When I was a boy growing up in Liverpool we had two small statues in our bedroom: one was St Thomas More, the other St John Fisher. I grew up with two brothers, and the stories of these two saints never ceased to fascinate us; their endings were gory and gruesome, like all the English martyrs, being executed for their faith.

In those days St Thomas More was the better-known of the two, despite their very similar stories. So I knew more about him than I did about St John Fisher. But then some years later, when I had finished my studies in Rome and had been ordained, I was engaged in theological research at Manchester University and my professor there suggested that I might be interested in undertaking an historical investigation of the life of St John Fisher. And this appealed to me; not only because as a man and a saint he was so interesting, but also because the times in which he lived – the 16th century, the period when the Church in England split with the Church of Rome – were so interesting.

The more I discovered about Fisher, the more I realised that he was – and would continue to be – my role model. Cardinal Hume said just that in his sermon at my episcopal ordination in 1992 , describing Fisher as a ‘bishop of great scholarship, [a] man of prayer, [a] lover of the poor... humble, faithful, courageous’.

What Fisher knew was that the health of the Church depended largely on the health of the parish

So what is it about Fisher that I find inspirational? As a bishop, he was someone who knew that what matters most is getting the basic things right. His first priority was his priests: he saw his job as being to prepare them for the task of preaching; to ensure they were properly educated and that their period of formation was a fruitful one; and to support them through their life as priests, with opportunities for ongoing formation. What Fisher knew was that the health of the Church depended largely on the health of the parish and, in turn, this depended on the work and presence of the clergy.

Fisher lived at a time when the Catholic Church, and the clergy in particular, were widely believed to be in a dire state. And where priests were at fault, he didn’t hesitate to point this out, often vigorously. But in researching the history of the Reformation all those years ago, what I discovered, and this has been borne out by later academic work, was that things were not as they have been painted. The crisis that was supposedly going on in the Church in England and Wales at the time of the Reformation was not as it is often portrayed: what happened in this country, in terms of the split with Rome, was much more about Henry VIII than it was to do with corruption in the Church.

Are there parallels with what is happening around us today? I think there are: because if you look back to the 16th century you see a pattern that begins to establish itself of assuming the worst about the clergy. They were seen as ignorant, lazy and greedy; but when you look into this, as a historian, you realise there is very little evidence for these charges. Maybe a very few priests were these things; but the majority, the vast majority, were good men living out their vocations in a genuine and often very effective way.

Today, it seems that – for many – the reputation of the Catholic clergy is being shaped and coloured by the actions of a tiny minority who have acted appallingly and abused children to whom they had access. That is a terrible, inexcusable thing, and we will never flinch from saying so: but does it mean that all, or even many, of the clergy are at fault? Absolutely not; and yet in some parts of the media, that is the assumption that seems to be being made.

But what I see and hear, as I travel around the diocese visiting parishes and meeting Catholics, is a very different story. What I see are parishes that are steady and expanding; people who are bearing the burden of the terrible things they have read about in the papers, but who are not put off their faith by it. I meet priests who are clearly deeply loved and respected, and who are given a huge amount of support by their people. It was the same during the Reformation: the government agents who went around the country ‘reforming’ parishes, were very often faced with people who were loyal to the ‘old faith’ and actively resistant to change.

Education, for St John Fisher, was another priority; and so it is for me. He was an academic and a university teacher, the vice-chancellor of Cambridge University; and I think he would have been pleased to know that there is a great deal that’s positive happening at the moment in higher education for the Catholic Church. There is a strong Catholic presence, stronger than there has been for some years, in the country’s leading theology faculties, and Cambridge University now has its first-ever Catholic woman professor of theology, Janet Martin Soskice. The country’s Catholic colleges – St Mary’s in Twickenham, Trinity and All Saints in Leeds, Newman in Birmingham, Maryvale Institute, Heythrop College and the Centre for Catholic Studies in Durham – are stronger than they have been for a long time, and their representatives will soon meet together at Ampleforth to discuss the ways in which they can work more closely together.

He kept in touch, with his priests, and also with his people

Catholic education today is clearly very different from the way it was in Fisher’s time, when church and community were inextricably integrated. But in the last century of partnership with the government we have a great deal to be proud of: we have some wonderful Catholic schools, and they are doing tremendous work. It never has been, and it never will be, a simple partnership because policies and structures are constantly changing: but the Church always has, and always will, look to both adapt and preserve the essential character which underpins our schools. I am confident we will continue to do that.

Another aspect of Fisher’s life that is important to me is the fact that he kept in touch, with his priests, and also with his people. I think that he was one of the first bishops to pioneer the idea of bishops regularly visiting their parishes; and I believe that is an essential element of being an effective bishop today, just as it was then. And when Fisher visited his parishes he spent time not only with the priests, but also with the people, especially the poorest of the poor.

I’m delighted that my book about Fisher is being published. Most of it was researched all those years ago, when I was studying at Manchester University, but the lessons I learned from writing it are as fresh in my life today as they were then. His tenets are my tenets, and they help me to be certain of my vision, which is this. We need to go on building up the life of our parishes; we need to go on supporting our priests; and we need to go on reaching out to the disadvantaged. These were John Fisher’s priorities; and they are, and will continue to be, my priorities also.

The Life and Times of St John Fisher

John Fisher was born in Yorkshire on October 19 1469, the son of a merchant in Beverley. He studied at Cambridge, was ordained a priest and became the chaplain to Margaret Beaufort, mother of King Henry VII. He became vice-chancellor of Cambridge University in 1501, and three years later was appointed Bishop of Rochester, then the poorest diocese in England.

He was a tutor to Prince Henry, later King Henry VIII; and later, when Martin Luther published his charges of abuse against the Catholic Church, Henry asked him to preach against them in a famous sermon outside St Paul’s Cathedral in London. But the question of whether Henry could divorce Catherine of Aragon, his first wife, put the two on a collision course; and after Henry married Anne Boleyn, Fisher was arrested. In 1535 he was tried for treason, accused of denying that the King was the Supreme Head of the Church of England. He was beheaded on Tower Hill in London in June that year, a few days before the execution of St Thomas More.