St. Thomas More

It was such a small thing.

It didn't even really affect him.

He wasn't engaging in any sin personally, so why should he care if another person was?

The King Henry VIII was committing adultery with Anne Boleyn.

The King wanted Thomas to consent to his sin.

But Thomas's conscience would not let him.  He refused to speak ill of the King publicly.  But that was not good enough for Henry.  He wanted Thomas to surrender his conscience to the power of the state.

Thomas More was a well positioned lawyer and court counselor.  He had to let all of it go.

He was a free Englishman with all the rights therein.  He had to endure wrongful imprisonment.

He had to choose between violating his God-given conscience or the butchering hacks of the executioner's axe.

St. Thomas More died the King's good servant.  But God's first.

When the power of the state forces Catholics to violate their consciences, what will we do?

I have spoken about this with my wife and there are no good answers.  Do we cut our insurance so that we don't participate with evil?

This past week I had to go to the ER.  Without insurance, we would have been hit with a severe financial blow.

I have never been in the greatest health.  Will I put my life and my wife's life at risk to not violate our consciences?

In this world, there is nothing that we want more than a child of our own. If we drop our insurance, there is no way we would ever be allowed to adopt a child.

This issue is not an abstract political one.  It is our life.

What will we do?

I don't want to have to make the hard choices listed above.  But if, God forbid, it comes to that, then I pray that I can follow the example St. Thomas More.

"There were others who were tortured, refusing to be released so that they might gain an even better resurrection. Some faced jeers and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were put to death by stoning; they were sawed in two; they were killed by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated— the world was not worthy of them." Hebrews 11: 35-38

St. Thomas More... Pray For Us!