John Fisher was beheaded at Tower Hill on 22 June 1535, a few weeks before Thomas More met the same fate. As the back cover of the book reminds the reader: ‘Fisher and Moore were both Catholics who were executed because of their refusal to acknowledge Henry VIII as head of the English Church.’ They were canonised in 1935.
During a short address, Archbishop Vincent Nichols thanked those who helped him to turn his theological thesis of more than 40 years ago into a thought-provoking and readable paperback relevant today.
Publication almost did not happen. Publishers, Darton Longman and Todd withdrew from the project due to the state of its finances. Invitations to the launch had been sent out and these were hastily withdrawn on 12 November!
Fortunately Mike and Sue Conway of Alive Publishing came to the rescue and have done a fine job working to an extremely tight deadline.
The engaging introduction by Archbishop Vincent is dated November 2011. I understand that copies of the book only arrived from the printer on the Monday before the book was launched.
Archbishop Vincent explained to his guests, including a number of friends from the Archdiocese of Birmingham where he was formally Archbishop for nine years, how he wrote much of the book when he was studying theology as a postgraduate at the University of Manchester during the early 1970’s.
Professor Eamon Duffy, Professor of the History of Christianity, at the University of Cambridge, and Jack Scarisbrick, Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Warwick, each spoke warmly about the book and the importance of St John Fisher.
In a puff on the back cover Jack Scarisbrick writes: ‘John Fisher was the most learned and influential theologian whom England produced before John Henry Newman – and was one of its most remarkable bishops.’
I enjoyed reading the Introduction on the late train home to Birmingham. In it Archbishop Vincent Nichols reveals how in the summer of 1969 he was asked by Mgr Thomas Worden, then Dean of Studies at St Joseph’s College, Upholland, the senior seminary for the Archdiocese of Liverpool, on behalf of Archbishop Beck, to go to Manchester University when he had finished his studies in Rome and had been ordained. It was his first appointment.
Archbishop Vincent pays tribute to his father. He writes: ‘The work was done at a pace, as I had only two years to complete it. As a newly ordained priest, I also wanted to be playing a part in the pastoral life of the Church. My father understood and offered to help as much as he could. He typed the entire work for me. He did so, of course, without the assistance of electronic typewriters or computers.
‘He used an old typewriter, carbon paper for a copy and lots of tipex. He painstakingly worked out the layout for every page, allowing for the many footnotes on each of them. It was a work of great love, without which this thesis would probably never have been presented, nor this book published.’
Fr Kevin Eastell, Professor at the Institut Catholique d’Etudes Supérieures at La Roche sur Yon in the Vendée, France, and a priest of the Archdiocese of Westminster, has contributed an Afterword, and was also involved in textual editing.
Fr Eastell was also present at the most enjoyable and convivial launch of an enthralling 237-page book that I thoroughly recommend.
St John Fisher is published by Alive Publishing, price £9.99. For further information see www.alivepublishing.co.uk
