Assessing Thomas Becket
in Purgatory
Tomorrow is the 850th anniversary of Thomas Becket's death. Over the years I have heard mixed things about him.
These are the following arguments given forward to removing Becket from the saint list.
1) He wasn't a martyr to the faith in the sense that we might think of martyrdom. His biggest quarrel with King Henry II was over whether clergy should be held accountable to secular courts. Today, he might be dismissed as an extreme clericalist for insisting that the earthly political realm should not have authority over clergy when they commit crimes.
2) Becket's sainthood was more due to the fact that his shrine had a reputation for miracles and not because the laity of the time thought he was a great saint. Today at least in the CofE, saints are honoured because they have led exemplary lives and not because of miracles attributed to his intercession after death (Low church anglicans themselves would object to the very notion of the intercession of the saints)
These are the following arguments given forward to removing Becket from the saint list.
1) He wasn't a martyr to the faith in the sense that we might think of martyrdom. His biggest quarrel with King Henry II was over whether clergy should be held accountable to secular courts. Today, he might be dismissed as an extreme clericalist for insisting that the earthly political realm should not have authority over clergy when they commit crimes.
2) Becket's sainthood was more due to the fact that his shrine had a reputation for miracles and not because the laity of the time thought he was a great saint. Today at least in the CofE, saints are honoured because they have led exemplary lives and not because of miracles attributed to his intercession after death (Low church anglicans themselves would object to the very notion of the intercession of the saints)
Comments
I've always found it rather amusing that T.S. Eliot thought he was presenting his audience with some disquieting moral dilemma when he had one of the murderers say something like "You might be shocked by what we have just done, but if you support the subordination of the Church to the State, well, we're the guys who got that started."
To which I would reply: "Damn right I support the subordination of
the Church to the State, and since political killing was an accepted fact of life in those days, good job, boys."
My favorite authority on Church/State relations is John Courtney Murray, S.J. ...
His thesis was that the authority of the Church is purely Spiritual rather than Secular, but therefore is the superior authority with the right and duty to command the State to do its duty ...
Despite his youthful and intense relationship with Richer de l'Aigle (which worried his Mum and various others) ... if he had been gay it would have been well known and used against him by his many opponents.
But it wasn't.
So he wasn't.
His sexual restraint, propriety, modesty (or what ever you want to call it) with both women and men was remarkable and worthy of imitation. Even today.
This raises another question, in that I would suggest that saints are, in fact, inherently focuses of projection. They receive the projections of our best selves, and reflect those projections back to us, as one means of our being reminded that we are at least capable of good as well as evil.
So maybe I would expend the answer to be "because of the evil of which men are capable, and which they too frequently commit," and extend the question to " Why is sainthood a useful and powerful concept in spiritual life?"
As opposed to women?
Yes, that's it
It's preferable to promiscuity.
How do you know?
I didn't like to ask...
Are there photos?
I don't.
-
Murdered - tick
Murdered for standing up for the church - tick
Murdered in a church - tick
... I'd be surprised if anyone fulfilled all those four criteria and didn't become a saint, it's kinda inevitable.
That's really only three criteria. If you tick off boxes 3 and 4 you're automatically going to tick off box 2.
An even more pedantic question is whether today (29 December 2020) is actually the 850th anniversary of the [ murder / assassination / martyrdom ] of Becket. The date given is in the Julian calendar. If the Gregorian calendar had existed at the time, Becket's death (however classified) would have fallen on 5 January 1171. Calendar reform makes such a mess of concepts like "anniversaries".
Stating that clergy should not be subject to secular authority is not a matter of faith but of order, whatever interpretation you give to the commands to Peter and the disciples about keys, loosing, binding and so on. It was designed to protect the Church from rulers who wanted to control their local hierarchy which, in France and elsewhere, was regularly done. Why else were the Papal States invaded so often, or the Papacy moved to Avignon where the French King could keep an eye on passing Popes (some time later, I know, but also consider wars with the Holy Roman Emperor).
I know nothing of his supposed exemplary lifestyle, and the speed of his canonisation seems to reflect a political decision rather than a careful and cautious examination of Becket's other claims to sanctity. However, I'm sure that worse decisions were made in the 12th century.
Well, sighs of relief all round - especially from Thomas B in Heaven (if there he be, and if such a place there be). but not perhaps from Henry II (where're he be).
Good to know that Mr Trump has nothing more pressing to do with his time.
Like packing his bags...
Fun question for historians: Which is worse in terms of historical accuracy, Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral or Shakespeare's Richard III?
This is the kind of thing that gets suggested by the resident intellectual at the White House, maybe someone hired away from a think-tank, or an intern recently graduated from some right-wing Catholic university.
And while I am not an expert on medieval religion(so correct me if I'm wrong)...
The proclamation makes it sound as if Becket was comparable to someone like a house-church leader being persecuted by the Chinese Communists in the contemporary era. But I don't think that's really accurate, since the Church in Becket's day was not simply a bunch of independent actors going about their own business and trying to worship God in their own way: they enjoyed a privileged connection with the state to begin with.
What was the point in proclaiming an anniversary that has been marked for over 800 years? Perhaps he was annoyed that Alexander III got there before him?
If someone presented him with a proclamation to the effect that the Moon is made of green cheese, he'd probably sign the paper (as long as it had his name on it).
My faith is not always what it could be these days, but, Holy Thomas, Pro Nobis.
In this case, canonisation took place on 21 February 1173, either 14 or 26 months after Thomas' death. It was one of the fastest canonisations in history. Hardly time for a popular movement to reach the ears of the Pope in Rome, I would have thought.
One of the facebook commentators wrote that the Becket controversy was a "battle between the tyranny of the King and the tyranny of the Church." Hardly an attractive controversy from a modern liberal democratic perspective.
Right. But someone reading the White House proclamation and nothing else would assume that Becket was a martyr in the second sense.
Well, it's interesting, because this proclamation is the sort of thing that, for obvious reasons, appeals to intellectuals. And while the evangelical community is not totally bereft of intellectuals, it remains the case that the more intellectual you are, the more likely you are to know that Becket's status as a martyr is very much rooted in the interests and worldview of the Catholic Church.
Sure, there are a lot of middle and low-brow con-evos who, if given only a thumbnail sketch of Becket's story, would think "Wow, he was being persecuted just like we're being persecuted today by de gayz and de Demokrats", but those people are unlikely to ever hear about Becket to begin with.
Probably the envisioned target for this was Catholics with a parochial school or other religious education, people who would have been taught about Becket, or at least heard his name.
Looking at your date I presume you've allowed for the fact that the Julian calendar hadn't drifted quite as far off the equinoxes in Becket's time as it had by the time the Gregorian calendar was actually introduced?
A huge difference between east and west. In the east, very often the laity will start venerating someone, create an icon and appropriate hymns (troparion and kontakion) and eventually the bishops catch up and the person is declared a saint. Then again we have no Bollandists and no Congregation for the Causes of Saints.
Wonder if the Eastern Orthodox have ever weighed in on Thomas Becket?
In a similar vein, the Wee Free nutters who control Comhairle Nan Eilean-Siar have found one point of agreement with the RCC - commending the RC sex ed materials (which, among other things, don't even give children vocabulary for their own body parts until P6) and denouncing those endorsed by the Scottish Government. Fortunately they have no ability to dictate to schools on this.
Yeah, well, if you take your history from politicians you deserve to be ignorant. Someone on Twitter posted a proclamation by King Henry VIII, on the murder of Becket and the responsibility of Henry II, the gist of which was that my client regrets his unchivalrous behaviour but the witness for the prosecution was, to be fair, wearing a very short skirt.
Whatever TAB died for it wasn't to be a useful party to a controversy centuries after his death.
We don't presume to consecrate people who weren't Orthodox.
Or to clarify, would they have sided with the King over the Archbishop, am thinking particularly of the view by the west, that the Orthodox would believe the clergy to be subject to the authority of the emperor?