St. John Fisher

Who they were

John Fisher was Bishop of Rochester, the poorest see in England, which he refused to leave for richer ones across thirty years, and the most respected churchman scholar in the realm: chancellor of Cambridge, which he rebuilt with Lady Margaret Beaufort's fortune, and a theologian Europe read.

When Henry VIII moved to annul his marriage and then to make himself head of the English Church, the entire bench of bishops eventually found a way to comply. Fisher, old and sick and fully aware of the arithmetic, did not. He defended Queen Catherine's marriage to her face in court, refused the oath, and went to the Tower. Paul III named the prisoner a cardinal, and Henry's reply, recorded with its full menace, was that the pope could send the hat but Fisher would have no head to wear it. He was beheaded in June 1535, two weeks before his friend Thomas More, after telling the crowd he died for the faith of Christ's holy Catholic Church. The Church keeps the two friends on one feast.

Why people turn to St. John Fisher

Clergy under institutional and political pressure. And the professional standing alone: More covers the layman's version, and Fisher covers the one where everyone else in your role has already signed.

How to ask their intercession

When compliance is unanimous except for you. That was his arithmetic, and he did the sum honestly rather than bravely.