The witness of Thomas More…

Robert Bolt's play A Man for All Seasons, offers the audience an insight into the delicate workings of conscience. Refusing to accept the validity of Henry VIII declaring himself Supreme Head of Christ's Church in England, Sir Thomas More, a shrewd lawyer, not wishing to incriminate himself, refuses to sign an oath, and keeps silent his reasons for not so doing. More's successor as Chancellor of England, Sir Thomas Cromwell, seeing an opportunity to gain the King's favour, pursues More relentlessly in the hope of bringing More's silent defiance into a public forum.

An intricate legal battle of cat and mouse begins.

Sir Thomas Cromwell

More retains his silence, even under numerous interrogations, knowing that the punishment for disobedience is death; Cromwell becomes increasingly frustrated, but nonetheless increasingly determined to see More to the scaffold. Cromwell well knows that honest men have the ability to make those who are dishonest, far more transparent in their aims, and far more shallow in the perceived content of their character.

Eventually brought to trial, More defends himself skilfully against a barrage of accusations, and would no doubt have delayed his final sentence of guilt, had it not been for the corruption of a disaffected young lawyer, Richard Rich. Rich has been convinced by his benefactor, Cromwell, to lie about a conversation which he had with the imprisoned More. Cromwell appeases Rich's conscience by declaring that any pain one has at denying the conscience once, is soothed each and every time one denies the conscience on further occasions. By so doing, Cromwell intimates, in the end, the conscience is hardly ever felt.

The scenario that Bolt cleverly depicts is one of demoralization — the slow but steady progression to destroy or pervert conscience, one's own or or that of another.

The process of demoralisation, by its nature involves third parties and, or, extrinsic rewards; as if the former is needed for companionship, and the latter to make the poison taste better. The world and history are replete with instances of individuals who have sought to demoralise. Powerful men use status to seduce younger women for sexual gratification; members of the judiciary vacillate on decisions out of fear and favour; children are taught to cheat on sporting fields so as to ensure a cherished trophy; illicit drugs are sold to the young in the hope of financial profit; calumny is spoken in the hope of grasping a rung on a corporate ladder; ever more lurid pornography is peddled thus desensitizing numerous men and women; child soldiers in Africa, are taught how to kill and torture, before they have learnt how to play and read, in order to secure a dictator's craving. Virtue, which is eternal, is in short bartered for that which is temporal and finite. The Evangelist Matthew quotes Christ's poignant teaching on this matter: "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal". (Matthew 6: 19 - 21, NRSV)

History is often punctuated with leaders such as More, men and women renowned for their integrity, individuals who have not set their hearts on temporal goals in temporal matters, but who have based temporal lives on even firmer spiritual foundations. Sir Thomas More well understood the dangers of demoralization, especially in a person who claims to be a leader of men and women. As a Christian he understood the brevity of life, and the transitory nature of worldly treasures and honours, thus writing soon before his death:

"Give me the grace, Good Lord, To set the world at naught. To set the mind firmly on You and not to hang upon the words of men's mouths. To be content to be solitary. Not to long for worldly pleasures. Little by little utterly to cast off the world and rid my mind of all its business. Not to long to hear of earthly things, but that the hearing of worldly fancies may be displeasing to me. Gladly to be thinking of God, piteously to call for His help. To lean into the comfort of God. Busily to labor to love Him".

When Cromwell scoffed at More's fate, More's reply was as wise as it was curt, that the only difference between his circumstance and that of Cromwell was that he, More, was scheduled to die today, and Cromwell, would die in some future morrow.

St Ireneus of Lyon

Each of us has a responsibility to build a world which seeks to rid and not promulgate demoralisation, especially demoralisation of the young. An early Church Father of the West, St Ireneus of Lyon, once explained that every act of goodness or ill, vibrates across the ages. As such each act is important not only for the present, but for how it reverberates in Ages unseen. A boy who is taken from his village in Zimbabwe, and instructed how to bayonet, is a detraction from the innocence which could have made the world the richer, if nothing else than by its presence. The young girl who stands by a hotel door soliciting sexual favours from aged wealthy businessman in an expensive hotel, is again a detraction from that potential which was once nursed in a mother's arms.

So should we react with despondence, when we see what chains are placed on the human spirit in this world? Prior to his final exile, the Eastern Catholic patriarch, St John Chrysostom, himself a victim of attempts to dissuade the voice of the Gospel, an honest man who the dishonest sought to crush, reminds us, that even those who seem far from redemption, are not far from God's rescuing hand. Evil only has its victory, the day goodness despairs: "I look at the city in which I live, and see only turmoil. I see men cheating one another, so that those who are most devious grow rich at the expense of those who are most honest. I see men being unfaithful to their wives, consorting with prostitutes rather than sleeping in their marriage bed. I see men planning all sorts of schemes to gain power, doing down all who oppose them. I see empty churches, because people know that the teaching goes against all they want to achieve. I see the clergy and bishops devoting their attention only to the material assets of the churches, while ignoring the sick and the dying, the poor and the needy. And I can hear no voices crying out against all this. What hope can we find in such a black and terrifying picture? Our hope must lie in the ultimate power of good over evil - and the knowledge that the power can work in even the hardest of men. If I stare long enough into the faces of the cheats and the adulterers, the power-mongers and the wealth-mongers, I can discern the faint traces of goodness and truth; I can find softness amidst this hardness. While I can see still these traces, I will not despair."

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©2007 Dr Andrew Thomas Kania

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