Talk:John Fisher

Untitled
I've moved here the following contrib by
 * There is also a roman catholic boy's school named The John Fisher School, in Purley, England. It is the only school to be called The John Fisher School, as it was founded principally before Fisher was cannonized

to here since Is this verifiable?:
 * 1) a college is a type of school, and we need to know which other kinds of schools besides the college (and what countries, if any, since the vagueness and the difficulty of world-wide verification raise that possibility) the editor is excluding, and
 * 2) "principally" is unencyclopedically vague: when was it "first founded", and what further events, that in some sense could be called further foundings, took place later?
 * 3) as written, the word "as" implies a relation between the uniqueness of the name and the timing. Ah! This is a school without "St." in its name. Sooo...
 * The Roman Catholic boys' school in Purley, England is named The John Fisher School after him. The lack of "St." or "Saint" in its name reflects its history's beginning before his canonization.

"Only" is of very little encyclopedic interest, since we can leave it to Guiness to settle bar bets. That may leave only the need for Dab'n between Purley, London & Purley-On-Thames. --Jerzy•t 21:44, 20 April 2006 (UTC) Here's one http://www.sjfchs.org.uk/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.1.112.32 (talk) 20:54, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

I seem to recall that in the past there was some coverage on this page of Fisher's loose plotting with Catholics that wanted to overthrow Henry. Was this deemed inaccurate? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.74.237.174 (talk) 22:18, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Hagiography
The article appears to have been written in a disctinctly hagiographical vein (? as befits a Saint). As such it differs from that on Sir Thomas More, who is portrayed "warts and all". I do not know enough about Fisher to contradict this, but certainly he seems to have been involved in the interrogation and subsequent burning of at least one Protestant martyr, so perhaps more balance is needed. Millbanks (talk) 07:41, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Everything I have read states that Fisher was not involved in burning heretics. Is there a source for this or do you just think he did because he was a bishop in the sixteenth-century? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.111.184.95 (talk) 08:26, 4 May 2010 (UTC)


 * If there is evidence for this he would not be on the list of Saints. If there was found the slightest evidence of wrong-doing on his part, between 29Dec.1886 and 19May1935 he would not have been canonized.   MacOfJesus (talk) 17:55, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't think that is necessarily correct about canonization: Fisher (and More) were canonized because of their deaths not their lives. (More even said that when you are a judge you have to do things you would not do otherwise.) Now it may be that Fisher also lived a pretty saintly life, which would help, but his canonization (as with More) is as a Martyr.
 * The difficulty for editors is that in these religious cases the "warts" usually come from highly polemic, non-neutral sources: so on one side you have the hagiographers and on the other the debunkers: the older the source the more polemical. (Take John Foxe for example: where he quotes hard sources like laws he is generally very accurate (though he sometimes adds or subtracts things, with some editorial license), but he also can quote oral or missing sources whose veracity cannot be relied on simply, and his commentary is admitted by all to be highly partisan.) In the cases where there is a controversy, the NPOV method is to make sure that both sides (unless absolutely controverted by evidence, such as modern scholarship) get mentioned (not necessarily equal space), or that things are phrased to tone down absolute claims or to introduce appropriate contrary facts, and the reader gets alerted that there is a controversy.
 * What, I think, should be avoided is bogging articles down by giving lots of space to dubious things that are not critical to the article: the Talk pages are better places to obsess on arcana. Rick Jelliffe (talk) 04:20, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

Speaking of hagiography, wow. He never sinned? Even according to Catholic doctrine, saints sin. Sheesh. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.74.237.174 (talk) 22:17, 9 June 2010 (UTC)


 * No, there is a difference between unrepentant wrongdoing, and a confessed sinner. I was referring to unrepentant wrongdoing, such as having a hand in the death of someone.  See the life of Saint Dismas.  He did all that and more but was repentant on the cross.  "Remember me when you come into Your Kingdom".  Jesus Himself canonized him.  MacOfJesus (talk) 13:01, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
 * In any case, if an accused person refused to re-cant or point out why an accusation of major public heresy was wrong, they put themselves out of the church protection, so that when they were handed over to the secular authorities the Church could offer them no protection. It was the State who executed, under the Sate's laws. We can see in the cases of Thomas Bilney (and over in Belgium, William Tyndale) that in fact the Inquisitors spent considerable effort trying to talk the accused people out of their fates: trying to find ways to keep them under church protection from the state by re-cantation or pleading guilty to lesser charges. For Lollards, the conventional excuse was to say that the person was illiterate, therefore posession of Lollad material was not inculpatory...) Rick Jelliffe (talk) 05:11, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

As I recall, and I believe was stated in an earlier version of this article, Fisher became involved in intrigues against Henry to a degree and manner that for instance Thomas More never did. These intrigues are important and should be included. It is briefly mentioned in this link:

http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=5108 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.250.206.188 (talk) 14:56, 26 July 2013 (UTC)


 * ✅ I have edited the article to hopefully improve it in some of the areas mentioned above. In particular, it now has more specific details on Fisher's involvement in the Hitton trial (the Hitton article has more details), it keeps the separation between inquisition and state clearer, it removes some uncited and dubious claims (e.g. that Fisher ordered the arrest of Hitton), and it tries to keep a NPOV on the disputed issue of whether Hitton was tortured (by Fisher or whoever) by giving both sources. Also added several useful links, such as what "torture" involved in inquisitions.
 * On the issue of Fisher calling for the overthrow of Henry, I think that is not a disputed fact now.Rick Jelliffe (talk) 12:45, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

Bot-created subpage
A temporary subpage at User:Polbot/fjc/John Fisher was automatically created by a perl script, based on this article at the Biographical Directory of Federal Judges. The subpage should either be merged into this article, or moved and disambiguated. Polbot (talk) 20:43, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Duplicated sentence
"In November 1529, the 'Long Parliament' of Henry's reign began its series of encroachments on the Church. Fisher, as a member of the upper house, at once warned Parliament that such acts could only end in the utter destruction of the Church in England. On this the Commons, through their speaker, complained to the king that the bishop had disparaged Parliament," This sentence ends the section Defense of Catherine of Aragon and is then duplicted at the beginning of the next section, Henry Attacks the Church. One or the other needs to go. Most concerned editor should choose.Buster Seven   Talk  01:02, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

✅

Cardinal John Fisher
"Catholic piety conventionally explains the scarlet robes that Cardinals wear as a sign of their readiness to shed their blood for the sake of the Christian gospel. This is an edifying thought: but as a matter of fact, in the whole millenium-long history of the cardinalate, only one member of the Sacred College has actually ever suffered martyrdom. That man was John Fisher. (...)

He had many friends among the bishops (...). But one by one, they parted company from him, succumbing to the threats of their implacable royal master, renouncing the Pope, the unity of Catholic Europe. That growing isolation was the measure of Fisher's courage, a measure by which all his brother bishops proved so notably lacking. Maybe absolute integrity is destined always to fall foul of absolute power." (Eamon Duffy: Saints, Sacrilege and Sedition, p. 150)--Analogia (talk) 08:17, 15 July 2012 (UTC)


 * ✅ I have added the first para of this to the article, as it is quite notable.Rick Jelliffe (talk) 13:19, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

Serious Bias
This article is seriously biased using terms that can not be justified and not dealing properly with his principal role in plots against the Tudor state. --2.127.214.169 (talk) 21:18, 11 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Without specific details, it is not possible to act on this, IMHO. Rick Jelliffe (talk) 12:47, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

Anglican Communion Calendar of Saints
I think it should simply be mentioned that he is honoured in some Calendar of Saints of the Church of England and other provinces of the Anglican Communion. It makes absolutely no sense to mention those calendars were he is absent. We can't forget that the Anglican Communion title of saint is merely honorific, their churches have no mechanism to beatify and canonize saints like the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Churches.Mistico (talk) 18:43, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 14:51, 16 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Saint John Fisher.jpg

Extreme bias
This is an incredibly biased article; as others have pointed out, it reads like Roman Catholic hagiography. He's a saint of the RC church, no doubt, but this site is not for hagiography.

This is especially bad in the section "Henry's attack on the church." (An Anglican would not consider it an attack on the church, but a change or clarification of church government.) The section engages in a great deal of speculation about Henry VIII's motivations and even actions ("presumably with Henry prompting them behind the scenes" and "leaving it to the Commons to declare that the explanation was inadequate, so that he appeared as a magnanimous sovereign, instead of Fisher's enemy.").

I'll leave this comment here a few days for discussion. Then I plan to go through and correct some of this. 129.110.242.24 (talk) 21:36, 12 July 2023 (UTC)


 * ✅ I have changed the heading referred to, so that "Henry's attack on the Church" now corresponds to what the body text says "Henry's attack on church prerogatives", which I think is uncontroversial.
 * I have added a tag to the section that there needs to be more citations. IIRC the Wikipedia editorial guidelines do not recommend simply removing uncited text willy nilly, but instead marking them as "citation required" first, for some period.
 * I have commented out the phrase "presumably with Henry prompting them behind the scenes" and the subsequent sentence. It would be good for someone to get some citation on this and, if there is a good one, re-add it. (I have not changed the so that he appeared as a magnanimous sovereign, just to give a better prompt for editors to find a citation, which is probably a bit random.)
 * I have removed a sentence on his execution that seems too hagriographical, that he died as he had lived life. It can be reverted if someone finds a justifying citation, of course. Rick Jelliffe (talk) 12:54, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Because of the recent changes made, I believe the article has NPOV. Consequently, unless there is disagreement here, I think the NPOV Disputed tag can now be removed.
 * The article has also had more citations added. However, more are needed: that would likely resolve any lingering NPOV issues too. For example the story of the King's magnanimity really has nothing to do with a hagriographic bias IMHO, but needs a citation. Rick Jelliffe (talk) 09:58, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

Why is Henry VIII called an attacker?
Henry VIII is called in this article an attacker of church [of Rome] and an encroacher on its prerogatives. Yet these "attacks" and "encroachments" have been emulated by every country in the world and form the basis of the modern separation between church and state. By the way, Froude in The Divorce of Catherine of Aragon cites a report by the Spanish ambassador that Fisher conspired with the Pope for an invasion of England.WmDKing (talk) 23:36, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I don't get the argument, sorry: I think this comment is responding to previous Talk articles, whose specific issues have -to a large extent- been addressed already, rather than the actual article: in particular, Henry is not called "an attacker of the Church" which was an old heading (Btw. The invasion story is in the article, and has been there for a decade.)
 * Henry's Supremacy did the reverse of creating a separation between church and state, it merged the state and the church in a way that no modern country (except the Vatican) now has. (And it gave him a firesale of 1/3 of the agricultural land in England, which had been gifted to the monasteries over the centuries: how is appropriating 1/3 of farmland a separation between church and state?)
 * I wonder if @WmDKing is maybe implying some extra adjectives that are not there, so that "prerogative" is being read as "rightful prerogative" and "attack" is being read as "illegitimate attack"? They don't, so I don't see the bias. But it would good to hear some concrete suggestions, because undoubtedly my ears will not hear some things that another's ears will pick up. Rick Jelliffe (talk) 04:57, 9 January 2024 (UTC)