The Four Last Things

In The Four Last Things, St. Thomas More prescribes frequent meditation on Death, Judgment, Pain and Joy in order to combat the spiritual diseases of pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy and sloth.

The Supplication of Souls is More's vigorous, humorous, and artful defense of one of the flashpoints of the Reformation: the Catholic dogma of Purgatory. It is his devastating response to a defamatory political tract that claimed that the greed and corruption of English clergymen stemmed from their insistence on being paid to pray for the dead. 

A Dialogue on Conscience sets forth More's reasons for refusing to abjure his Catholic faith by taking the oath of allegiance to King Henry VIII as the head of the Church in England. It illustrates why More has a deserved place among the Church's greatest saints and martyrs.

St. Thomas  More was an English lawyer,  social philosopher, author,  statesman, and noted  Renaissance humanist. He was a Councillor to  Henry VIII, and  Lord High Chancellor of England  from October 1529 to May 1532. He is known for his 1516 book  Utopia  and for his death in 1535, after refusing to acknowledge King Henry VIII as head of the Church of England. He was canonized by the Catholic Church as a saint in 1935.    More opposed the  Protestant Reformation, in particular the theology of  Martin Luther  and  William Tyndale. More also opposed the king's separation from the  Catholic Church, refusing to acknowledge Henry as  Supreme Head of the Church of England  and the annulment of his marriage to  Catherine of Aragon. After refusing to take the  Oath of Supremacy, he was convicted of  treason  and beheaded. Of his execution, he was reported to have said: "I die the King's good servant, and God's first."Pope Pius XI  canonized More in 1935 as a  martyr.  Pope John Paul II  in 2000 declared him the "heavenly  Patron  of Statesmen and Politicians."