Donald Trump issues proclamation on 850th anniversary of martyrdom of Saint Thomas Becket

Three weeks before leaving office, US President wins widespread praise from churches as he calls for religious freedom across the world.

US President Donald Trump. Picture: AFP

Three weeks before he leaves office, Donald Trump has won widespread praise among churches for issuing an impassioned proclamation calling for freedom of religion across the world.

The President spoke out on Tuesday, the 850th anniversary of the martyrdom of Saint Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral on December 29, 1170.

“Before the Magna Carta was drafted, before the right to free exercise of religion was enshrined as America’s first freedom in our glorious Constitution, Thomas gave his life so that, as he said, ‘the Church will attain liberty and peace’,” Mr Trump said. “Thomas Becket was a statesman, a scholar, a chancellor, a priest, an archbishop, and a lion of religious liberty.’’

His resistance to interference in religion by the Monarchy also prompted King Henry II, who had him killed, to reportedly complain in exasperation “Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?”

The most impressive presidential proclamation from the White House since FDR's obituary statement on the death of Ralph Adams Cram (1942). All honor, and even a little glory, to @realDonaldTrump. https://t.co/K7kVjEwt70 via @whitehouse

— PhilipTerzian (@PhilipTerzian) December 29, 2020

The King’s knights finally did, when they rode to Canterbury Cathedral to deliver Thomas Becket an ultimatum: give in to the King’s demands or die. He refused and was slain, inside the church. Becket is now venerated by the Catholic and Anglican churches.

In his statement, Mr Trump singled out current Chinese church leaders, Cardinal Joseph Zen of Hong Kong and Pastor Wang Yi of Chengdu in southwestern China as “tireless witnesses to hope’’ at a time of persecution. Cardinal Zen has been a stern critic of the Vatican’s secret pact with the Chinese Communist Party and Pastor Wang, a lawyer who founded the underground Protestant Early Rain Covenant Church in China, was sentenced a year ago to nine years in prison for subversion of state power.

Thank you, @realDonaldTrump! Religious Liberty is at the heart of a free society! We need St. Thomas Becket’s intercession. https://t.co/j6MAkJ1Hgr

— Fr. Jeffrey Kirby, STD, KHS (@fatherkirby) December 29, 2020

Mr Trump said Thomas Becket’s death was a powerful and timeless reminder that freedom from religious persecution was not a mere luxury or accident of history, but was bought with the blood of martyrs.

“Thomas Becket’s martyrdom changed the course of history,’’ he said. “It eventually brought about numerous constitutional limitations on the power of the state over the Church across the West. In England, Becket’s murder led to the Magna Carta’s declaration 45 years later that the English church ‘shall be free, and shall have its rights undiminished and its liberties unimpaired’.

“Thomas Becket stood at the intersection of church and state. That stand, after centuries of state-sponsored religious oppression and religious wars throughout Europe, eventually led to the establishment of religious liberty in the New World. It is because of great men like Thomas Becket that the first American President George Washington could proclaim more than 600 years later that, in the United States, ‘All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship’.’’