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December 29
Thomas Becket, Sebastian Castellio, the Treaty of New Echota, and the Wounded Knee Massacre
David Barnhart
December 29, 2025
Memorial at Canterbury Cathedral where Thomas Becket was murdered. 2022, own photo.
On this day in 1890, nearly three hundred Lakota people, mainly women and children, were massacred by U.S. troops at Wounded Knee.
Fifty-five years earlier, in 1835, the so-called “Treaty of New Echota” was signed by a minority party of Cherokee, giving the state of Georgia and President Jackson an excuse to implement a forced removal policy that would come to be known as “The Trail of Tears.”
Today is the feast day of Thomas Becket, who was assassinated on December 29, 1170 by followers of Henry II. Henry’s ambiguous words ordering the assassination—”Who will rid me of this troublesome priest?”—are a model of “plausible deniability” for many autocratic leaders.
Today also marks the death of Sebastian Castellio in 1563. Castellio was a priest who stood up to John Calvin’s abuses of religious and political power. He was an advocate for religious tolerance. Calvin’s followers later dug up his body, burned it, and scattered his ashes.
Reflection:
Sebastian Castellio wrote:
"We can live together peacefully only when we control our intolerance. Even though there will always be differences of opinion from time to time, we can at any rate come to general understandings, can love one another, and can enter the bonds of peace, pending the day when we shall attain unity of faith."
When asked who should be considered a heretic, he wrote:
"I can find no other criterion than that we are all heretics in the eyes of those who do not share our views."
Prayer: God, your best prophets, and even the messiah, were often condemned as heretics by the religious establishment because they challenged power. Give us the courage and spiritual power to be labeled heretics as well. Amen.