"Condemn No One's Conscience..."

I remember very well how during the Viet Nam War, Pastor Robert Bailey at Brooklyn United Methodist Church,a WWII veteran himself, spoke passionately on behalf of Christian conscience--for and against the war in Viet Nam. At the time, I was disappointed in him. In a large church, divided on that and other social issues of the time, his approach was to propose that each person must be responsible for following their own conscience without expecting others to agree--and without personally "excommunicating" other persons when or if they disagreed with you. His counsel was simply to honor, and not to disrespect, another's informed and faithful convictions or actions of conscience. At the time, I thought his stance was a form of cowardice; now, I am not sure. Consider the case and the words of Cardinal John Fisher, particularly his remarks at the end of the article below.

This week the Catholic saints in the Benedictine calendar include St John Fisher (1469 - 1535). The Catholic Encyclopedia reports, "He was born in Beverley, in Yorkshire, in 1469. He studied theology at the University of Cambridge, and had a successful career there, finally becoming chancellor of the University and bishop of Rochester: unusually for the time, he paid a great deal of attention to the welfare of his diocese.

He wrote much against the errors and corruption into which the Church had fallen, and was a friend and supporter of great humanists such as Erasmus of Rotterdam; but he was greatly opposed to Lutheranism, both in its doctrine and in its ideas of reform.

He supported the validity of King Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon, and for this he was briefly imprisoned. When the King had divorced Catherine, married Anne Boleyn, and constituted himself the supreme Head of the Church in England, John Fisher refused to assent. He was imprisoned in the Tower of London on a charge of treason, and on 22 June 1535, a month after having been made a Cardinal by the Pope, he was executed. He was so ill and weak that he had to be carried in a chair to the place of execution.

He was the only bishop to oppose Henry VIII’s (marriages), on the grounds that they were a repudiation of papal authority, but even so he avoided direct confrontation with the other bishops, not holding himself up as a hero or boasting of his coming martyrdom: I condemn no other man’s conscience: their conscience may save them, and mine must save me. We should remember, in all the controversies in which we engage, to treat our opponents as if they were acting in good faith, even if they seem to us to be acting out of spite or self-interest."