St Thomas More Put On Trial Again- This Time In Dallas

Tip of the Hat to Pro Ecclesia that pointed out this First Things Article A Saint on Trial: Analyzing the Condemnation of Sir Thomas More.

Basically there was a whole weekend seminar on the St Thomas More Trial where the trial was even a dramatic reenactment of the trial. This all occurred at that little jewel The University of Dallas

What is interesting is the the impressive bunch of Judges they had their that talked about the trial and it was fair as well as well as other aspects. That panel included among others the Judge of the High Court of England and Chief Judge of the Federal 5th Circuit Curt of Appeals Edith Jones (who was often in Bush's Short List for the Supreme Court).

A pretty interesting article. I also thought this was interesting as it relates to issues of the day:

But was Thomas More guilty of high treason? Much depends on the technical meaning of malice, which features in two of the alleged counts, including the fourth and most important. (One of the controversial parts of the trial is that the presiding justices shouted “Malice!” several times during the proceedings, a practice which certainly must have affected the nervous jury and led to their verdict in a breathtaking fifteen minutes.) If malice means a mere intent to violate an Act of Parliament, then More was arguably guilty. But if malice means something more, such as the deliberate will to harm, then More was probably innocent, for his actions appear to have sprung from a genuinely charitable desire to serve his king even when disobeying him.

The issue of malice was particularly interesting since it shows some affinity to our current worldwide and aggressively expanding body of legislation against hate speech. On November 9, the morning after the two-day conference ended, a Dallas pastor was accused by angry protesters of hate speech for offering a sermon entitled, “Why Gay is not OK.” Like the broad use of “malice” which afforded judges and jury the legal cover to oblige the will of their ambitious monarch, one wonders whether the evolving definition of hatred will one day indict every criticism of a group that has garnered political or social sympathy, no matter how respectful, loving, or dispassionate that criticism may be.