, 2013) Andre Gushurst-Moore’s [...]