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Presidential Documents
Federal Register Vol. 86, No. 1
Monday, January 4, 2021

Title 3

Proclamation 10129 of December 28, 2020

The President
850th Anniversary of the Martyrdom of Saint Thomas Becket By the President of the United States of America A Proclamation Today is the 850th anniversary of the martyrdom of Saint Thomas Becket on December 29, 1170. Thomas Becket was a statesman, a scholar, a chancellor, a priest, an archbishop, and a lion of religious liberty.
Before the Magna Carta was drafted, before the right to free exercise of religion was enshrined as Americas first freedom in our glorious Constitution, Thomas gave his life so that, as he said, the Church will attain liberty and peace.
The son of a London sheriff and once described as a low-born clerk by the King who had him killed, Thomas Becket rose to become the leader of the church in England. When the crown attempted to encroach upon the affairs of the house of God through the Constitutions of Clarendon, Thomas refused to sign the offending document. When the furious King Henry II threatened to hold him in contempt of royal authority and questioned why this poor and humble priest would dare defy him, Archbishop Becket responded God is the supreme ruler, above Kings and we ought to obey God rather than men.
Because Thomas would not assent to rendering the church subservient to the state, he was forced to forfeit all his property and flee his own country.
Years later, after the intervention of the Pope, Becket was allowed to return and continued to resist the Kings oppressive interferences into the life of the church. Finally, the King had enough of Thomas Beckets stalwart defense of religious faith and reportedly exclaimed in consternation: Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?
The Kings knights responded and rode to Canterbury Cathedral to deliver Thomas Becket an ultimatum: give in to the Kings demands or die. Thomass reply echoes around the world and across the ages. His last words on this earth were these: For the name of Jesus and the protection of the Church, I am ready to embrace death. Dressed in holy robes, Thomas was cut down where he stood inside the walls of his own church.
Thomas Beckets martyrdom changed the course of history. It eventually brought about numerous constitutional limitations on the power of the state over the Church across the West. In England, Beckets murder led to the Magna Cartas declaration 45 years later that: The English church shall be free, and shall have its rights undiminished and its liberties unimpaired.
When the Archbishop refused to allow the King to interfere in the affairs of the Church, 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 and that it is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights.

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