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"John Fisher and Thomas More: Keeping Their Souls While Losing Their Heads"

In 1929, nearly four hundred years after the deaths of Saints Thomas More and John Fisher, G.K. Chesterton observed “Blessed Thomas More is more important at this moment than at any moment since his death, even perhaps the great moment of his dying; but he is not quite so important as he will be in a hundred years.”

Judge Robert J Conrad, Jr. anticipates Chesterton’s one-hundred-year mark in a collection of stories from the lives of More and Fisher, demonstrating how their sanctity and integrity carried them and those who loved them through tumultuous and heart-wrenching times which, perhaps surprisingly, bear a striking resemblance to the present epoch.

At first blush, nothing could appear more different than the pre-industrial sixteenth century and the tech-centered modern era. But a closer examination presents a similar tale of political maneuvering and hostile hearings, legal corruption, viral pandemics, riots, suppression of speech, loss of religious liberty, and a profound indifference for truth.

Judge Conrad will weave together tales of both men and what made them who they were—family, faith, friendship, oaths, vocation, detachment, conscience—inviting those who strive for holiness down the same narrow path these two martyrs walked with a clarity founded upon the truth of Christ’s Church, and a wit that charmed even their persecutors. Both stand today, long after they are gone, as models of courage in a time when it is desperately needed.

Robert J. ‘Bob’ Conrad Jr is a trial judge, ex-federal prosecutor, ‘Legend of the ACC’ college basketball player, husband, father, grandfather, coach, mentor, teacher, and amateur historian. He attended attended Clemson University, where he was an Academic All-American, and the University of Virginia Law School.