Today we celebrate the memorial of Saint John Fisher.

Typically, people identify John Fisher with Renaissance humanists like Erasmus, Thomas More, etc. Therefore, his life story lacked the apparent simplicity most saints lived by. Instead, he was a learned guy who was friends with fellow intellectuals and political figures of his time. He eventually rose to the position of chancellor at Cambridge and had a keen interest in modern culture. When he was 35, he was appointed a bishop, and one of his concerns was improving the caliber of preaching in England. Fisher was an outstanding preacher and author. His lectures on the penitential psalms were reprinted seven times before his passing. He became embroiled in controversy when the Lutheran movement emerged. He held a prominent place among European theologians thanks to his eight writings against heresy.

Fisher received a task in 1521, researching the controversy surrounding King Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon, his brother’s widow. On defending the legitimacy of the king’s marriage to Catherine and later rejecting Henry’s assertion that he was the supreme head of the Church of England, he incited Henry’s wrath.

Henry originally had Fisher falsely charged with failing to disclose all of Elizabeth Barton, a Kent-based nun,’s alleged “revelations” to get rid of him. Fisher got called to the new Act of Succession to take the oath despite being in poor health. Due to the Act’s presumption of Henry’s divorce’s legality and his claim to be the head of the English Church, he and Thomas More declined to do so. They went to the Tower of London, where Fisher spent 14 months without being brought to justice. In the end, both individuals received life sentences and property forfeiture.

The two didn’t say anything when they got called for more questioning. Under the guise of speaking casually as a priest, Fisher got compelled into repeating his claim that the king was not England’s chief bishop. Further incensed by the pope’s appointment of John Fisher as a cardinal, the king ordered his trial for high treason. He was found guilty and put to death, with his body lying on the scaffold all day and his head hanging from London Bridge. After two weeks, more people got executed. On June 22, we celebrate John Fisher’s liturgical feast.

source: franciscanmedia.org