CNA Staff, Dec 29, 2020 / 09:57 am
The White House on Tuesday issued a proclamation praising St. Thomas Becket, an English archbishop who was martyred 850 years ago after conflict with King Henry II over the rights of the Church.
"Before the Magna Carta was drafted, before the right to free exercise of religion was enshrined as America's first freedom in our glorious Constitution, Thomas gave his life so that, as he said, 'the Church will attain liberty and peace,'" President Donald Trump wrote in a Dec. 29 proclamation.
"To honor Thomas Becket's memory, the crimes against people of faith must stop, prisoners of conscience must be released, laws restricting freedom of religion and belief must be repealed, and the vulnerable, the defenseless, and the oppressed must be protected. The tyranny and murder that shocked the conscience of the Middle Ages must never be allowed to happen again. As long as America stands, we will always defend religious liberty."
"We pray for religious believers everywhere who suffer persecution for their faith. We especially pray for their brave and inspiring shepherds - like Cardinal Joseph Zen of Hong Kong and Pastor Wang Yi of Chengdu - who are tireless witnesses to hope," Trump's proclamation added.
Becket was born in the twelfth century, and became an expert in canon and civll law, and eventually the Lord Chancellor of England. But after 1162, when he became Archbishop of Canterbury, he found himself in conflict with King Henry II over the autonomy of the the Church in England. Becket and the king clashed over the freedom of clergymen from secular courts, and, in 1164, the Constitutions of Clarendon, a set of laws passed by Henry II in an effort to limit papal authority and ecclesiastical courts in England.