Free Republic

This year marks the 100th anniversary of Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton. It remains one of the great books of the English Catholic revival in the last part of the 19th and early 20th centuries, even though it was written before Chesterton’s conversion to Catholicism in 1922 and is a counterpart to an earlier book titled Heretics....

The fictional fantasy in The Club of Queer Trades reflects Chesterton’s genuine hope for a just society. He spent his life arguing that such a society was really possible. Argumentation is about persuasion. Chesterton wanted to convince the world that there was a better social structure than either Socialism or Capitalism. But it was not a system that could be imposed on a society; it was something a society had to learn about and then choose. Distributism, he argued, is not something “done to people,” but “done by people.”56 Like Christianity, Distributism has not been an ideal tried and found...

Although it was 80 years ago that the man dubbed "The Apostle of Common Sense" made his fateful comments about the then current election in America, they undoubtedly ring true today. Of course, you would substitute the words "Gay Marriage" and "Abortion" for "Drink" and "Prohibition," but the principle (and prejudice) remains the same. In those days, Chesterton argued, Governor Smith lost not so much because he was for social drinking and against Prohibition (a subject which, by the way, history proved him right about) but because he was Catholic—and the Republicans convinced enough ignorant WASP Americans that not only...

Don’t ask me what I think of the war. I’ll tell you anyway. I won’t tell you what you want to hear. I won’t tell you whether I am for or against it. I will tell you only that I think the same way G. K. Chesterton thinks about the war. Which war? Any war. I refer to his position because, curiously enough, it coincides with the Catholic Church’s position. We all know all the arguments against killing. And even against fighting. The Bible is pretty clear. Thou shall not kill. If your enemy strikes you on one cheek, offer...

Amazon review: In an article published the day before his death, G.K. Chesterton called The Man Who Was Thursday "a very melodramatic sort of moonshine." Set in a phantasmagoric London where policemen are poets and anarchists camouflage themselves as, well, anarchists, his 1907 novel offers up one highly colored enigma after another. If that weren't enough, the author also throws in an elephant chase and a hot-air-balloon pursuit in which the pursuers suffer from "the persistent refusal of the balloon to follow the roads, and the still more persistent refusal of the cabmen to follow the balloon." But Chesterton is...

Chesterton's reputation as one of the key figures in Christian literature during the 20th century is linked inextricably with the concept of "orthodoxy." His book of that title, published in 1908, was, according to Wilfrid Ward, a major milestone in the development of Christian thought. Wilfrid Ward was certainly not alone in his flattering praise of Chesterton's book. Its influence on the intellectual development of a whole generation was summed up by Dorothy L. Sayers. She had first read Orthodoxy as a schoolgirl when her faith had been threatened by adolescent doubt. In later years she confessed that its "invigorating...

The difficulty of explaining "why I am a Catholic" is that there are ten thousand reasons all amounting to one reason: that Catholicism is true. I could fill all my space with separate sentences each beginning with the words, "It is the only thing that . . ." As, for instance, (1) It is the only thing that really prevents a sin from being a secret. (2) It is the only thing in which the superior cannot be superior; in the sense of supercilious. (3) It is the only thing that frees a man from the degrading slavery of...

This book has a very special appeal for those who love the Church and the traditional Latin Mass. It first appeared in Great Britain under the title Literary Converts, and then was reprinted by Ignatius Press in 1999 with the subtitle "Spiritual Inspiration in an Age of Unbelief." I especially like the subtitle because this book has reinforced my faith today by affording me the company of the authors with whom I grew up: G.K. Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc, Ronald Knox, Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene, Malcolm Muggeridge, and a host of others. My main interest in them today is that many...

New Fall SeriesAll shows start in September MOTHER OF THE REDEEMER - Fr. Mitch Pacwa discusses Pope John Paul II's Encyclical "Redemptoris Mater," while visiting related sites in the Holy Land.  Airs Wednesdays at 2:30PM, Thursdays at 11:30PM, & Saturdays at 5:30AM.THE CATHOLIC PRIESTHOOD THROUGH THE AGES - Join Fr. Charles Connor as he gives a deeper insight into the scriptural, theological, historical and spiritual richness of the Sacrament of Holy Orders.  Airs Tuesdays at 11:30PM, Wednesdays at 5PM, & Fridays at 5AM.ECCLESIASTICAL MOVEMENTS AND THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH - Join Fr. C. John McCloskey III, Director of the Catholic Information Center...

O God of earth and altar O God of earth and altar, bow down and hear our cry, our earthly rulers falter, our people drift and die; the walls of gold entomb us, the swords of scorn divide, take not thy thunder from us, but take away our pride. From all that terror teaches, from lies of tongue and pen, from all the easy speeches that comfort cruel men, from sale and profanation of honor, and the sword, from sleep and from damnation, deliver us, good Lord! Tie in a living tether the prince and priest and thrall, bind...