How does the Catholic intellectual tradition meet the practical demands of public leadership? This is just one of the questions propelling Christendom’s new Center for Public Policy, headed by Dr. Matthew Post. In this exclusive article for Instaurare Magazine, Post explores how Catholics can and should engage with politics today, pointing to the example of the great saint, St. Thomas More.
How are Catholics to think about politics today? To answer this question, I will turn to the thought and example of St. Thomas More. But first, it is worth reflecting on why the question itself can seem so difficult, both because of the current political landscape and because of what we find in Scripture.
There is a cynical joke, originally about lawyers but adapted to politicians: “What do you call 1,000 politicians at the bottom of the sea? Draining the swamp.” It may seem that a politician living a life of holiness—never lying, boldly upholding the teachings of the Church, and avoiding corruption—would be unelectable, much less capable of changing a realm marked by bad actors, backroom deals, and empty grandstanding.
Scripture can deepen this uncertainty. For Israel, God alone was meant to be king, and when earthly kings were granted, their rule ultimately failed. Even Jesus Christ, the true Messiah of the House of David, refuses worldly political power. Rule before the appointed time is presented to him as a temptation from Satan. Christ instead teaches, “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s,” “let him who is without sin cast the first stone,” and “turn the other cheek.” Such teachings can appear to distance Christians from becoming involved in punishment and opposing aggression, features central to government.
After Christ’s Ascension, St. Paul instructs Christians to obey temporal authorities, since they are instituted by God and should punish wrongdoing. Yet Paul is realistic about the failures of rulers and repeatedly emphasizes that Christians must endure suffering faithfully and avoid bringing scandal upon the Church.
Given both contemporary politics and the witness of Scripture, some Christians are drawn toward what Rod Dreher calls the “Benedict Option”: preserving Christian culture through insulated communities removed from political life. Yet historians have noted that the Benedictines themselves were never wholly withdrawn from society. Though focused on prayer and work within their respective communities, many monasteries became centers of evangelization, education, and cultural renewal.
This story comes from the latest issue of Instaurare Magazine, the official magazine of Christendom College. Read more from Instaurare here!
Even so, the tension remains: how can Christians seek the City of God while laboring within the city of man? St. Thomas More wrestled deeply with this question.1 He originally considered becoming a monk and later preferred a scholarly and spiritual life over public office. Yet Providence called him into political service, and he eventually became the patron saint of lawyers and statesmen.
Popular portrayals, especially Robert Bolt’s A Man for All Seasons, often present More as attempting to quietly withdraw after King Henry VIII broke from Rome and declared himself head of the Church in England. There is truth in this picture, but it is incomplete. More did not merely remain silent. Indirectly, in his writings, he challenged Henry’s attempt to establish absolute power. Indeed, it was precisely because More was persuading opinion makers that Henry eventually imprisoned, tried, and executed him.
Dr. Matthew Post.
To understand More’s witness, however, we must first understand the kind of man he became.
More cultivated many virtues by means of three forms of education. The first was habituation to virtue within the family, for himself and others. More viewed God as “a very tender, loving Father,” who guides free persons not through despotism but through love and discipline. He sought to imitate this model within his own household.
The second education concerned conscience well formed by the liberal arts. More believed that God had written the natural law into the human heart, but because human beings are fallen, conscience requires formation. More was a Renaissance humanist who embraced sciences and letters, with philosophy and especially theology as the peak of wisdom. These studies were crucial to shaping right moral judgment. Respect for conscience did not mean affirming every opinion. Rather, it meant joining the love of virtue and the love of truth.
The third education concerned prudence in political life. More believed that serving the common good required understanding human beings as they truly are. The study of poets, orators, and historians was crucial to understanding human motives and actions and thus how to speak wisely and persuasively to others. In this way, More also cultivated a sense of humor that kept him humble and winsome to others, such that he even made a joke and graciously offered forgiveness to his own executioner. More exemplified what he believed lay at the heart of any body politic, loving one’s fellows in civil friendship.
But, for More, one cannot understand human community without seeking to understand God. All human beings are created free and equal before God and His law, which is instituted for their good. For More, this implied three principles. First, all human beings should be respected as free and equal before human law. Second, human government derives legitimacy from the consent of the governed. And, third, the purpose of government is the common good, which is real, not reducible to mere opinion or majority preference.
To pursue the common good properly, rulers must be able to hear the truth. More therefore strongly defended free public speech—not because every opinion is equally wise, but because rulers who silence honest counsel inevitably govern foolishly. Advisers fearful of punishment cannot adequately serve either king or country.
At the same time, More believed that the ultimate good is salvation and union with God. Temporal authority cannot force saving faith. Thus, the Church must remain free from domination by the state. More did believe that the “spiritual sword” should guide the “temporal sword,” but not by means of temporal coercion. In fact, he feared the dangerous consequences of mixing spiritual and temporal authority too closely. It was precisely such confusion, after all, that allowed Henry VIII—a temporal ruler—to claim supremacy over the Church in England.
These principles shaped More’s public life. As a judge, More exhibited outstanding integrity, especially at a time when accepting bribes was expected. When Henry VIII insisted that More become Speaker of the House of Commons, More accepted only after requesting freedom of speech within Parliament. Though limited, this petition became an important foundation for later understandings of political liberty.
More’s resistance to Henry’s later religious claims likewise rested upon principle rather than personal defiance. Henry violated consent by coercing citizens into affirming his authority over the Church of England, and he violated divine order by claiming powers he could not legitimately possess.
What is striking, however, is the manner of More’s resistance. When it came to free speech, More understood well that he was in a bargaining position, just as he understood that he was unable to openly oppose Henry’s moves against the Church. A lesser person might then have capitulated or pursued dramatic public confrontation. More did neither. Through years of cultivating virtue, conscience, and far-sighted prudence, he understood that grandstanding often produces fleeting victories while provoking destructive backlash. Instead, he resisted carefully, patiently, and indirectly, seeking not personal glory but the preservation of truth and the freedom of the Church.
In doing so, More helped lay important groundwork for distinguishing Church and state—not in order to remove Christianity from public life, but to prevent political rulers from controlling the Church itself. More recognized that when a state creates its own national church, the universality and independence of the Catholic Church is attacked. And though More did not seem to carry the day, he advanced principles that allowed the Catholic Church to survive and eventually renew where it was suppressed.
More therefore did not withdraw from public life, nor did he seek attention for himself. He labored quietly and faithfully, animated by rightly ordered loves: love of family, truth, his fellows, and, above all, God. Deeply formed by his education, More’s loves gave him the courage and integrity to navigate political darkness with the hope, equanimity, and good humor required not only to succeed with integrity, but to do so long term, God willing.
In the end, it is More’s principled resistance to tyranny, not Henry VIII’s pretensions to absolute rule, that has shaped the political culture and institutions of the U.S., among others.
For this reason, St. Thomas More remains an enduring model not only for politicians, but for all Christians seeking to live faithfully within public life. He reminds us that holiness and political engagement need not be opposed, provided politics is guided not by ambition or ideology, but by conscience, truth, prudence, and love.
Written by Dr. Matthew Post
Learn more about Christendom’s Center for Public Policy here.
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