G K Chesterton Do It Again

Our Patron

Chesterton Academy is named for the not bad English writer and Catholic convert, G.K. Chesterton (1874- 1936). Chesterton is a model for our school because he exemplified the Catholic faith through a life filled with joy, wonder, and gratitude.

Chesterton was considered one of the world's most outstanding men of messages in the early 20th century. An accomplished essayist, novelist, and poet, he wrote a hundred books on all dissimilar subjects. In 1922, he shocked the literary establishment by converting to Catholicism. He was afterwards eulogized by Pope Pius XI every bit "a gifted defender of the faith," and there is presently a popular movement to have him canonized. The school has chosen him for its patron because he non merely represents the fullness of organized religion and reason, only also Catholic joy and common sense.

Read on to larn more than about our patron from our co-founder, Dale Ahlquist, president of the American Chesterton Society.

Get to know G.K. Chesterton

Why was G.Thousand. Chesterton once so popular?

Chesterton was a prolific English writer of books, poems, plays and essays, who wrote about everything and did so with great wit, verve and insight. People bought newspapers merely to read his columns and bought radios just to hear his phonation. Immensely quotable ("To take a right to practice a matter is non at all the same equally to be correct in doing information technology") and immensely immense (300 pounds), he stirred the literary globe with his paradoxes ("A thing worth doing is worth doing badly") and his puns ("The world volition never starve for want of wonders, just only for want of wonder") and both ("Angels fly because they take themselves lightly"). Even though he was not a Cosmic at the fourth dimension, he created a beloved graphic symbol in detective fiction who happened to be a Catholic priest: Father Brown. He wrote i of the concluding swell ballsy poems in the English linguistic communication: The Ballad of the White Horse. He debated some of the leading intellectuals of his twenty-four hour period: George Bernard Shaw, Bertrand Russell and Clarence Darrow. He conducted ii extended speaking tours of the U.Southward., and every one of his lectures was front page news and was sold out. He had the same success in Spain, Italy, Republic of ireland, the Netherlands, Poland and the Holy Land.

Why did he stop being pop?

Chesterton stirred the literary world again in 1922 when he was received into the Cosmic Church. His conversion was world broad news, but in some people'southward minds he went from being a author to being a Cosmic writer. Though he had e'er pointed to God ("The Christian ideal has non been tried and plant wanting. It has been plant difficult and left untried"), he was now pointing to Rome. Later his death, he naturally disappeared from the newspapers, but then he disappeared from the classroom, where his books were once taught. The world became a more depressing place later on World State of war II, and Chesterton's message of hope and joy was not what a jaded and despairing world wanted to hear. His battle against fads and fashions gave way to… fads and fashions. His writing, which dealt with the big questions, fell out of favor in a climate that wanted to deal with the small questions.

Why is he becoming pop once more?

Later on 2 generations grew up with no exposure to Chesterton, a new generation started to rediscover him. They found him to be prophetic ("The next cracking heresy is going to be but an attack on morality: and particularly on sexual morality") and timely ("Men do not differ much about what things they will call evils; they differ enormously about what evils they will telephone call excusable") and profound ("The most ignorant of humanity know by the very look of earth that they take forgotten heaven") He speaks the truth plainly ("Right is correct, even if nobody does information technology. Wrong is incorrect, even if everybody is wrong near it") simply also poignantly ("When people begin to ignore human dignity, it will not be long earlier they begin to ignore human rights"). And he's still refreshingly funny ("It is a the exam of a good organized religion whether yous tin can joke about it").

Dale Ahlquist, co-founder of Chesterton Academy and President of the American Chesterton Social club.

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Source: https://chestertonacademy.org/about/gk-chesterton/

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