Plenary, 26 Nov 2003

Meeting date: Wednesday, November 26, 2003

Official Report 410KB pdf

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Time for Reflection

Good afternoon. Our time for reflection leader today is Father Thomas Boyle, parish priest of St Joseph's, Wemyss Bay.

Presiding Officer, I wonder, if I were to ask you who the patron saint of politicians and statesmen is, whether you or any of the members here present would know the answer. He is someone whom the present Pope describes as

"a source of inspiration for a political system which has as its supreme goal the service of the human person",

and someone whose life

"teaches us that government is above all an exercise of virtue."

In case you do not know, the answer is St Thomas More, member of Parliament, Speaker of the House of Commons, and Lord Chancellor to King Henry VIII of England. Unfortunately, your patron was beheaded. Thomas could not accept what the King asked of him. He withdrew from his offices and eventually paid with his life for his refusal to submit. He could not offend his conscience; what the King asked of him was too much. He could not repudiate all that he had believed in and all that he had stood for his whole life. Robert Bolt, in his play "A Man for All Seasons", puts in Thomas's mouth the words,

"the King's loyal servant, but God's first."

Integrity was More's great quality. All the pieces of his life fitted together; nothing jarred; nothing stuck out; there were no contradictions. All of us, whether private individuals or public figures, think of ourselves as people of integrity and think that there are no contradictions in us. It is others—and perhaps this is more intense for those in the public eye—who see the contradictions in us that diminish our integrity.

Politics is about ideals, but we also know that politics sometimes imposes compromise on us. When we cannot achieve our ideals, we settle for what we can achieve, but if our conscience does not allow us to compromise on a particular issue, we pay a price for that. If we have to tell our leader and colleagues, our party or even our constituents that we do not agree with them, and we stick to that position in public as well as in private, we follow More's example and serve, as the Pope says,

"not power but the supreme ideal of justice."

I pray, Presiding Officer, that your integrity and that of the members here may be safeguarded. Through the prayers of St Andrew, St Margaret and St Thomas More, your patron, may the blessings of Christ be on all your deliberations and all your decisions.

Thank you.