What’s This I Hear About St Thomas More?

One of the complaints against Nancy Pelosi on Friday is that she dared call in the name of a saint for a political point. This got many people upset. The Anchoress, in her apology for her error said it came out of her anger that a saint was being used for political gain.

The problem is — the saints, even Jesus, have throughout the ages been referenced by all sides on all kinds of political debates. It’s nothing new. The saints are constantly being used for political points all the time. And often, it is by the same people who are now saying how outraged they were that someone would dare invoke St Joseph when dealing with the need for health care reform.

Perhaps the reason they were outraged is that, however wrong Pelosi might be on some things, there was also truth to what she said. St Joseph has consistently been used, even by the Vatican, as a representative for workers and workers rights. He has been used, even by the Vatican, as a representative of the migrant and the rights of migrants. He has been used, even by the Vatican, as a representative of fathers and the rights of fathers.

Indeed, as Pope Benedict himself pointed in 2006 out about the May 1 Feast of St Joseph the Worker, “Ten years later, on 1 May 1955, the same Pontiff established the Feast of St Joseph the Worker to point out to all the world’s workers the way to personal sanctification through work, and thereby to restore the perspective of authentic humanization to the drudgery of daily life.” The feast was created in part to make a political statement.

There is nothing wrong when one looks at the lives and examples of the saints and tries to use them for political action. Isn’t this what many people are trying to do when they bring up St Thomas More? There is nothing wrong with this. Indeed, it shows how one is trying to follow one’s faith and reason out what one does through one’s faith.

Yes, people can reason it out wrong. We don’t have to agree with their application of the saint to a particular political point. But why get upset if someone is trying?