A Letter from St. Thomas More to President-Elect Bush

by Father John McCloskey

Dear President-elect Bush:

Congratulations on your election. I think the fact that your election was finally certified by the Supreme Court on this great Feast is significant. Many of us here in heaven were following your election battle closely, having laid siege to heaven, pleading for your cause. That your cause triumphed–barely–is a tribute to the power of prayer and the special intercession of Our Lady, the Patroness of the Unborn.

Of course, as I hope you know, His Holiness Pope John Paul II named me (in an apostolic letter on October 31), the Patron Saint of Statesmen and Politicians. (To be quite honest, I much prefer being the patron of statesmen rather than politicians, but I do realize from my own experience that often times you have to act the latter to get to be the former!) As a result I have been hearing from many more people who need my help down there on earth.

I did want to write to give you some advice, based on my life and experience, so that you can be a great Christian statesman not only for the U.S., but also for the world. Don't worry about my sinning through pride. It is all Love up here.

By the way, be sure to make a visit to Rome soon to meet with the Holy Father and see what advice he gives you. Also take a good look at the claims of the Church to be the one, truly holy, catholic, and apostolic. Speak to your brother Jeb and ask him why he came into full communion with the Church. Delivering Florida will not be the most important favor he can grant you.

A good place to start is to see what the Holy Father, Our Lord's vicar on earth, says about me and see what you can learn from that. Take a look at the Pope's formal proclamation about me. What is most important in your new life as President will be the amount of time you dedicate to prayer, both for your own holiness and for the example you set for your countrymen.

I know that you pray and read the Holy Scriptures. Continue to do so now more than ever. Prayer is all-powerful, and the courageous decisions you will make in favor of "the culture of life" (thanks for using the phrase in your debate with the former Vice President) will come from the fortitude found in prayer and the example of Christ you find in the New Testament. You will undoubtedly have your own "Agony in the Garden," as I did in the Tower of London when the world was telling me to give in to political expediency rather than adhere to my conscience and moral integrity. If I had not persevered in prayer, I would most likely be writing this letter from a different place!

Next, take care of your family first and foremost. Your wife, Laura, and your two daughters should be your first priority along with your extended family. The Pope said of me, "Throughout his life he was an affectionate and faithful husband and father, deeply involved in his children's religious, moral and intellectual education. His house offered a welcome to his children's spouses and his grandchildren, and was always open to his many young friends in search of the truth or of their own calling in life."

America will only prosper if it is a country that genuinely treats the family as the guarantor of the respect for "the dignity of the human person" and "the sacredness of human life from conception until a natural death." If these priorities were established, it will be said of you as well as of me that "his life teaches that government is above all an exercise of virtue. Unwavering in this rigorous moral stance, this . . . statesman placed his own public activity at the service of the person, especially if that person was weak or poor; he dealt with social controversies with a superb sense of fairness; he was vigorously committed to favoring and defending the family; he supported the all-round education of the young. His profound detachment from honors and wealth, his serene and joyful humility, his balanced knowledge of human nature and of the vanity of success, his certainty of judgment rooted in faith: these all gave him that confident inner strength that sustained him in adversity and in the face of death. What enlightened his conscience was the sense that man cannot be sundered from God, nor politics from morality."

Now all of this may seem unattainable, but I, who knew myself to be a weak man full of sins, defects, and faults that were not so evident to the public (but were to my wives!) was able through God's great graces to win the crown of martyrdom and give an example that still shines after almost 500 years. The graces will be there for you too as long as you are the country's "good servant and God's first." All the rest will follow.

You don't have to write back. You can talk to me any time you want. As a reminder, I will make sure that one of my friends down there gives you a beautiful reproduction of my portrait (better than the one by my friend Holbein!) from a stained glass window that is only a couple of blocks away from your new home on Pennsylvania Avenue. I understand well the great challenges before you and will do my best to help by interceding for you before the Authority.

Your Patron and new friend in Christ,

(St.) Thomas More
Patron of Statesmen and Politicians

First appeared in National Catholic Register in the December 17-23, 2000 issue.