The heart of the story for the 1966 film “A Man for All Seasons” is St. Thomas More standing up for his Catholic beliefs to the very end, said Zach Jansen, the digital content producer for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.
“It’s Sir Thomas More in the 1520s standing up to King Henry VIII as he challenges the Church,” Jansen told Paul Sadek, the technical producer of the “Practicing Catholic” radio show, for an episode set to air at 9 p.m. June 20 on Relevant Radio 1330 AM. “(He) pretty much demands the Church to give him an annulment from Catherine of Aragon … so he can marry Anne Boleyn. It’s just the story of Thomas More standing up for his Catholic beliefs and seeing it right to the very end.”
St. Thomas More refused the king’s demand and was executed.
“If you know what’s right, then you know there’s nothing to worry about,” Jansen said of St. Thomas More’s convictions. “If there was any flicker of doubt in Thomas More, he would have agreed with everything right away.”
Conviction, Jansen said, can have severe consequences, including a willingness to die for beliefs.
“You can have faith and belief, but conviction is something that’s beyond the pale of what you have,” Jansen said. “I think most of our clergy would have conviction because they are doing the ultimate service and hearing the call to serve the Lord in the ultimate way. They are willing to do that for the rest of their lives. We can have convictions as the faithful by doing our own sacraments of marriage and children, getting baptized, Communion, confirmation and every sacrament that goes on, but to have that ultimate conviction, you have to be willing to, as Thomas More does, die.”
Jansen wondered what St. Thomas More would be like in today’s world.
“Would he be able to have any conviction? Would he be recognized for that? Is there anybody in this world that could be Thomas More?” Jansen asked. “He’s definitely a martyr because his beliefs stem from his Catholic faith. He was, as depicted in the film, an honest and good man. Whether that’s true, whether he yelled at his kids or didn’t like dogs, I don’t know if that matters in the end because he set a model for us to look at and to consider: do we have that wherewithal to stand by something to the very end?”
To hear more from Jansen about the 1966 movie “A Man for All Seasons” and the story of St. Thomas More, tune into “Practicing Catholic,” which repeats at 1 p.m. June 21 and 2 p.m. June 22.
Also on the program, JoAnn Schulzetenberg of St. Patrick in Oak Grove discusses the newly created Catholic Montessori Institute at the University of St. Mary in Bismark, North Dakota. And Kathleen Soucheray, a columnist for The Catholic Spirit, shares ways to continue growing in holiness during the busyness of summer.
Produced by Relevant Radio and the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, “Practicing Catholic” can be heard after it has aired at archspm.org/faith-and-discipleship/practicing-catholic or choose a streaming platform at Spotify for Podcasters.
