A Surprising Saint

On 29 December, much of the Church will celebrate the feast day of Thomas Becket. I point that out in this week’s post because many of us will be recovering from our Christmas celebration and be busy making resolutions for 2013 about that time. We might miss the moment. The story’s too good to miss.

Some of us remember Becket from the movie of the same name released in 1964 which starred Richard Burton in the role of Becket and Peter O’Toole as England’s king Henry II. Others remember the story from our study of the Christian Church. I’m guessing most of us have no idea what the story was about. That’s too bad, because the story is important for many reasons. So, here’s the story in a nutshell.

To fully appreciate what happened to Becket, a little context will be helpful. Becket was born in the twelfth century in London in the middle of what we call the Middle Ages or the Medieval period. In the Middle Ages, the Roman Catholic Church was extraordinarily powerful, controlling all of life—this one and the next. The Church had positioned itself as the only instrument that could provide salvation from death and a life of eternal torment. People were in a near perpetual state of anxiety about their eternal future, fearing the Church as much as revering it.

At this time, the Pope was powerful enough to remove kings, but kings could not remove Popes. The usual method employed by the Pope to deal with uncooperative kings was to place their kingdom under interdict. Interdict meant that the clergy did not provide the sacraments to the people—the very means of grace that could assure them of their salvation. If you died while your king was under interdict, you could not be buried in the consecrated ground of a parish cemetery. Not uncommonly, bodies would just be stacked near the cemetery awaiting the lift of the interdict. No marriages, no weddings, no Eucharist, no penance: no hope of heaven. The intention of the Church was to cause the people to rise up and over throw the monarch so the kingdom could be returned to the Church’s favor and the sacraments once again become available. It was a powerful and effective tool used many times by the papacy.

English kings had a problem with having a “foreign” power having this much control over them. When William, who would be called the Conqueror, defeated the last Anglo-Saxon king of England in 1066, he became the first Norman king. One of his agenda items was to reform what he considered to be a corrupt Church in England. He declared he himself to be the head of the Church in England—almost 500 years before Henry VIII. So when Henry II, 100 years of so after William wanted to flex his muscles viz a viz Rome, he had a precedent—his great grandfather, William.

In 1162 the Archbishop of Canterbury died and Henry wanted to appoint his friend, Thomas Becket to the most important Church position in England. Not only did he have a lot of respect for Thomas, he believed Thomas would support him in a reform he wanted. At this time, Church courts were the only ones that could try clergy for wrong doing. The tendency was to either acquit or to impose light punishments. Henry believed this undermined his authority as king and intended to change that. He would be the final power in his own kingdom.

Becket knew what the king wanted and he told Henry he didn’t want the job. He wrote Henry that were he to be Archbishop, “our friendship will turn to hate.” Henry persisted and Becket took the post. It changed him. He had been a “party animal,” living a luxurious lifestyle. Now he ate only bread and water, slept on the floor, and under his splendid robes of office, wore a horse hair shirt. He showed concern for the poor, giving them the food meant for his table.

Henry passed a law in 1164 that stated any person found guilty in a Church court would be punished by a royal court. He insisted Becket support him, but Becket would not. Eventually, fearing for his life, Becket went into exile.

After six years, he felt it safe enough to return, wooed back by Henry, but the turmoil only escalated. When the Archbishop of York supported Henry’s efforts, Becket asked the Pope to excommunicate him. Henry was enraged. He was king and demanded obedience and loyalty, but Becket asserted his allegiance was to a more powerful King, God himself as represented by the Church.

In a fit of anger, Henry is said to have shouted, “Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?” It is not clear he actually said this, nor is it clear that he wanted Becket dead, but four of his knights understood whatever happen that way. They murdered Becket in Canterbury Cathedral. The Pope quickly made him a saint.

And Henry? To receive forgiveness from the Pope, he was required to walk barefoot from his palace to the Cathedral and to pray at the spot Becket fell; as he prayed, monks whipped him. The people? The Cathedral became a place of pilgrimage for people, not just in England, but from all of Europe. The spot of the murder is identified even today with a plaque and a continually burning candle flame. When Henry VIII looted the Church in the 16^th century, it took 21 carts to haul away the valuables left at Becket’s shrine by pilgrims.

Becket faced the same kind of issue we all face: whom will I serve, to whom will I be loyal? As we proclaim the birth of Jesus, we should be reminded his intention was the establish the Kingdom of God, a kingdom in which we are citizens. Our personal question: what kind of citizen will I be?

Peace, Jerry