Leo tells politicians to learn from Thomas More, the ‘perfect’ public servant

The Catholic Herald• June 22, 2025

Pope Leo XIV has encouraged politicians to take inspiration from St Thomas More as a perfect example of a public servant.

The American-born pontiff said that the former Lord Chancellor of England, who was beheaded by King Henry VIII on 6th July 1534, was so committed to the service of truth that he was willing to die for it.

Leo said: “During the Jubilee of the Year 2000, St John Paul II indicated St Thomas More as a witness for political leaders to revere and an intercessor under whose protection to place their work.

“Sir Thomas More was a man faithful to his civic responsibilities, a perfect servant of the state precisely because of his faith, which led him to view politics not as a profession but as a mission for the spread of truth and goodness.

“He ‘placed his public activity at the service of the person, especially the weak and poor; he handled social disputes with an exquisite sense of justice; he protected the family and defended it with strenuous commitment; and he promoted the integral education of youth,” the Pope said, quoting the Apostolic Letter E Sancti Thomae Mori of October 2000.

“The courage he showed by his readiness to sacrifice his life rather than betray the truth makes him, also for us today, a martyr for freedom and for the primacy of conscience,” continue Pope Leo. “May his example be a source of inspiration and guidance for each of you!”

St Thomas resigned as Lord Chancellor in 1532 in opposition to Henry’s reforms of the Catholic Church in England and he infuriated the King further by refusing to attend to coronation of Anne Boleyn.

Along with his friend, St John Fisher, the Bishop of Rochester, were both committed to the Tower after they refused to take the oath attached to the 1534 Act of Succession that recognised the progeny of Henry VIII and his mistress, Anne Boleyn, as the rightful heirs to the English throne.

St Thomas had kept his counsel and was tried and convicted of high treason in Westminster Hall only after Sir Richard Rich, the Solicitor General, claimed he had said, in a disputed conversation with him, that Parliament did not have the authority to declare the King as supreme head of the Church in England.

The saint denied the accusation but he also reminded the jury: “Ye must understand that, in things touching conscience, every true and good subject is more bound to have respect to his said conscience and to his soul than to any other thing in all the world beside …”.

At the close of his trial St Thomas did discharge his conscience, however, insisting that although he did in fact uphold the primacy of the Pope over the Church “it is not for this supremacie that ye seeke my bloud, as for that I would not condiscende to the marriage”.

He was sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered but the King commuted this to beheading on the day of the execution.

On the day of his execution the King had asked him to keep his final address brief and famously he protested that he died “in the faith and for the faith” and that he was always the King’s good servant – but God’s first. Ironically, the words chosen by St Thomas on the scaffold had originally been Henry’s, who in earlier days had often exhorted him to serve God above all else.

He and St John Fisher were canonised together in 1935 and their feast day is jointly celebrated on 22nd June, the date of Fisher’s execution on Tower Hill.

In a 1991 address to the US bishop, St Thomas was described by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI, as “Britain’s other great witness of conscience” besides St John Henry Newman.

Pope Leo made his remarks on Saturday to members of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, which was established in 1889 as to promoting peace through parliamentary diplomacy and dialogue and now has 181 members and 15 associate members.

“The first concerns your responsibility to promote and protect, independent of any special interest, the good of the community, the common good, particularly by defending the vulnerable and the marginalised,” Leo told the parliamentarians, who are at the Vatican for the Jubilee of Governments.

“Those who live in extreme conditions cry out to make their voices heard, and often find no ears willing to hear their plea,” the Pope said.

“This imbalance generates situations of persistent injustice, which readily lead to violence and, sooner or later, to the tragedy of war. Sound politics, on the other hand, by promoting the equitable distribution of resources, can offer an effective service to harmony and peace both domestically and internationally,” he continued.

Leo said that in order to have a shared point of reference in political activity, an essential reference point is the natural law, “written not by human hands, but acknowledged as valid in all times and places, and finding its most plausible and convincing argument in nature itself.”

He quoted Cicero words on this in De Re Publica: “Natural law is right reason, in accordance with nature, universal, constant and eternal, which with its commands, invites us to do what is right and with its prohibitions deters us from evil… No change may be made to this law, nor may any part of it be removed, nor can it be abolished altogether; neither by the Senate nor by the people, can we free ourselves from it, nor is it necessary to seek its commentator or interpreter. And there shall be no law in Rome, none in Athens, none now, none later; but one eternal and unchanging law shall govern all peoples at all times.”

The Pope said natural law, which he said is universally valid apart from and above other more debatable beliefs, “constitutes the compass by which to take our bearings in legislating and acting, particularly on the delicate and pressing ethical issues that, today more than in the past, regard personal life and privacy.”

Leo said: “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, approved and proclaimed by the United Nations on December 10, 1948, is now part of humanity’s cultural heritage. That text, which is always relevant, can contribute greatly to placing the human person, in his or her inviolable integrity, at the foundation of the quest for truth, thus restoring dignity to those who do not feel respected in their inmost being and in the dictates of their conscience.”

Speaking about religious freedom and interreligious dialogue, the Pope said it was an area that has taken on greater significance in the present time, “and political life can achieve much by encouraging the conditions for there to be authentic religious freedom and that a respectful and constructive encounter between different religious communities may develop”.

“Belief in God, with the positive values that derive from it, is an immense source of goodness and truth for the lives of individuals and communities,” he said.

Pope Leo also told the elected officials they must address the “major challenge” caused by the rise of artificial intelligence.

“This is a development that will certainly be of great help to society, provided that its employment does not undermine the identity and dignity of the human person and his or her fundamental freedoms,” he said.

“In particular, it must not be forgotten that artificial intelligence functions as a tool for the good of human beings, not to diminish them, not to replace them. What is emerging is in fact a significant challenge, one that calls for great attention and foresight in order to project, also in the context of new scenarios, healthy, fair and sound lifestyles, especially for the good of younger generations,” the Pope continued.

“Our personal life has greater value than any algorithm, and social relationships require spaces for development that far transcend the limited patterns that any soulless machine can pre-package,” Leo said.

“Let us not forget that, while able to store millions of data points and answer many questions in a matter of seconds, artificial intelligence remains equipped with a ‘static memory’ that is in no way comparable to that of human beings,” he said, adding that people’s memory, on the other hand, “is creative, dynamic, generative, capable of uniting past, present and future in a lively and fruitful search for meaning, with all the ethical and existential implications that this entails.”