This is the great saint’s feast day. His story remains a stirring and challenging call to conscience for all of us.
The movie endures as a truly Catholic film, too, with an unusual pedigree: the story of an English Catholic martyr (More), written by an atheist (Robert Bolt, who also explored Catholicism in “The Mission”) and directed by an Austrian-American Jew (Fred Zinnemann, who also did the extraordinarily Catholic “The Nun’s Story” with Audrey Hepburn).
And the definitive Thomas More, the actor Paul Scofield, was himself raised by an Anglican father and Catholic mother. Notes Wikipedia:
“Baptized into his mother’s faith, Scofield said, ‘some days we were little Protestants and, on others, we were all devout little Catholics. He added, ‘A lack of direction in spiritual matters is still with me.’
It is a story for all seasons. St. Thomas More is the patron saint of attorneys, public servants and politicians. (Can you think of any of these you’d like to pray for?)
St. Thomas More, pray for us!
