Man Is Never Genuinely at Home Except in Goodness. —G.K

12 Tremendous Trifles 2 Truth in the State of Transmission For Just a Few Steps 14 The Flying Inn 2 28 An Answer to a Prayer 28

THE MAGAZINE OF THE APOSTOLATE OF COMMON SENSE

Man is never genuinely at home except in goodness. —G.K. CHESTERTON

VOL . NO.

22 03

$ 00 7 JAN/FEB 2019 THE PROFOUND LEGACY OF POPE BENEDICT XVI ◆ BENEDICT XVI: His Life and Thought Elio Guerriero idely recognized as one of the most brilliant theologians and spiritual leaders Wof our time, Benedict XVI was also misunderstood by many, and in 2013, he astonished the world by resigning from the papacy. In these pages Benedict XVI shares his story for the rst time since his retirement from the papacy. Elio Guer- riero, who has a long relationship with the Pope Emeritus, presents a thorough, well-rounded portrait of the brilliant intellectual and humble man of the Church whom many more have come to love and respect since his resignation. It includes a Foreword by Pope Francis, and contains the first personal interview of Benedict XVI since the end of his ponti cate. B16LTH . . . 6 x 9 Sewn Hardcover, 715 pages, $34.95

“ e de nitive biography of a man who ranks as one of the most consequential church- men of the last one hundred years. Engaging, learned, and deeply insightful, this book sheds light, not only on the life of Joseph Ratzinger, but on the life of the Catholic Church in our turbulent time.” —Most Reverend Robert Barron, Auxiliary Bishop, Los Angeles

“An informative, accessible introduction to the life and thought of a modern Father of the Church, whose theological accomplishment will shape Catholic thought for centuries.” —George Weigel, Witness to Hope: e Biography of Pope John Paul II

◆ THE SPIRIT OF THE LITURGY Commemorative Edition Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger & Romano Guardini n honor of its fortieth anniversary (1978–2018), Ignatius Press presents a special Commem- Iorative Edition of one of the most important works written by Joseph Ratzinger. It includes the earlier classic work with the same title by Romano Guardini, a book that helped Ratzinger to “rediscover the liturgy in all its beauty, hidden wealth and time-transcending grandeur.” Considered as Ratzinger’s greatest work on the liturgy, this beautifully written treatment of the "great prayer of the Church" will help readers to deepen their understanding of the sacred rites of the Church. SPLCEH . . . Sewn Hardcover, 380 pages, $24.95 “A singularly rich resource and guide in our day, as are the other personal liturgical writings of the Benedict XVI, and indeed his liturgical magisterium as Supreme Ponti which retains its validity.” —Cardinal Robert Sarah, From the Foreword; Author, e Power of Silence

◆ FAITH AND POLITICS Joseph Ratzinger atzinger explored various aspects of this major theme in his books, speeches, and homilies Rthroughout his career, from his years as a theology professor to his tenure as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and as Pope Benedict XVI. is is the only book that collates all of his most signi cant works on political themes inside one volume. JRSW2P . . . Sewn So cover, 275 pages, $18.95 "Ratzinger writes with penetrating intellect and tranquil con dence in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. is marvelous volume recon rms him as one of the greatest Christian minds of the last century." —Most Reverend Charles Chaput, Archbishop of Philadelphia

www.ignatius.com P.O. Box 1339, Ft. Collins, CO 80522 (800) 651-1531 TABLE OF CONTENTS THE PROFOUND LEGACY OF Volume 22 • Number 3, January/February 2019

TREMENDOUS TRIFLES...... 2 NEWS WITH VIEWS ...... 24 ALL IS GRIST POPE BENEDICT XVI COMPILED BY MARK PILON ...... 15 LUNACY AND LETTERS...... 3 Coping with Cars BY JOE CAMPBELL ◆ BENEDICT XVI: His Life and Thought CHESTERTON’S MAIL BAG ...... 35 Elio Guerriero Thou Shalt Not G.K. Chesterton and FEATURES ...... 16 idely recognized as one of the most brilliant theologians and spiritual leaders BY G.K. CHESTERTON the Moons of Saturn BY DREW SAPPINGTON Wof our time, Benedict XVI was also misunderstood by many, and in 2013, he BALLADE OF GILBERT ...... 3 LETTER TO AMERICA...... 36 astonished the world by resigning from the papacy. In these pages Benedict XVI Music shares his story for the rst time since his retirement from the papacy. Elio Guer- BY G.K. CHESTERTON The Frenzy of the Mature BOOK REVIEWS BY G.K. CHESTERTON riero, who has a long relationship with the Pope Emeritus, presents a thorough, Protestantism As Seen well-rounded portrait of the brilliant intellectual and humble man of the Church GENERALLY SPEAKING...... 4 CHESTERTON’S SKETCHBOOK. . . . . 36 By G.K. Chesterton...... 32 whom many more have come to love and respect since his resignation. It includes a A True Prophet Among BY G.K. CHESTERTON REVIEWED BY CHUCK CHALBERG Foreword by Pope Francis, and contains the first personal interview of Benedict False Prophets XVI since the end of his ponti cate. BY DALE AHLQUIST The Illustrated Art COLUMNS B16LTH . . . 6 x 9 Sewn Hardcover, 715 pages, $34.95 of Manliness & STRAWS IN THE WIND...... 5 ...... 33 SCHALL ON CHESTERTON ...... 7 Man of the House “ e de nitive biography of a man who ranks as one of the most consequential church- Humanity Through The Fog REVIEWED BY DAVID P. DEAVEL men of the last one hundred years. Engaging, learned, and deeply insightful, this book BY G.K. CHESTERTON Things Greater than Man sheds light, not only on the life of Joseph Ratzinger, but on the life of the Catholic Church BY JAMES V. SCHALL, S. J. in our turbulent time.” ROLLING ROAD...... 8 —Most Reverend Robert Barron, Auxiliary Bishop, Los Angeles Varied Types meets THE GOLDEN KEY CHAIN ...... 11 The Rolling Road CONDUCTED BY PETER FLORIANI “An informative, accessible introduction to the life and thought of a modern Father of the NEWS FROM CHESTERTON SOCIETIES Church, whose theological accomplishment will shape Catholic thought for centuries.” FROM AROUND THE WORLD THE DISTRIBUTIST ...... 26 —George Weigel, Witness to Hope: e Biography of Pope John Paul II The Crime of the Shopkeeper TRUTH IN THE STATE BY G.K. CHESTERTON ◆ THE SPIRIT OF THE LITURGY OF TRANSMISSION...... 12 THE FLYING INN...... 28 Commemorative Edition Chesterton Academy in Italy BY MARCO SERMARINI An Answer to a Prayer Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger & Romano Guardini BY DAVID BERESFORD For Just a Few Steps n honor of its fortieth anniversary (1978–2018), Ignatius Press presents a special Commem- BY RICHARD VIGILANTE Iorative Edition of one of the most important works written by Joseph Ratzinger. It includes the CHESTERTON’S GREAT CHARACTERS...... 30 earlier classic work with the same title by Romano Guardini, a book that helped Ratzinger to “re- CHESTERTON UNIVERSITY ...... 20 discover the liturgy in all its beauty, hidden wealth and time-transcending grandeur.” Considered History as it is Happening Aristide Valentin BY CHRIS CHAN as Ratzinger’s greatest work on the liturgy, this beautifully written treatment of the "great prayer BY DALE AHLQUIST of the Church" will help readers to deepen their understanding of the sacred rites of the Church. ABOUT THE COVER: ALL I SURVEY...... 31 SPLCEH . . . Sewn Hardcover, 380 pages, $24.95 THE SIGNATURE OF MAN...... 23 Painting by Matko Antolčić The Art of the Decadents Doing Eden Backwards See Tremendous Trifles page 1 “A singularly rich resource and guide in our day, as are the other personal liturgical writings of the DAVID W. FAGERBERG BY G.K. CHESTERTON Benedict XVI, and indeed his liturgical magisterium as Supreme Ponti which retains its validity.” —Cardinal Robert Sarah, From the Foreword; Author, e Power of Silence

IMAGE CREDITS: p. 2 Archival, Clark Durant, Kendra Posch; p. 7: Habib kaki; p. 9: Courtesy of Karl Schmude; p. 10: Courtesy of Virginia de la Lastra; p. 12: Scuola ◆ FAITH AND POLITICS Libera Gilbert Keith Chesterton; p. 22: Virginia de la Lastra; p. 24: T. Schluenderfritz; p. 24: Baby: Daria Shevtsova; p. 28: David Beresford Joseph Ratzinger All other images to the best of our knowledge are in the public domain. atzinger explored various aspects of this major theme in his books, speeches, and homilies throughout his career, from his years as a theology professor to his tenure as Prefect of the PUBLISHER and EDITOR: Dale Ahlquist, President, ACS COPY EDITOR: Rose Korman ART DIRECTOR: Ted Schluenderfritz MEMBERSHIP DIRECTOR: Linda R SENIOR WRITER: CONTRIBUTING EDITORS: Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and as Pope Benedict XVI. is is the only book that Phillips Art Livingston David Beresford, Joe Campbell, John C. Chalberg, Christopher Chan, Victoria Darkey, David collates all of his most signi cant works on political themes inside one volume. Paul Deavel, David W. Fagerberg, Mark Pilon, James V. Schall SJ SUBSCRIPTIONS & RENEWALS: (See form p. 18) CREDIT CARD ORDERS: call 1-800-343-2425 or fax 1-952-831-0387 E-MAIL: [email protected] LETTERS AND ARTICLES: [email protected]; Letters to the editor may be edited for length or clarity. JRSW2P . . . Sewn So cover, 275 pages, $18.95 Gilbert! Magazine is published every eight weeks by The American Chesterton Society, a non-profit corporation established under Paragraph 501(c)(3) of the "Ratzinger writes with penetrating intellect and tranquil con dence in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. U.S. Tax Code. Donations to the American Chesterton Society are tax-deductible in the United States. Your contributions help support the publication of Gilbert is marvelous volume recon rms him as one of the greatest Christian minds of the last century." Magazine. Please send your donations to: The American Chesterton Society, 4117 Pebblebrook Circle, Minneapolis, MN 55437. The views expressed by Gilbert —Most Reverend Charles Chaput, Archbishop of Philadelphia Magazine contributors are not necessarily those of the publisher, the editors, or the American Chesterton Society.

P.O. Box 1339, Ft. Collins, CO 80522 (800) 651-1531 The Magazine of the Apostolate of Common Sense 1 TREMENDOUS TRIFLES by Dale Ahlquist

e have some good news, sort of, about Overroads, the house in Beaconsfield, England, which was Chesterton’s home for 13 years before he moved Wacross the street to Top Meadow. The owners, who are going to retire to another country, have not been able to procure a buyer for the historic (but not protected) property, and they were considering selling it to a developer, who would raze the house and build multi-family struc- tures on it. However, they have decided to rent out the house instead of selling it to a developer. This will preserve the home at least in the short run. The hope is that a private party will purchase the home and so keep it and the property intact. We did have a suggestion from one of our members who envisioned a Overroads, Beaconsfield, England consortium of Distributists acquiring the house and turning it into an arts and His Excellency graciously requested the craft center. To the right is a picture of author to autograph his gift copy. Chesterton’s study in Overroads, about Tim Jones’ magnificent original oil a century ago. • painting• of GKC, which graces the cover • The Board of Directors of the Society of In Defense of Sanity—The Best Essays of Gilbert• Keith Chesterton met in ear- of G.K. Chesterton, was sold to a private ly December and we were blessed with a party almost a decade ago. But it recent- surprise visit by Bishop Robert Barron ly became available, and it was snatched who gave us some encouraging words up and presented as a gift to Chesterton about our new Apostolate. The meeting Academy in the Twin Cities, a very ap- and his visit conveniently coincided with propriate home for it—since that is the release of Knight of the Holy Ghost – where Tim teaches art to over 160 lucky A Short History of G.K. Chesterton, and students. • And speaking of original paintings of Chesterton• on the covers of publications, you may have noticed the cover Tim Jones is on the right of this issue. It is the work of Croatian painter Matko Antolčić. looking at the portrait, and she fell in The painting was commissioned love with him (she does not know who by Nikola Bolec, head of the Croatian he is, only after Matko told her about Chesterton Klub. Nikola writes: him). His grandmother told that she knows this man from somewhere... Matko told me that when he was paint- Who knows! ing the portrait, he said that he felt Matko told me he wanted to catch like he was painting a holy man and his view, the way he is gazing... I can say that for him he is a saint (although that it is a gaze full of love and life; such he has only read The Catholic Church a humble and grateful gaze... and Conversion and he knows about It was an interesting experience Chesterton mostly from me talking fa- walking with the huge portrait of this A couple of Chesterton fans natically about GK). His mother was huge man through the centre of Zagreb,

2 Volume 22 • Number 3, January/February 2019 our capital. I was walking proudly LUNACY AND LETTERS with Chesterton in my hands. God bless you all and I hope you will see the portrait when you come to Croatia! • For more reports from other •Chesterton Societies around the world, see page 8. write on a grave matter. Well, not neighbor, Countess Murphy, had no ••Art Garfunkel reads Chesterton. grave as in serious, but as in grave bone to pick with his bones. There is a website devoted to Paul sites. I was reading the latest issue Interesting that the two ceme- Simon’s singing partner, and it lists of Gilbert!, which will no doubt be a tery neighbors of GKC have titles— all the books he has read since about I collector’s item due to the inclusion of Countess and Pilot-Officer—listed on the year 2000. On the list: The Club of my Clerihew, and I noticed you had an their tombstones. Someday, God will- Queer Trades and The Man Who Was item about the persons buried on either ing, GKC’s tombstone might be amend- Thursday. (Thanks to ACS member side of GKC. ed to include the title “Saint.” Mike Miles, who sent us this item.) Despite one of them (Eleanor And I can’t leave this subject without • “What fault in other people do Murphy) being a countess, there is at least honoring them with a clerihew… • amazingly little one can find online you find it hardest to forgive?” The From the grave young John Sawyer, about her. I did see her name being question was put to several eminent To a Countess’ plot he did call her, listed as a committee member for an writers in 1930. GKC answered: “I “Seems tourists flock to the fellow Anti-German League (Vital Issue, Vol. have been so well-treated in this world between us!” III, No. 13, NY, Sept. 25, 1915.) They that I do not think I could be vindic- The Lady replies: “Must have been reprinted some lengthy screeds against tive even for a real wrong. I find this a a genius.” very good reason for being charitable the Germans from the London Daily to the uncharitable.” (Shaw answered, Telegraph, but the only reference to her Charlie Reese “Being asked silly questions when I’m in these pages is her listing as being on Lutz, Florida busy! Go away!”) (Lincolnshire Echo, the committee. Her tombstone, as you Sept. 30, 1930) may know, doesn’t list a birth year but does say “aged 60 years.” She was about BALLADE OF GILBERT GKC’s age, and one may presume they G.K. Chesterton, attended the same Mass somewhere 100 writing for the New along the line, but one can also pre- YEARS AGO York Sun, predicted sume that when raising a glass of beer that there would be an increase in at a parish picnic she didn’t accompany religious persecution. the toast with a hearty “prosit!” Music If it is the same Countess Eleanor By G.K. Chesterton If we go on being so broadmind- Murphy who was a committee mem- ed much longer we shall find our- ber for the Anti-German League in Sounding brass and tinkling cymbal, selves in the vortex of a raging re- 1915, she would have been in her early He that made me sealed my ears, ligious war. The thought or theory 20s back then. And the pomp of gorgeous noises, in our politics in journalism, such The other name you mentioned, Waves of triumph, waves of tears, as it is, takes religious toleration Pilot-Officer John Sawyer, has informa- Thundered empty round and past me, or religious equality for granted. tion on a find-a-grave website for that Shattered, lost for evermore, They take it as something final- cemetery. He was a Canadian whose Ancient gold of pride and passion, ly achieved; they take it as an in- parents lived in Beaconsfield. He was Wrecked like treasure on a shore. evitable result of progress. Quite only 24 at the time of his death in 1941, so; a few years ago they took in- which would have made him only 19 But I saw her cheek and forehead ternational peace as an inevitable years old when GKC died, so it is un- Change, as at a spoken word, result of progress. As Mr. Andrew likely he would have known Chesterton And I saw her head uplifted Carnegie then said, with prophetic socially. Equally doubtful he ran in the Like a lily to the Lord. fire and insight: “War is a thing of social circles of the Countess, seeing as Nought is lost, but all transmuted, the past.” We treated war as a thing the only royalty he could claim was that Ears are sealed, yet eyes have seen; of the past, and the result was a war he was in the Royal Canadian Air Force. Saw her smiles (O soul be worthy!), that was more savage than had ever He died in a training flight in England Saw her tears (O heart be clean!) been suffered in the past. during the great (second) war against the Germans, so at least his cemetery

The Magazine of the Apostolate of Common Sense 3 GENERALLY SPEAKING because we have seen replicators on Star Trek, the trajectory into tomorrow looks inevitable. Since we have already separat- A True Prophet Among ed sex from birth courtesy of contracep- tion, we may as well keep the two apart as a False Prophets policy and keep conception out of the bed- room and in the laboratory. Since we have By Dale Ahlquist, President already filled our food with chemicals, and Society of Gilbert Keith Chesterton are groaning about wasting the earth’s re- sources on feeding people, we may as well hat does the new year there is nothing astonishing or even dar- use less food and more chemicals. We may hold? I can’t tell you. As ing about the prediction at all: as well throw the baby out with the brus- G.K. Chesterton says, I sels sprouts. It’s bound to happen. It’s al- These simple materialists, boasting of their know as much about the ready happening. bold prophecies, are not bold but very future as you do, which But to predict what man will do is nev- timid. They are afraid to leave the rut or is nothing. But let’s talk er quite possible. Because man has free groove in which the world appears to be Wabout prophecy anyway. will. He may be predictable much of the moving at the moment; and can only cal- One of Chesterton’s favorite nemeses time, but the time comes when he either culate by tramway-lines, on the assump- was Lord Birkenhead, who, before snag- disappoints or surprises, and in any case tion that they will be taken to their goal ging himself an earldom, was a commoner does not meet our predictions or even our in a tram. Fortunately Man, in his wan- named F.E. Smith. When he was a Member expectations. This is why human science, dering through the world, has had rather of Parliament he was the subject of a poem that is, the science of humans, ultimately by GKC that ends with the immortal line, fails. The tools of science can be used to “Chuck, it, Smith.” In 1930, Birkenhead measure what was, what is, but not what wrote a book about the future: The World will be. We can be cynical and pessimis- in 2030 A.D. You haven’t read the book, tic, and predict that a man will always which has been out of print probably lon- choose badly, selfishly, stupidly. Or we ger than you have been alive. In his vision can be hopeful and even optimistic and of the future a century after him (which is predict that a man will choose decent- just over a decade away from our present ly, charitably, wisely. But the false proph- location), Birkenhead predicted that ba- et talks about the inevitable. The true bies would be generated in bottles instead prophet talks about free will. The true of being born of parents, and the world prophet truly does see what no one else would live on chemicals instead of food sees coming. “The prophets of old,” says grown out of the field. You may say, “Well, Chesterton, “scored because they proph- he’s not far off from being right. In fact, esied, not continuity, but the break in he might even hit the mark in 2030. Lord continuity.” Moreover, the true prophet Birkenhead might be a prophet.” preaches repentance. The false prophet Except not. Chuck it, Smith. has no use for it. The true prophet, says more freedom, especially when he went on When Chesterton first read the book, Chesterton, tells us what we should do, not foot. But these men can never imagine for he thought it was a satire. But then he re- what we will do. a moment what Man will do next, because alized that Birkenhead’s blind faith in sci- Chesterton, a true prophet, defends they are incapable of dealing with anything ence and “progress” was not only serious, all the things today’s false prophets attack. that is alive; they can only drag out certain but humorless. He also realized that his He attacks all the things the false prophets tendencies indefinitely because they are own response had to be equally serious, defend. He defends the traditions of fam- dead. Seeing that parents are largely sepa- grave, that he had to force the features on ily and faith, of husbands and wives in an rated from their children, they find it easy his face “into the grim expression of grav- unbreakable bond, babies born, moth- to imagine them more and more separat- ity with which it is now thought necessary ers mothering, fathers protecting, truth ed from their children. Seeing that people to contemplate idiotic things.” His first ob- taught, God worshipped, growth from drift to the town, it is a simple thing to cal- servation about such a scenario is that it the roots upward. He attacks redefini- culate what they will try to do without the would be “a hell upon earth more horri- tions of marriage and morals and man- country. ble than those conceived in any deliberate hood, centralization of everything, coer- tale of horror.” In other words, because parents have cive catchwords, misplaced allegiance to But that’s not the main point. Could been separated from their children, cour- science and technology, and anything that it actually happen? Of course. And tesy of wage slavery and public education, the state, the marketplace, the academy or Chesterton, in fact, can easily envision because we are toying with life—both the media insists is not only necessary but the world continuing in that direction. But animal and vegetable—in the test tube, inevitable.

4 Volume 22 • Number 3, January/February 2019 STRAWS IN THE WIND sort of wrong reasons for his wrong opin- An Essay by G.K. Chesterton ions. He could generally tell you why he was a Free Trader or a Free Thinker, or any of the rather mournful things that he was; indeed, the difficulty was not so much to get him to tell you, as to get him to leave off telling you. This sort of cock- sure and commonplace but still manly logic and conviction seems to have en- Humanity Through The Fog tirely disappeared. Men do not think By G.K. Chesterton their way to a conclusion, right or wrong. They begin with a conclusion; and call it a caption. A man who has once found he old-fashioned newspaper esteemed the highest; he was a reporter. the phrase that will catch the eye does was like a note-book, in which The new sort of newspaper is like a not ask himself how he found it; the eye a serious man, in some ways scrapbook made by a child, or an idiot, is everything; or, as the proverb says, it limited but in some ways lib- who pastes in whatever he thinks pret- is all my eye. That proverb indeed is the eral, pasted long clippings and ty, or gaudy or possibly crazy, and puts heresy of Impressionism. There are no ar- extracts on subjects which he it on the top of the page because he can- guments for a slogan; it is a sort of art and his friends thought im- not wait to find something more suitable; for art’s sake. There is nothing behind a portant;T long extracts from Parliamentary and has half a mind to paste it in upside Stunt; everything is in the labels in front; debates; long extracts from judicial caus- down, by way of a brilliant stunt. The and you may label it anything. You may es, and so on; seeking to provide pret- very idea of reporting reality, or even the even superbly and sacramentally purge ty complete data on these things. He was proportion of reality, has really vanished yourself of the last faint stains of humour, limited only by what he was; he was en- from his mind. There is no question of by calling it a Crusade. In short, the Press tirely English, or entirely Protestant, or proportion; every top-line is top-heavy; is no longer holding up a dim or dusty entirely of the Parliamentary Age. But he every debate is one-sided; every slogan is or cracked mirror to the world; it is sim- reported these things because he thought sloppy falsehood disguised in slang. ply painting a sort of mad picture of the them important, even if they were dull. The old opinionated man of the nine- world, which is a pastiche of a hundred He was what is now esteemed the low- teenth century did not always have the pictures of anything or nothing, most of est sort of journalist, and should be right opinions; but he generally had some them badly painted and all of them badly

Monsignor Charles Boldrick was a priest in the America. America has always been regarded, he went Archdiocese of Louisville, Kentucky. He stud- on, as a Utopia in England. And he recited a dog- ied as a seminarian at the North American gerel he heard in his youth to prove it. He re- College in Rome, and was there in 1929 ferred to H.G. Wells’s writing frequent Utopias when G.K. Chesterton was a guest for din- all different, some about distant fixed stars, ner and a speech. He wrote in his diary: but he was sure that, if Mr. Wells would pay a visit to some of these, his distant colonies, December 6, 1929. We were all anticipat- he’d find Catholics there, to his discomfort. ing Chesterton’s visit tonight. When we He referred amusingly to the Pilgrim Fathers, came down to supper, he was at the post to Glorious Maryland, and Virginia, and Sir of honor, and among several Bishops. Walter Raleigh, who was the only approxi- He is a towering man of colossal propor- mately respectable person who ever had any- tions, with a gray mane of hair and a black string thing to do with Queen Elizabeth. He said America on his eye-glasses. He eats with his left hand. At the lec- is the only country which started with a clean slate, with a ture following, the library was nicely decorated, and crowd- creed for its foundation, down in black and white. He re- ed with ourselves and alumni. Mr. Chesterton apologized ferred to the text “Many shall come from the East and the for presenting such a ridiculous sight, and for having car- West,” [Matt. 8:11] and he was glad to salute some who have ried up that torch of a cigar, which bore no resemblance arrived. Everyone enjoyed him immensely. I was so glad to to the torch of truth. One of the striking ways, he said, in see and hear him who, I think, is the outstanding Catholic which the Church differed from earthly powers was its abil- writer of today, one of the world’s great minds, perhaps the ity to have strong support farthest from its center, such as greatest convert since Newman. The Church is fortunate in glorious Ireland, Scandinavia, Scotch Highlands, and now calling him her son.

The Magazine of the Apostolate of Common Sense 5 Generally Speaking chosen. darkness and into darkness go; there was Compulsory Insurance Act, what we said Journalists are no longer supposed never anything less like the behaviour of about it was this. We said that this legal to report what happens. They are only people who want to find out the truth distinction between the duties of masters allowed to decorate and tastefully ar- about anything. It was a patch on some- as such, and of servants as such, would range what does not happen. In the mat- thing that is now entirely patchwork. be used chiefly for a servile classification ter of starting a subject and dropping it, Nevertheless, even through this chaos without actually using the name of ser- for instance, there is no longer the least we have glimpses of strange things. That vitude. A number of new things would idea of starting it where it really starts old “public opinion,” in so far as it still be done to the servant class, which were or of dropping it because it is properly exists at all, has undergone some curious not done to the master class; and the finished. It is started as soon as there is changes that are worth the historian’s at- new definition of insured persons would space for somebody’s large photograph; tention. The editorial autocrat every now always be there to be used in that way. and it stops as soon as there is something and then publishes tiny scraps of popular Exactly what we prophesied has here else ready to start. appeal or protest; I do not know how they come true. Nobody would dare to pro- A little while ago one of the papers come there; perhaps he shuffles them in pose that rich men should own their had a sort of symposium on Divorce; a hat; perhaps he merely sorts out and own bodies, and poor men should not. it ran through a list of curiously select- selects the silliest and most inept letters But it is easy to use the existent formula ed people, among whom there was not he can find; perhaps he even writes them that insured persons shall do this or that. one single normal Christian to represent himself. But, supposing them to be voices And as social reform goes forward, un- the normal traditions of the millions of of the hour or tendencies in the air, there crabbed by Distributists, it will be found Christendom; and then it left off, as mys- are odd things about them. easy to decree (in order to save the over- teriously as it had begun. It is needless to To anyone who remembers the old whelming over-work of the panel doc- say what such selected champions said. Liberal public opinion, it is strange tor) that insured persons shall only have Some of them said marriage was not sa- to note how completely the notion of so many children; and that the extra ba- cred and ought instantly to be dissolved. Compulsion has settled down in every- bies shall be abolished beforehand by Some of them said that marriage was sa- body’s mind and for everybody’s pur- the Birth Control expert, or afterwards cred; and it seemed that the more often pose; how undoubtingly and unanimous- by the lethal chamber. The last may seem it was dissolved, the more sacred it be- ly this is now The Age of Force. Anybody nonsense now; but not more nonsensical came. Some of them said it was a con- who wants anything thinks it quite nat- than all this would have seemed recently. tract and therefore, apparently, ought to ural to enforce it. Fifty years ago..., with There is again a stir of discussion be easy to break. Some of them may even some exceptions there was an under- about the idea of Compulsory Voting on have said it was a sacrament; but next to standing loyally kept; “If I may talk my the lines of Compulsory Military Service none of them seemed to have any notion nonsense, you may talk your nonsense.” and Compulsory Education. Such is the of what a sacrament is. But anyhow, no Since Prohibition, which smashed that world’s wild rush towards liberty, that two of them came anywhere near to grips ideal, the whole mind has changed. more and more things seem likely to be- with each other; there was no argument; “The Drama,” like “the Press,” is al- come compulsory. there was no arbitrament; there were no most the reverse of Freedom of Speech. It Composite essay from G.K.’s Weekly, February accepted principles on which to argue. It is rather Compulsion of Listening. 15, 1930; September 14, 1929; July 16, 1927; was and it was not; we saw it come from When we did our best to crab the and June 7, 1934

Chesterton for Today ✦ ✦ Politicians never see people loving his own children than by attempting to yearn over except as numbers, or places the youthful boa constrictor or dandle the infant rhinoceros. except as charts. (Daily Herald, Mar. 15, 1913) (Daily News, Aug. 7, 1901)

✦ ✦ A great deal of compulsory instruction is a kind of kidnap- ✦ ✦ People should be charitable to their neighbours by listen- ping. (The (NY) Sun, Dec. 9, 1918) ing to what their neighbours actually say. Sympathy is always associated with understanding, but understanding is an in- ✦ ✦ The denial of nationality is a denial of identity; and, like tellectual effort.( Listener, Jan. 4, 1933) many denials of identity, is false and self-interested. (New Days, Sept. 18, 1915) ✦ ✦ Heresies do die; though heathenism lives on and is always ready to return. (G.K.’s Weekly, Aug. 18, 1928) ✦ ✦ We have the regular symptom of the young thinker saying ‘There is no evil;’ which invariably ends in his screaming ✦ ✦ The most business-like thing ever said upon the earth was aloud that the whole world is evil because it will not believe this: “Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness; that there is no evil. (Listener, Oct. 18, 1933) and all these things shall be added to you.” (Daily News, June 4, 1904) ✦ ✦ A man is far more closely linked with the life of nature by

6 Volume 22 • Number 3, January/February 2019 SCHALL ON CHESTERTON very fact of their challenge, lure armies on; and Constantine, which still looks to the Timely Essays on Chesterton’s Timeless Paradoxes eye all but impregnable, has fallen with every new conquest of Barbary; the last not a century ago; the next to be, we know not when. Constantine was originally a Phoenician colony amidst tribes we call Things Greater than Man Berber. Constantine became part of the Roman Empire in 112 B.C. till the Muslim By James V. Schall, S. J. invasions in the 8th Century. The city was called Cirta by the Romans before they he world is filled with places sea level. Belloc understood that cities changed its name to honor Constantine most of us will never see. What needed to defend themselves. Their roads the Great. Byzantium ruled it from 534- strikes the reader of Belloc is and walls were designed for this purpose. 697 A.D. It became a part of France from the number of places on this It helped if there were mountains or rocks 1837 to its present independence in 1963. Earth that he managed to see. to protect one side of the defense works. Photos of the city show its deep ra- And he saw them best when “For the note of Constantine is this: vines and gullies. It is a city of spectac- he was walking or sailing. One that it is a considerable city, standing ular bridges crossing the various cuts hasT the impression that he shared with quite alone, upon a platform wholly iso- and gorges in the striking landscape of Chesterton that sense of leaving his home lated save for a narrower isthmus-neck of the city. Belloc wondered whether such sometimes only to rediscover it again. As approach.” Belloc thought only two cities a city could last. “Can it endure? But of he looked at them, towns, fields, and wa- that he had seen even came close to such Constantine, on the rock of Cirta, I have ters became alive in his gaze. He knew that a setting—Segovia in Spain and Castel little doubt. These things are greater than what he now saw had probably been seen Giovanni (Enna) in Sicily. men, and even should man abandon by others before him. That he bothered to “But Constantine is like nothing else them, it will stand as mighty as ever.” write down what he saw made it possible on earth that ever I saw. And from the first It was this last sentence of Belloc for us who now read him to see things we moment that I saw it, it has stood vivid- that struck me so much in reading of would never have bothered by ourselves ly fixed in my mind, as, I suppose, it will Constantine. There are things greater than carefully to look at. stand in the mind of any man who comes men. This observation does not mean Among the places that Belloc wrote upon it from any side.” Its geographical that being a man is not itself a great thing. of in his 1927 book, Towns of Destiny, location and configuration on a plateau There is hierarchy in being. The Last and is Constantine, the third largest city in made the city easier to defend. But being the First are connected. Indeed, one might Algeria. The population of Constantine thought incapable of conquest, only made well say that one of the things that makes today is about half a million, but when invaders more determined to conquer it. a man great is precisely the recognition of Belloc visited, it was “fifty or sixty thou- Belloc put it this way: the things beyond him. Ultimately, this is sand.” Belloc always saw cities in terms what praise is about, the response we give Nevertheless, Constantine (like nearly all of their geography, their history, and the to things greater than we are, the first step these seemingly impregnable places) has character of their inhabitants. of which is the recognition that there are been stormed time after time. Indeed, the “Constantine is, perhaps, the most things greater than ourselves. The “rock cities that have boasted many centuries of deeply stamped city of the West. It is cer- of Cirta” precisely for this purpose seems, immunity, or even complete immunity, tainly the one which, in site and relief, in Belloc’s eyes, to retain its greatness and from conquest, have never been cities ap- stands out more strongly of all those that its might even should men in their folly parently impregnable. Cities which seem I have seen between the Russian plains abandon it. made for eternal defence, these, by the and the Atlantic.” Just what the verb “to stamp” meant to Belloc in this context, I am not quite sure. One of the meanings Constantine, Algeria of “to stamp” in the dictionary is to have a distinctive character. Belloc was also much taken with the remarkable plateau on which the city was built. He believed that, if we want to know a place, we have to visit it, walk its streets, know what happened in its past. Constantine is located some fifty miles from the Mediterranean Sea. It is built on a rock plateau that is some 2500 feet above

The Magazine of the Apostolate of Common Sense 7 ROLLING ROAD the annual conferences, Dale Ahlquist, Kevin O’Brien, Joseph Pearce and so many other enthusiastic fellows, the birth of the Chesterton Academy, the launch of the Chesterton Digital Library project, and so many other exciting adventures. Listening carefully to Nancy’s VARIED TYPES meets advice, I found myself soon becoming a member of the ACS and receiving my first Gilbert! issues, before contribut- THE ROLLING ROAD ing to the CDL project, taking an ac- News from Chesterton Societies tive part in it during two years (2015- from Around the World 2016), with many exchanges with and coaching from John Holland. It was a sort of “Benedictine work”: translat- Chesterton Society of France ing into Word files the scanned files of i all, some words from France, but missed the opportunity this time nearly a century old unedited works of where Gilbert! can count on a (Arnaud Fabre excepted). Chesterton. The only things missing nascent audience (half a dozen?). As far as I’m concerned, I first dis- were the black robe and the dying can- Chesterton is more and more covered Chesterton through the adven- dle. It was an enthusiastic experience H and I am longing to see the CDL project known and appreciated here, thanks tures of Father Brown, and then went notably to French enthusiasts like on reading Heretics and Orthodoxy, in achieved! I must say that you are a fan- Philippe Maxence, who translated and French of course. Some years later, as tastic group of adventurers and I thank published many of Chesterton’s books I was facing a turning point in my pro- you very much for all the excellent work and manages the amisdechesterton.fr fessional career, I was seeking to brush you are all at. I would be very happy to website; thanks also to young talented up my English. Wanting to kill two birds help spread in a way or the other all translators—such as Hubert Darbon, with one stone, I started to listen faith- this good work. Our major project for who achieved this year a great transla- fully to the Uncommon Sense pod- 2019: translating The Woman Who Was tion of Tremendous Trifles—or authors cast by Nancy C. Brown around 2012. Chesterton into French and getting it like Camille Dalmas who is publishing What a mistake! I found myself fall- published. an essay, “The Paradox Chesterton,” in ing under the spell of the adventures —Etienne Vasdeboncoeur early 2019. We almost gathered all to- of the American Chesterton Society, Chesterton Society of France gether in Croatia to meet Dale Ahlquist discovering at one and the same time

Australian Chesterton Society The second activity is a series of conferences, held in various cities of t may seem remarkable that, for near- in Western Australia in 1993, when an Australia since 2000, and in Sydney since ly a century, G.K. Chesterton has at- enterprising Englishman, Mr. Tony 2007 at Campion College, Australia’s tracted a strong and loyal following in Evans, created a local Chesterton associ- first—and only—liberal arts college. I Australia, the continent most remote ation in the port city of Fremantle, which (Campion has an extensive collection of from his beloved England. he later expanded into a national associ- Chesterton’s writings.) A serious interest in his thought and ation, the Australian Chesterton Society, These conferences have focused on an writings began in the 1930s when the in 2000. array of subjects—religious, social, cul- Campion Society, a lay Catholic asso- The main activities of the Society tural, literary—reflecting the phenom- ciation, conducted various education- have been twofold. One is a quarterly enal breadth of Chesterton’s thought. al programs throughout Australia that newsletter, The Defendant (named after In 2001, for example, the Society ad- included the study and appreciation of Chesterton’s first collection of essays). In dressed the theme, “Prophet Without Chesterton’s works. early 2019 it will publish its hundredth Loss: Chesterton and the Permanent At this time, a local chapter of the edition. The newsletter contains arti- Things”; in 2007, “Chesterton and the Campion Society was established in cles and reviews of interest to Australian Cultural Crisis”; in 2011, “Faith in the Western Australia. It was called The Chestertonians, including material re- Marketplace: the Social Catholicism Chesterton Club. More than half a cen- printed from Gilbert!, with the kind of G.K. Chesterton revisited”; and in tury was to pass before the present-day permission of Dale Ahlquist and the 2013, “Reviving the Moral Imagination: Chesterton society was formed—initially American Chesterton Society. G.K. Chesterton on Stage and Screen.”

8 Volume 22 • Number 3, January/February 2019 Rolling Road

At times the conferences have included papers for light relief: in 2017, for example, the theme was “Chesterton and Humour,” and the gathering featured a paper on “Chesterton and the Marx Brothers”! The text and videos of these conferences, together with back issues of The Defendant newsletter, are available on the Australian Chesterton Society website— chestertonaustralia.com The conferences Down Under have benefitted from having international as well as local speakers. Lord David Alton, for example, spoke at the Society’s 2001 conference in Sydney; Dale Ahlquist at the 2004 conference in Melbourne; Thomas Storck and Sheridan Gilley at the 2008 conference in Sydney; and most recently, at the 2018 conference, Nancy Brown gave Speakers at the Australian Chesterton Conference at Campion College, October 20, 2018. two papers, one on Frances Chesterton, From left: Karl Schmude, Gary Furnell, Nancy Brown, Sophie York, and David van Gend. the other on children’s literature and her adaptation of the Father Brown stories Africa and Asia. length and breadth of America. for younger readers, at a conference on Of special importance has been the There is something exquisitely apt “Chesterton and the Child.” flowering of Chesterton groups in the about the physical and intellectual im- A key inspiration for the Australian United States, both at a national level mensity of Chesterton finding expres- Chesterton Society has been a grate- (most notably, the American Chesterton sion in a worldwide interest in his wit ful awareness of the wider Chesterton Society and the G.K. Chesterton Institute and wisdom! movement—global in its scope, extend- for Faith & Culture centered at Seton —Karl Schmude ing to so many continents and nations Hall University) and the abundance of President, Australian in Europe, North and South America, local Chesterton societies throughout the Chesterton Society

Italian Chesterton Society Catholic, the great intellectual who lived humbly, affectionately with everyone, he Italian Chesterton Society was asked us for help in publishing old and even with little children and common started in July 2002. Our main task new translations of his work, and some people. Chesterton has made us friends was to get G.K. Chesterton back on have been persuaded by us to rediscover with many good men in the world: the T stage here in Italy. He was popu- Distributism as well. So now Chesterton Americans, the Chesterton Academy, lar until the Sixties, then he fell into a is also walking proud on the Italian roads the English, the French, the Spanish, sort of corner, the one where you usu- and pubs, and we feel really proud of him the Sierra Leoneans, the Croatians, ally put uncomfortable things. Maybe and of our hard work. the Distributists all over the world. he is too anti-socialist, too anti-capital- Since 2003 we have always cele- Friendships were born and I’m sure they ist, too Catholic ... too many uncomfort- brated Chesterton Day, a day to meet will last forever. A great collaboration able things together! So we began to try and share good readings and especial- was born with our American friends, first to get him back into the hands of the ly good reflections born from its read- whom we love so much, and with John Italians. At the beginning we sometimes ing. How many good things Chesterton Kanu in Sierra Leone, a true hero of bought up old books at market stalls, has done in these years, first to me! I true Distributism, and with all his peo- sometimes we even gave photocopies wanted to do this work just out of grat- ple. We started a school in 2008 named of old books, so much so was the de- itude, since when I was five I had seen after Chesterton, without knowing our sire to read Chesterton’s work. Someone Father Brown stories on television fellow American friends were doing during the Nineties had made an at- and I fell in love with the little detec- exactly the same thing, and this is not tempt to publish it again, but without tive priest. Little by little we rediscov- by chance. What Rod Dreher calls the real cultural work this attempt proved ered all of Chesterton: the journalist, the Benedict Option, with the rediscovery to be of little use. Many publishers have Distributist, the good husband, the good of the small communities of Christian

The Magazine of the Apostolate of Common Sense 9 Rolling Road

families, is for us also the fruit of our he’s grandissimo! It would take many with grateful emotion. He made the daily acquaintance with Chesterton. We more words, I just hope I can tell you best gift he could: the push to love Jesus live together since we discovered that in small episodes the great good that more. GKC promoted this idea. We could nev- Gilbert does in our lives every day. It —Marco Sermarini er do without Gilbert, he’s great, more, is impossible to measure and I say this President, Italian Chesterton Society

Chilean Chesterton Society But there are more things to come. The Teen STAR program (Sexuality uring the last decade, there working hard on several plans which Teaching in the Context of Adult has been a growing interest in are slowly coming true. After several Responsibility) also teaches Chesterton Chesterton in Chile. We owe this years of organizing events and lectures, in their curriculum. Both this pro- D new appreciation of Chesterton’s Magdalena Merbilháa, president of Red gram and another organization, called works mostly to a Chilean nonprof- Cultural, thought that the time had come Academia de San Lucas, encourage and it organization called Red Cultural, to start a Chesterton center dedicated fully support Chestertonian thought. which has incessantly worked to prop- exclusively to Chestertonian thought. One of the ideas that was born in a meet- agate Chesterton’s ideas. This network With this idea in mind, in July 2018 we ing with them, whose president is Dr. works with several schools and univer- started the Chilean Chesterton Society. Pilar Vigil, was to propagate Chesterton’s sities promoting humanities and the val- Among some of the activities we had in ideas through the visual arts. For 2019 we ues of the western culture. Since 2009, 2018, were a talk about Chesterton at are planning an art exhibition inspired the Chesterton Institute for Faith and Pontificia Universidad Católica Medical by Chesterton’s thought at the Extension Culture and Red Cultural have worked School, and a one-month course focused center at Pontificia Universidad Católica together, organizing annual events and solely on Chesterton, which was giv- de Chile. lectures. Fr. Ian Boyd, Dermont Quinn, en in November in a school called San Another project, which is just be- and Gloria Garafulich have visited us al- Francisco de Asís. ginning, is to translate new Chesterton most annually. This same network has As a result of these activities, we are works, Dale Ahlquist’s books on also invited different speakers to teach planning more courses on Chesterton for Chesterton, and to create new ma- Chesterton, among these is Joseph Pearce 2019. San Francisco de Asís school also terial for high school students about who has visited us several times. But oth- wants to start monthly open meetings to Chesterton. We are hoping to continue er courses on Chesterton have been or- study Chesterton and it is helping us to to write articles on him, do lectures and ganized by them as well with Chilean ac- make Chesterton known. This school is courses, and organize events that help to ademics such as Gonzalo Larios, Jaime one of the few schools in Chile which has recover in our culture Chesterton’s ever- Antúnez, Joaquín García Huidobro, and a classical curriculum, and their learn- lasting sanity. Magdalena Merbilháa. ing plan involves reading Chesterton’s In order to help Chesterton to The Man Who Was Thursday and The —Virginia de la Lastra take over this side of the world, we are Ball and the Cross. Chilean Chesterton Society

Some students and monitors of the TeenSTAR program in Chile after a class about Chesterton’s doctrine of conditional joy.

10 Volume 22 • Number 3, January/February 2019 THE GOLDEN KEY CHAIN health in the heathen world that made its fairy-tales and its fanciful romances of re- GKC on Scripture • Conducted by Peter Floriani ligion. But I hope also to show that these were bound to fail in the long run; and the Exodus 20 [The Ten Commandments] world would have been lost if it had been better to tell a man not to steal than to unable to return to that great original sim- vast amount of nonsense is try to tell him the thousand things that plicity of a single authority in all things. talked against negative and he can enjoy without stealing; especially That we do preserve something of that pri- destructive things. The silliest as he can generally be pretty well trusted mary simplicity, that poets and philoso- sort of progressive complains to enjoy them. (Illustrated London News, phers can still indeed in some sense say of negative morality, and com- Jan. 3, 1920) an Universal Prayer, that we live in a large pares it unfavourably with and serene world under a sky that stretch- Exodus 20:4-5. Thou shalt not make to Apositive morality. The silliest sort of con- es paternally over all the peoples of the thyself a graven thing, nor the likeness servative complains of destructive reform earth, that philosophy and philanthro- of any thing that is in heaven above, or and compares it unfavourably with con- py are truisms in a religion of reasonable in the earth beneath, nor of those things structive reform. Both the progressive and men, all that we do most truly owe, un- that are in the waters under the earth. the conservative entirely neglect to con- der heaven, to a secretive and restless no- Thou shalt not adore them, sider the very meaning madic people; who bestowed on men the nor serve them: I am the of the words “yes” and supreme and serene blessing of a jealous Lord thy God, mighty, jeal- “no.” To give the answer God. (“God and Comparative Religion,” ous, visiting the iniquity of “yes” to one question is to The Everlasting Man) the fathers upon the chil- imply the answer “no” to dren, unto the third and Ex 20:8. Remember that thou keep holy another question; and to fourth generation of them the sabbath day. desire the construction that hate Me. of something is to desire “What branch do you represent?” he the destruction of what- Much as we may prefer asked sharply. ever prevents its con- that creative liberty which “I should hardly call it a branch,” said struction. This is partic- the Christian culture has de- Syme, laughing; “I should call it at the ularly plain in the fuss clared and by which it has very least a root.” about “negative morality,” Moses with the Ten eclipsed even the arts of an- “What do you mean?” or what may be described Commandments, Philippe tiquity, we must not under- “The fact is,” said Syme serenely, “the as the campaign against de Champaigne rate the determining im- truth is I am a Sabbatarian. I have been the Ten Commandments. portance at the time of the specially sent here to see that you show The truth is, of course, that the curtness of Hebrew inhibition of images. It is a typ- a due observance of Sunday.” (“The Man the Commandments is an evidence, not of ical example of one of those limitations Who Was Thursday,” The Man Who Was the gloom and narrowness of a religion, that did in fact preserve and perpetu- Thursday) but, on the contrary, of its liberality and ate enlargement, like a wall built round humanity. It is shorter to state the things a wide open space. The God who could The Floriani Collection forbidden than the things permitted; pre- not have a statue remained a spirit. Nor NON-FICTION: FICTION: cisely because most things are permitted, would his statue in any case have had the An Introduction to The Saga DE BELLIS and only a few things are forbidden. An disarming dignity and grace of the Greek Heraldry STELLARUM. optimist who insisted on a purely posi- statues then or the Christian statues af- An Introduction Short story collections: to Logic tive morality would have to begin (sup- terwards. He was living in a land of mon- Quayment Short An Introduction to the Stories posing he knew where to begin) by tell- sters. We shall have occasion to consid- History of the Hospital ing a man that he might pick dandelions er more fully what those monsters were, More Quayment Subsidiarity Short Stories on a common, and go on for months be- Moloch and Dagon and Tanit the terri- A Twenty-first Century I Will Lift Up My fore he came to the fact that he might ble goddess. If the deity of Israel had ever Tree of Virtues Eyes throw pebbles into the sea; and then re- had an image, he would have had a phal- A Guide to the Too Classified to sume his untiring efforts by issuing a gen- lic image. By merely giving him a body Ambrosian University Name eral permission to sneeze, to make snow- they would have brought in all the worst Laboratory of the Joe the Control Gospels: the Rosary Room Guy balls, to blow bubbles, to play marbles, to elements of mythology; all the polygamy Science and make toy aeroplanes, to travel on Tooting of polytheism; the vision of the harem in the Gospel. trams, and everything else he could think heaven. This point about the refusal of The Paradoxes All Floriani of Man. of, without ever coming to an end. In art is the first example of the limitations works are presently Chasubles and comparison with this positive morality, which are often adversely criticised, only Lab Coats available through the Ten Commandments rather shine in because the critics themselves are limited. …and more! Amazon. that brevity which is the soul of wit. It is ...I am not without sympathy with all that

The Magazine of the Apostolate of Common Sense 11 TRUTH IN THE STATE OF TRANSMISSION In September of that year, lessons began for four children, including my son, Pier Giorgio. We asked the families to provide the instruction, each parent teaching a different subject. We started with a middle school, for children from elev- en to thirteen years of age. We later added a high school providing a classical Chesterton Academy in Italy education. A few years later, through Fr. Spencer By Marco Sermarini, Founder, Howe, a young American priest studying Scuola Libera Gilbert Keith Chesterton in Italy, we discovered our twin school, the Chesterton Academy in Edina, Minnesota, which had started at near- hen I was nineteen, after and the union of faith and reason moti- ly the very same time as ours, inspired a difficult high school ex- vated us, but it was a couple of searing by the very words of G.K. Chesterton perience, I made myself quotations from Chesterton that provid- which launched ours. He says that edu- a promise: if the Eternal ed the final push. cation is truth in the state of transmis- Father would give me We were determined to educate our sion. Now we are all working together the chance, I would try, children differently. with the same aims and ideals, and unit- Wsomehow, to establish a genuine school. And so it was that in July 2008 a ed with the growing number of schools Mine was not like most Italian schools; group of us decided to start the Scuola in the Chesterton Schools Network. it was secular and public. While there, I Libera Gilbert Keith Chesterton (“libera” In starting the school, we helped par- found myself drowning in the midst of meaning free, as in non-governmental). ents rediscover the fundamental right an ocean, unable to find my way home. Although I had been raised a Catholic, I was in danger of losing my faith. Because of the absence of freedom in education, students like me were practically forced to attend a school where our ideas and religious heritage were not prioritized. Even though parents technically had the right to choose how to educate their children, at a practical level they had little choice. Years later, I learned that the Constitution of Italy does in fact allow a free choice with regard to education, yet this provision is little known and few take advantage of it. There is the right of the parents to support, instruct and educate their children (article 30), and freedom to teach the arts and sciences (article 33). Put simply, parents may educate their children at home, following their own ideas. For me, this discovery was a light in the darkness, an opportunity from God. Our family belonged to the Tipi Loschi (loosely translated as “Shady Fellows”), a confraternity based on the one founded by Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati in 1924. Together with our friends, we started to work together to establish a school based on the provisions we discovered in the Italian Constitution. The ideas of Pope Benedict XVI on the crisis in education

12 Volume 22 • Number 3, January/February 2019 TRUTH IN THE STATE OF TRANSMISSION and correlative duty of families to edu- secret is the small number, because re- Our students continue on to study St. cate their children following their own lationships are so important. Small is Augustine and St. Thomas. We have also ethos. For us the Catholic faith is an in- beautiful. I am deeply convinced that it’s added drama and provide more art in- dispensable perspective, one we could through the small numbers that you can struction than other schools. We offer an not renounce: it is the one that made Italy build relationships with each student. We hour a week of a subject that we invented: beautiful, that promoted a real culture of keep tuition low because we want to give “Via Pulchritudinis,” the Road of Beauty, life, that flourished in the charity of thou- the possibility of attending our school inspired by Pope Benedict XVI. In this sands of saints. to as many people as possible. If some- subject, students deepen their knowledge Once we thought that education one can’t pay, they can volunteer in oth- with the use of beauty that can be found could change everything—and we are er ways. We don’t ever want tuition to in art, the sciences, math, and in all the still convinced that educational things prevent someone from enrolling their things that can be encountered. are important. But we are working with students. Our alumni are very involved in our families to discover a new way of life, The school is owned by a cooperative the community and school. Some of a place to live as Christians—a commu- that has other businesses and revenue them came to the USA last August and nity. We’ve discovered that without com- streams to help keep the school afloat. September to spend some time with munity, you can receive the finest educa- We raise money through our annual Gala Chesterton Academy in Minnesota. tion, but you will face a lot of problems. and festival of Pier Giorgio Frassati. We Some of them are thinking of coming to Without a family, without a communi- also have other enterprises, including work and volunteer in the different ar- ty of families, you won’t have a good life. Pump Street, which sells custom cloth- eas. Very few have moved away. We are You will be lost in a moment. ing featuring Chesterton quotes, a book- maintaining the idea of community. We We believe that this way of life is what store, afterschool programs, kindergar- remain committed to this idea and to of- makes Scuola Chesterton so unique, the ten, and summer camps. We even have a fering our students a good education and combination of education with commu- construction services business called The preparation for the future. But today we nity. It’s a permanent friendship. When Hobbit, providing skilled tradesmen in- are much more committed to offering students leave the school, they can be cluding masons and plumbers and pro- them also a way of life—a Christian way sure that the school community will be viding landscaping and general contract- of life. ready to welcome them back whenever ing services. Marco Sermarini is a criminal lawyer and they return. It’s so important that our pu- At Scuola Chesterton, we teach be- founder of Scuola Libera Gilbert Keith pils can see education in action in this yond the state requirements, so the school Chesterton, San Benedetto del Tronto, Le particular way. is more rigorous than others. For exam- Marche, Italy, where he lives with his wife There are now 36 students in the mid- ple, most schools stop teaching philoso- Federica and their five children. He is also dle school, and 29 in the high school. The phy with the fall of the Roman Empire. President of the Italian Chesterton Society.

unique time of their lives, before they For Just a Few Steps became occupied with marriage and a by Richard Vigilante profession: to be like Simon of Cyrene, Founder, Teach for Christ to step forward to help Jesus carry His Cross at least for just a few steps. The Missionaries would live in community hree years ago, Benito Mattias, graduates go on to finish high school. In and commit to a Plan of Life including principal of Ascension Catholic a recent year 100 percent did so. daily Mass, morning and evening prayer, School in North Minneapolis, I was at Ascension to ask Benito a weekly holy hour, and frequent confes- told a story that changed my and his colleague Patrick Exner their sion. They would receive no salary, just life. thoughts on an idea some colleagues in room and board and a small monthly Ascension School is located the Society of Gilbert Keith Chesterton stipend, most of which they would raise inT possibly the highest poverty, highest had been discussing. The idea, which we themselves. crime, neighborhood in the Twin Cities. called “Teach for Christ,” was to recruit We were concerned about one point. Most Ascension students are African young Catholic men and women, recent Many of our Missionary Educators American, barely a quarter are Catholic. college grads, to serve on mission for a would have no formal training in educa- In the government K-8 school just across year or more in Catholic Schools, work- tion since they intended to go on to oth- the street barely one percent (yes, one ing as tutors, teachers, coaches and men- er careers outside teaching. percent!) of eighth graders scored profi- tors, with no salary. “So,” we asked Benito and Patrick, cient on a recent standardized math test. We wanted to give these young men “would you have any use for our At Ascension more than 90 percent of and women a special opportunity at this missionaries?”

The Magazine of the Apostolate of Common Sense 13 Truth in the State of Transmission

Benito answered with a question: other ways our teachers face this dilem- serve the inner-city. We also serve in the “How many are you talking about?” ma every day. Who gets their attention: Chesterton Academy of the Twin Cities, “We were thinking four in the the fifteen who are on track or the five especially helping underprepared minori- first year, teams of two serving in two who are falling behind and will soon give ty students to catch up and power ahead. s c h o o l s .” up in frustration? Many of our missionaries discover Benito smiled. Then he said “We need “This may be our biggest challenge. vocations as teachers, though that was a dozen. We’ve been waiting and hoping Any day a child is not learning he be- not their goal before. Of our first nine, for something like this and now you are comes at risk, and it gets harder and seven remain professionally engaged in h e re .” harder to get back on track. Soon there Catholic Education. Four are now full- We were pleased, but a little sur- are so many not learning the whole class time faculty in Catholic Schools. Last prised. We asked why he was so sure our can be at risk. year we received an award from our modest little idea would work? In reply “Your idea for Teach for Christ could Archbishop, Bernard Hebda, for our ser- he told us a story. solve that problem. Give us a second car- vice to the poor. Early data show that we That very morning a young scholar ing adult in that classroom, on fire for are raising test scores for at risk children. had come to school utterly distraught, in the Lord and willing to serve, and great Replacing just our current missionaries tears of grief, in no condition to learn. things can happen. with salaried teaching assistants would Normally this boy was walked to school “You don’t need a lot of training to cost our schools hundreds of thousands by an older, adult cousin. Today, on the save a child’s life. One-on one-attention of dollars they don’t have. way to school, the cousin had been arrest- is one of the most powerful educational Our five-year goal: 500 missionar- ed on an outstanding warrant. Somehow tools ever. It can power children ahead by ies in dioceses around the country. In 10 the young man made it to school anyway, multiple grade levels in a year. Do this. years: 5,000. but can you imagine, Benito asked us, the You will truly save lives.” G.K. Chesterton was outraged at state that boy was in? We went back to our office at the neglect of the poor by both socialist “Now here is the dilemma the teacher Chesterton Academy of the Twin Cities, and capitalist politicians. And he would faces,” he continued. “That scholar’s teach- stared at each other and said: “We have be outraged, but not surprised, by in- er has a class of 20 students. What is she to do this.” With a lot of help from a lot of ner-city government schools that spend going to do now? Ignore the 19 until she people, and the Holy Spirit, we did. billions but leave children as an illiterate can comfort the young man and get him Teach for Christ is now deep in its offer for the criminal justice system. And ready to participate in class? Or ignore the second year of service. We’ve put more that’s why we believe GKC would be very young man in his misery, who will then than 20 Missionary Educators in the field. proud that Teach for Christ is a spon- likely end up disrupting class anyway? Today we are operating in five elemen- sored organization of The Apostolate of “This was a dramatic situation. But in tary and middle schools, four of which Common Sense.

Teach for Christ Educator Gabriel Heffernan with a student at St. John Paul II Catholic School in Minneapolis.

14 Volume 22 • Number 3, January/February 2019 ALL IS GRIST to the right, you see a 1919 McLaughlin seven-passenger sedan run into a 1913 Stevens-Duryea Model CC seven-passenger touring car. At least, you sigh, the McLaughlin picked on a vehicle its own size. Glancing at the intersection to the left, you see a 1903 Stanley Steamer sideswipe Coping with Cars a 1914 Detroit Electric Opera Coupe. You wonder what ever happened to the old By Joe Campbell steam-and electric-powered vehicles. Did they do each other in? ust because I don’t drive doesn’t because I don’t defer to them when they You notice a 1910 Ford Model T stalled mean that I’m not interest- make patronizing suggestions or give dis- in a downtown parking lot. The driver, try- ed in cars. I am, especially missive orders. My home computer thinks ing unsuccessfully to crank it into action, when I overtake one with the I’m ignorant. The computers that make is increasing the vocabulary of a gawking hood up and the driver down. up the internet think I’m stupid. I think teenager. You remember that when battery- Rather than walk smugly by, I they’re right. But only with respect to dig- driven starters replaced cranks, it was the stop and try to help. ital dexterity. With respect to verbal vig- gasoline-powered vehicles that did in the JPeering under the hood, I coo, “Say or, they are ignorant and stupid, and I tell electric cars and steamers, and teenagers ‘Ah!’” That’s the diagnostic method my them so. had to go elsewhere to learn how to swear. mother used when I didn’t feel like moving. Nicholas-Joseph Cugnot, an eigh- Crossing the street, you decide that My mother was better at it than I am. teenth-century French officer, built the you’d rather risk life and limb among old But I am better at it than I am at swear- first automobile. He also had the first au- cars than new ones. Instead of an SUV, you ing. Swearing is the diagnostic method the tomobile accident. During a driving test, prefer to be knocked down by a 1915 Rolls- typical stranded motorist uses. Whenever his steam-powered three-wheeler went out Royce Silver Ghost with the spirit of ecsta- I overtake one, I can count on increasing of control and hit a wall. This set a prece- sy radiator mascot, or run over by a 1929 my vocabulary. Packard convertible coupe with You can’t blame drivers for feel- white sidewall tires. Your chances ing frustrated when their cars don’t of recovery would surely be better, work. Finding out what’s wrong and in any event there’s something and fixing it yourself is a lot more to be said for an elegant demise. complicated than it used to be. In If there were such an encounter, the old days, cars were easier to fix and a police officer called on your but harder to drive. Now, thanks to beloved to report it, the following computerization, they’re easier to exchange might ensue: drive but harder to fix. “He’s been in a traffic accident.” When they were almost totally “How can that be? He doesn’t mechanical, you had to make nu- d r i v e .” merous conscious adjustments to “He was knocked down while control them. Since they’ve become sig- dent. Statisticians tell us that one in 30 cars crossing the street.” nificantly electronic, more and more func- will hit something or someone during its “Oh dear.” tions no longer require conscious con- driving life. “It was a red 1908 Willys Overland trol, and this trend will surely continue. The cars I like best, or dislike least, are touring car with brass side-mounted Even now, many motorists drive uncon- old ones, the older the better. I enjoy see- lamps.” scious. Of course, when cars drive them- ing them in old movies or in new movies “Oh my, red and with brass lamps.” selves, as they are apparently learning to that re-enact old times. I love going to car “But the doctor says he’ll be all right, do, it shouldn’t matter what state motor- museums and antique auto displays. I de- eventually.” ists are in. light in watching parades in which old cars “How is the car?” As a committed pedestrian, I have show us what they can do, and what they She needn’t worry. Hobbyists are bet- mixed feelings about cars on autopilot. can’t. What they can’t do is fascinating, ter at restoring old cars than doctors are at Crossing the street could be as dangerous I guess because there’s so much of it. Of reviving old drivers. I suspect it has some- as ever, if the departure of loony drivers course, there’s a lot the new cars also can’t thing to do with the availability of spare coincides with the arrival of rogue vehi- do, and that’s fascinating to watch as well. parts. I’ve seen cars approaching their cles. It could be even more dangerous, as Imagine stepping out one day and one-hundredth birthday that look as good machines seem to have it in for me, espe- finding that, although traffic was as thick and run as well as when they first hit the cially if they’re computer driven. as ever, all the cars had been made be- road. I wish I could say the same for driv- I suspect computers are annoyed fore 1930. Glancing at the intersection ers.

The Magazine of the Apostolate of Common Sense 15 All is Grist

during the Middle Ages. In the 1200s, es- G.K. Chesterton and pecially in Italian university towns, post- mortems were authorized in cases where The Moons of Saturn the cause of death was uncertain. (New TV series on medieval crime scene inves- By Drew Sappington tigation coming soon?) Flat earth?—Most medieval people n a popular comic strip called Non challenged each of these assertions. Who did not believe the earth was flat; one Sequitur, a little girl announces that was right? The Huxleys of the world, or of the most popular texts in the Middle she will use a time-machine to go Chesterton? Ages was called Sphere. Columbus’ dis- back to the Dark Ages and “stop tinctive theory was not that the earth the religious fanaticism that de- How Dim Were The Dark Ages? was round, but that the ocean was nar- layed progress in science and tech- row. And he was wrong. He would have Inology for a thousand years.” When she In the science vs. religion legend, medi- probably drowned in the middle of returns from her trip back in time (in- eval religious nuts suppressed the wis- the Atlantic-Pacific Ocean if he hadn’t stantly, from the point of view of her fa- dom of the ancient world and plunged blundered onto an unknown continent. ther), there are colonies on the moons of the world into an era of ignorance. In Why the world doesn’t revolve Saturn. reality, as Chesterton pointed out, the around Copernicus—A number of me- The little girl (and presumably the Church was the one institution that tried dieval insights prepared the way for the cartoonist) has bought into a story to to preserve and spread classical learn- Copernican “revolution” in astrono- the effect that Christianity fought a cen- ing. The monasteries kept intact manu- my. Jean Buridan proposed in the 1300s turies-long and ultimately losing battle scripts from the Roman world, copied that the space through which the plan- to suppress science. As Victorian athe- them, and sent them on to the northern ets moved was a vacuum, a theory which ist Thomas Huxley put it, “extinguished parts of Europe. But, far from needing contradicted the classical world’s consen- theologians lie about the cradle of ev- the ancient manuscripts to resuscitate sus that it was a kind of ether. Buridan’s ery science as the stran- the scientific enter- theory meant that bodies in space could gled snakes beside that prise, progress in many remain in motion once started, and this of Hercules.” According cases occurred only in turn opened the way for mechanistic to this tale of religion/ when people learned explanations of the heavens. He also pro- science conflict, the to ignore what was in posed that the earth turned on its axis. Church stifled science them. Copernicus re- That upset the traditional sunrise-sun- for as long as it could, ceived more criticism set, sun-does-the-moving, viewpoint but finally lost the war. because his heliocen- more than Copernicus’ earth-revolving- The narrative was first tric theory (earth goes around-the sun theory did later (if the promoted by some of around the sun) con- earth rotates, a stationary sun would ap- the Enlightenment fig- tradicted authors from pear to move), but the medieval Church ures but was popular- the classical world than authorities did not object. ized in the 19th century because it might have by writers like Andrew contradicted obscure Is Christian Theology Dickson White. There scriptures. It was what Hostile To Science? is no question that the world assumed was the story has a power- wisdom, rather than The Galileo Case— Everybody “knows” ful hold on the public Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895) religious doctrine, that the famous astronomer Galileo Galilei imagination, including delayed the scientific was persecuted because the invincibly the imagination of many revolution. ignorant Catholic Church couldn’t han- Christians. The scholars of the Middle Ages dle the truth. And it is certainly the case But is it true? didn’t simply pass on information from that he was treated badly. At least by Pope G.K. Chesterton argued that it was classical times; they actively sought to ex- Urban VIII. But why? There is reason to not. Purveyors of the religion-ver- tend and correct that knowledge. Here suspect that Galileo was condemned sus-science version of history say that the are a couple of examples. more for being a wise-guy than for be- Church suppressed the wisdom of the an- CSI Medici—Contrary to the view ing a wise man. cient world and squashed any attempt to promoted by some anti-Christians, the The real concern wasn’t Galileo’s revive knowledge during the Dark Ages. medieval Church generally offered no ideas. The pope had personally assured They also claim that Christian theolo- objection to the practice of dissecting hu- Galileo that he had nothing to fear from gy is intrinsically hostile to science, and man corpses because it believed the soul publishing his views so long as he made that the Church continues to be a unique no longer inhabited the body. Dissections it clear he spoke as a mathematician and barrier to scientific progress. Chesterton were forbidden in classical times, but not not as a theologian. But when Galileo did

16 Volume 22 • Number 3, January/February 2019 All is Grist publish, he used a foolish character called Faith and the scientific revolution historians of science have claimed that “Simplico” who spoke all of the Pope’s —The one statement Galileo refused to it was no accident. Philosopher Alfred objections. That did sign was one denying that North Whitehead, sociologist Rodney not excuse the way he was a good Catholic. Stark, and others have gone so far as to Galileo was treat- Galileo was not simply a argue that, far from inhibiting the growth ed, but you have to Christian, there is evidence of science, the Judeo/Christian view of wonder what his liv- that he was unusually de- God made it possible in the first place. ing conditions would vout—and that he was not have been had he de- alone. Sociologist Rodney G.K. Chesterton, Defender picted Elizabeth the Stark studied 52 “promi- of… Science? First of England, or nent scientists during the Phillip the Second of Scientific Revolution” and Most of Chesterton’s fans are well aware Spain, as “Simplico” found sixty percent showed that he defended the medieval against and subsequent- “clear signs of especially the modern. Fewer are aware that he de- ly fallen into their deep religious concerns.” fended science against pseudoscience. clutches. Most of the remaining “I never said a word against eminent A contempo- Marin Mersenne 1588 – 1648) ones were “conventional- men of science. What I complain of is rary of Galileo’s, Marin ly devout,” which meant that a vague popular philosophy which sup- Mersenne, reassured his fellow scientists there was no evidence of skepticism but poses itself to be scientific when it is re- that Galileo had not been condemned for also no sign of outstanding piety in their ally nothing but a sort of new religion heresy and that they could continue their biographies. Only two were skeptics. and an uncommonly nasty one.” Read work without fear. He was right; no sys- Chesterton’s short-stories and you will tematic attempt was made to persecute Christian theology necessary find honest researchers treated sympa- other scientists who spouted Galileo’s for science to develop? thetically, even when their findings seem ideas. But the church types didn’t just to contradict scripture. He reserves his stay out of the way of the science-mobile, There have been many civilizations scorn for the humbugs, for the man who they got out and pushed. The Catholic over the centuries, but only one— advises others to “talk science to the art- Church sponsored astronomy, and even the European culture influenced by ists, and art to the scientists, so that no modified some churches to do double Christianity—developed true sci- one will ever catch you out,” or the for- duty as observatories. ence in the modern sense. Many mer scientist who no longer reads his

The Magazine of the Apostolate of Common Sense 17 All is Grist

journals or keeps up with his specialty groups were inferior and not worthy of probably should have expected), argu- but still issues declarations in the name survival. Thomas Huxley, the English ing that the two are allies in the war for of “Science.” atheist quoted near the start of this chap- truth and against bunkum. Above all, Chesterton distinguished ter, said “No rational man, cognizant of scientific findings from unsupported ex- the facts, believes that the average Negro Back To The Moons Of Saturn trapolations from these findings. Science is the equal, still less the superior, of the might, for instance, be able to determine white man…” H.G. Wells spoke from the Did the Church suppress the wisdom of that a particular galaxy was an incredible “Social Darwinism” perspective when he the ancient world? No, the Church was numbers of light-years away from earth. said, “And how will the New Republic the one force that tried to preserve it. But no one could conclude from this that treat the inferior races?…The men of Even though that “wisdom” often turned human beings were therefore insignifi- the New Republic…will have an ide- out to be unwise. Did the Church try to cant. In fact, said Chesterton, “Why then al that will make the killing worth the suppress all attempts to rise out of the should one…call [the universe] large? while.” Chesterton, on the other hand, muck of the Dark Ages? No. In the first What do we have to compare it with? denounced all racial theories. place, the “Dark Ages” were consider- Perhaps it is a small and cozy cosmos…” It was this simplistic and unreflective ably more enlightened than we give them He was unperturbed by the actual version of Darwinism that Chesterton credit for. And, when we look closely, we theory of evolution. In one of his essays, opposed. “Now they talk about the sur- find that devoted Christians didn’t try to he remarked that the sight of an elderly vival of the fittest: they think they do hold back the Scientific Revolution, they man slowly strolling across the heavens understand it, whereas they have not led it. The most vicious attempts to sup- would be as remarkable as a super-man merely no notion, they have an elabo- press science were modern, secular and zooming across them; in other words, a rately false notion of what the words antichristian. Christian theology is not leisurely creation would be as miracu- mean.” And, “Evolution is either an in- anti-science and is arguably a neces- lous as a literal six-day creation. In this nocent scientific description of how cer- sary condition for science to arise. The he agreed with most religious leaders of tain earthly things came about; or, if it is Church was not an enemy of science his- the time. The initial criticism of Darwin’s anything more than this, it is an attack torically, and it is not an enemy today. If theory did not come from theologians upon thought itself. If evolution destroys the little girl in the Non Sequitur cartoon but from biologists concerned with the anything, it does not destroy religion but had really gone back in time, and some- paucity of evidence. rationalism.” how eliminated religious influence upon What Chesterton did vehemently op- Some might assume that Chesterton science and technology in the “Dark pose were the conclusions some people would take the side of faith in the “re- Ages,” she probably would have returned wanted to draw in the name of evolu- ligion vs. science” controversy. But he to a world that still didn’t know Saturn tion—particularly the idea that certain adopts an unexpected approach (as we had rings.

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18 Volume 22 • Number 3, January/February 2019 The Chesterton Review the journal of the G. K. Chesterton Institute for Faith & Culture Founded in 1974

“There really is nothing like The Chesterton Review and i there eer as it eisted in a bygone olden ge o ornals and againes. They hoeer are all dead. The Review abides.” —hili enkins Chronicles againe ne

1974 1984 1994 2004 2014 Vol. I, No. 1 Vol. X Vol. XX Vol. XXX Vol. XXXX

Editorial Office Fr. Ian Boyd, C.S.B., Editor To Subscribe The Chesterton Review Philosophical Documentation Center Seton Hall University Tel.: 1 800 444 2419 400 South Orange Avenue Online: www.pdcnet.org South Orange, NJ 07079 Phone: 973 275 2431 Email: [email protected] CHESTERTON UNIVERSITY brotherhood of men is a fact: which in the long run wears down all other facts.” An Introduction to the Writings of G.K. Chesterton by Dale Ahlquist At the beginning of the war, in the pages of the New Witness, he suggests that it is a universal war of liberation, including liberating Germany from its bad ideas, and setting them free to be the historic German people for whom he expresses great admiration and affec- History as it is Happening tion. In fact, it is in this volume that you New Witness, Vol. III-IV will find some of his most positive com- (November, 1913–November, 1914) ments about Germany. But while he says very positive things about Germany, he says very negative things about Prussia. paper fighting for the poor is That is surprising in that a rather signif- Germany is natural. Prussia is artifi- pretty certain to be compara- icant event took place at this time: the cial. Germany is an organic reality that tively poor itself.” Thus wrote start of the First World War. has been suppressed. Prussia is a con- G.K. Chesterton in the New We have long had to deal with the trived irreality that has been exalted. Witness in January of 1914. unfair and uninformed charge that And Chesterton says it all goes back to The paper would always be Chesterton hates the Jews. Anyone with Frederick the Great: Apoor and Chesterton would always write even a tad of familiarity with Chesterton What is now the German Empire, for it for free. But he did not contribute realizes that he does not hate anyone, es- what may yet be the European Empire, as much to these two volumes of the pa- pecially based on any racial, ethnic, na- unless we curb it, was founded by per because he had just quit the Daily tional or religious grouping. However, Frederick the Great … Frederick the News and was writing furiously (in ev- to read his writings during World War Great despised Germany, as he de- ery sense of the word) for the Daily I, it seems that a case could actually be spised all good things. He could not, Herald. Ironically, his writing for the New made that he hates the Germans. But a or rather would not, speak German. Witness during this period, though less little further analysis reveals that what he It is amusing to imagine his boredom frequent, was very calm and measured. hates is a philosophy not a people. “The

✦ ✦ fairy tale: an allegory ✦ ✦ fatigue: the one disease from which civilisations do not New Chesternitions—F of real life. (Daily News, July recover. (Listener, Jan. 31, 1934) 11, 1901) ✦ ✦ feminism: masculinism, that is, the imitation of things, ✦ ✦ fanfaronade: to say things that only look witty and are not because they are good, or even because they are hu- also wise. (Illustrated London News, April 6, 1929) man, but solely because they are masculine. (New Witness, Oct. 14, 1921)

✦ ✦ feud: a drama that draws its life from hate, as a love affair draws it from love. (New Witness, Dec. 2, 1921)

✦ ✦ food: the most real of facts. (G.K.’s Weekly, June 14, 1930)

✦ ✦ franchise: the full original meaning of that term is frank- ness, or freeness. But in the modern meaning the actual area of choice (which is the essence of liberty) has more and more dwindled down to a narrow alternative between two prepared policies or arbitrarily selected persons: and even the theoretic effort to extend democracy is pursued in this stiff and exclusive style. (Daily News, Nov. 16, 1912)

✦ ✦ frivolity: trying to rejoice with nothing to rejoice over. (G.K.’s Weekly, Dec. 26, 1925)

✦ ✦ fun: the art of life. (Illustrated London News, May 11, 1929)

20 Volume 22 • Number 3, January/February 2019 Chesterton University

“When we were children we were grateful to those who filled our stockings at Christmas time.

Why are we not grateful to God for filling our stockings with legs?” —G.K. Chesterton

and contempt if anybody had shown phraseology of their great educational has abolished conviviality; and prides him anything German, a tale of Grimm reformers proves that they were not so himself on prim little abstentions like a or a ballad of the Rhine. He was, per- much thinking of a school of citizens, frost-bitten old maid in Upper Tooting. haps, the most acidly Anti-German as really dreaming of a garden of chil- Is it that most sound and genuine of mind that ever moved in Europe: much dren. St. Nicholas is the patron saint of German things, the union of the gro- more Anti-German than the bitterest children; but his tradition had become tesque with the good-natured; so that Frenchman even after 1870 ... Prussia, so Germanised that people in Brixton Santa Claus can be a gnome with- indeed, was a French Colony ... Its ar- and Boston used the German name out ceasing to be a saint: and in the chitecture was at once pompous and for him ... The official system of mod- old strong German draughtsmanship pale: its poetry was more of a sneer ern Germany eats into childhood as fire Christ could be ugly without ceasing than a song. This was the France that eats into fretted wood: I have seen chil- to be beautiful? He will find that in this Frederick admired and copied; and his dren growing older before my very eyes, above all things Frederick and his friend kingdom was like a little artificial lake more cross, more calculating, more Voltaire have dried and split, and salt- in imitation of that cold sea ... Prussia crabbedly exact, in consequence of the ed and embittered this land. In Prussia, never changed. She is still ... stiff with utterly undomestic system of education, above all places, there is now no choice the etiquette of the ancient regime; the early hours, the vast schools, the between the pompously complimentary aiming at the old parade of heartless- long lessons, the enormous and anony- and the cruelly derisive... ness in high life. She was more faith- mous discipline. The best place for chil- ful to the copy than the French were to dren is a German home; and the worst Chesterton warns that this would the original. There is a dead daylight of place is a German school. not be, “as is exaggeratingly said,” the atheism in Prussia to-day...... the lover of Germany will find the last war. But he hopes that England will Let anyone who really likes Germany principle holds with every pleasure he finally stop borrowing its social reform make a list of the things he likes in has ever associated with the country. Is policies from Germany. Germany; and he will find that in al- it the genuine sympathy with folk-tales Though there are some fine essays most every one of them the Prussian ré- and fairy-tales, which have really been about literature and art, and also some gime is, not merely vaguely and atmo- missed and underrated by the classicism rollicking poems, most of the writing spherically, but palpably and practically, of the Latins? He will find that Professor is history as it is happening. We should eating those things away like some un- Haeckel has abolished fairy-tales, pre- mention one other amazing line that naturally rapid rust. Take concrete cas- ferring the more scientific appara- appears from this volume: “Russia is es; take the case of the child. There is no tus of lies. Is it the conviviality of toast the only country in Europe in which people on earth which values the child and song, which makes men who have Communism has been an official insti- as such as the German people has done. only heard of Heidelberg feel vague- tution for centuries.” Why is that amaz- Even their philosophers became poets ly that we have all been students there? ing? Because he wrote it three years be- when they touched the topic; the very He will find that the German Emperor fore the Bolshevik Revolution.

The Magazine of the Apostolate of Common Sense 21 THE DISTRIBUTIST about the drawing room in mere sportive grace. Moreover, it is much more difficult to make sure that all parts of a complicat- The Crime of ed organisation are efficient than for one ordinary man to see that one ordinary in- strument is efficient. the Shopkeeper The small shopkeeper bears full re- By G.K. Chesterton sponsibility for everything that goes wrong in the small shop. Nobody can in that sense hold the millionaire, who lives verybody knows that what what this means; nobody ever knew; not a hundred miles away, responsible for ev- is called Distributism is very even the man who first said it. He could erything that goes wrong in all his multi- difficult to achieve; and none not suggest, any more than anybody else, ple chain of shops. It is bound to become so well as the Distributist. by what conceivable law of nature a man a question of a quarrel among servants; Nevertheless, when we come must take less care of a shop that does be- and though one servant may sack the to face the fundamental facts long to him than of a shop that does not other servant, it is highly probable that of the case, the difficulty is belong to him. the wrong servant is sacked. Erather different from what is common- Nobody has ever answered the The real case against Distributism is ly supposed. It is supposed to be a purely Distributist argument in the New not the practical case. On the contrary, practical difficulty; and then it is always Testament; that the hireling fleeth be- Distributism has it all its own way on the stated in a way that is utterly unpractical. cause he is a hireling; or the manifest argument from common-sense, or even We are told, in a vague and arbi- fact of modern life; that the housemaid from common selfishness. The real diffi- trary way, that the small shop is not so is more likely to smash the china out of culty of Distributism is moral, spiritual, efficient as the big shop. Nobody knows carelessness than the mistress to throw it almost ethereal. It is exactly one of those

Books ✦ ✦ There are only two kinds of books; those we wish passing books about passing problems, all the ambitions and had never been started and those we wish went on intolerant half-truths, all the earnest but provincial heresies. forever. (Gloucestershire Echo, Sept. 14, 1926) At other times such works can be stirring and provocative; can taunt and tempt like a hostile trumpet. But if you are re- ✦ ✦ Books can be ordered wholesale like bottles of beer; and if they are consumed more slowly, it is sometimes because ceptive, these are things that you will never want to receive. they are not consumed at all. (Introduction to The Change: Essays You will ask for the babble of the brook in which the boys sail on the Land) their boats, or else for the soothing roar of the great river of the Iliad. To very great books and to very ✦ ✦ Putting a high price on books does not silly ones you can surrender yourself. The sil- lead people to put a high spiritual value ly books are below our modern problems. on them, and that for one very sim- The great books are above them. But it ple reason: because putting a high requires a mood of splendid athletic price on books confines them en- energy to read a work of ordinary in- tirely to the particular class of soci- telligence. (Daily News, Feb. 23, 1907) ety which does not put a high spiritual value on anything. (Daily News, ✦ ✦ To men who know nothing but May 25, 1904) books … youth is the blunder of writing books; manhood the strug- ✦ ✦ If I am at all exhausted, if I wish gle to get them published; and old age to be merely receptive, I can only the regret that they do not sell. (Daily read classics or read trash. I can News, June 13, 1903) open the doors of Shakespeare like one opening the doors of some ancestral inn ✦ ✦ Nowadays a book is called a strong book that has always welcomed him and all the because it is the utterance of a weak man. It is men he loves. And I can feel the same sense of called strong because the man who writes it is in- security and humanity in reading Jack Buckshot among capable of keeping anything to himself, of controlling any of the Indians. What I resolutely refuse in such a mood to read his passions—either the meaner passion of publicity or the are all the moderately intelligent works, all the young stren- manlier passion of lust. (Listener, Dec. 13, 1933) uous novelists who try to understand life but can’t, all the

22 Volume 22 • Number 3, January/February 2019 The Distributist elusive and mystical abstractions that the would really avoid the shop of that hero, Capitalists profess to despise; but it is the even if it were next door. They would re- only thing that really defends them from ally feel that his being convicted of inde- the logic of Distributism. It is a spirit; pendence was something like being con- an atmosphere; something invisible but victed of arson or robbery with violence; ACS BOOKS almost inviolable. It is a certain way of where we should think it was like being looking at things, common to people of found guilty of truthfulness or shot for all classes in this country; and that is one courage in face of the enemy. They would An Actor reason why the Distributist is not a revo- think there was something vaguely dis- lutionist. He must preach his religion be- reputable about independence; some- fore he calls on the mob to defend it. thing of the dubious sort of crank. Bows The only way I know of convey- The shopkeeper did not even think Show Biz, God and the Meaning of Life ing that impossible thing is to mention it worth while to say that his customers by Kevin O’Brien something that was said to me the other would think him unkind or unneigh- day. I was talking to a small shopkeeper, bourly or disobliging. It was enough that lot of actors think they’re a man of marked intelligence, who was, they could expose to universal execration good enough to be on the whole, in favour of the modern the black secret of his independence. professionals. And even if restrictions on shops, etc., and defend- This is a real question; and I propose they are, they seldom get ed them intelligently. He admitted, be- to conduct it independently of the gen- Ato the place where they can actually ing a fair-minded man, that they could tleman who is waiting eagerly with his make a living as actors. Kevin O’Brien be not only a nuisance but a danger in quibble about the word “independence.” is the rare exception. But even among exceptional cases of sickness, etc.; but he I am quite aware, thank you, that we are successful actors, his achievement is thought that the good outweighed the all dependent; upon God, upon harvests, rare. He’s done it all on his own, with ill. Among the advantages he adduced upon the mother that bore us, upon the his own acting company, his own was this: that a shopkeeper could not of- policeman that protects our lives. If any- plays, and his own unique niche in fend people by closing, if he was forced body likes a logomachy of that sort he can the world of theater. He has done it by law to close. But if he was only free have it by himself; I should always prefer because he knows how to connect to close, and said he was going to close to substitute for the word “independence” with an audience. But along the way, for reasons of his own, of duty or plea- the more satisfying word “honour.” But the he found that he was playing a much sure, something very nasty would be point is that honour, of the kind I mean, more important role on a much larger said about him. The exact words he used does imply sufficient strength of mind and stage in a much greater drama. When were: “Well, if you say that—they’ll go off ease of conscience to shut your own door an actor bows, it is an act of humility. and say, ‘Damn it, isn’t he independent?’” if you choose, whether it is in order to play Especially when he bows before God. That is the cruel report that would with your children or dig in your garden, brand and blast his reputation among or read St. Thomas Aquinas. In short, it worthy and honourable men; that is the means the independence of the house- one unpardonable crime that would be hold, and of the human soul that informs brought home to him by the common the household. It is a virtue; but the trouble jury of his neighbours. Many of them is that, just at present, we not only cannot would grieve; many of them would get this virtue practised, but we cannot get have hoped for better things; many of it admired. Yet it has been admired in most them, perhaps, had once thought high- human literature and in many human ly of him as an individual and a friend; communities; not only of peasants but of many would find him guilty with reluc- small shopkeepers. The English sometimes tance; but, alas, there could be no doubt criticised it in the French petit bourgeois; that he was decidedly independent. The but the French understood it. The real dif- shop frequenters, the other shopkeepers, ficulty of Distributism is to get the English and to some extent even this shopkeep- to understand it as well. After all, there is er himself, took it for granted that it was one thing on its side. Unlike all the mod- bad to get a name for being independent, ern inventions and innovations, it is hu- Retail price $16.95 as for being intoxicated. man: it is attractive in itself. Every man Member price $13.55 That is the real moral abyss that we would like to be respected for his inde- must attempt to bridge. Where you and pendence, as for his courage. While that is Order your copy today I (I speak among the elect) would possi- so, even slaves and cowards are not strong (800) 343-2425 bly travel ten miles to find a shopkeeper enough to conquer the world. Or visit www.chesterton.org who was really independent, it is, I fear, From G.K.’s Weekly, March 22, 1930. only too likely that many more people

The Magazine of the Apostolate of Common Sense 23 THE SIGNATURE OF MAN There was this sterility and finali- ty in all their criticism. To take a case at random, Wilde defined a woman as a The Art of the Decadents sphinx without a secret. Given this, we can only say that the remark is interest- By G.K. Chesterton ing—and the woman isn’t. In so far as a word can kill a sentence, or a sentence can kill a book, he is merely acting like he Eighteen-Nineties or imitate their literary method, it the barbarian who burned the library of may be called the is not difficult to conceive them Alexandria. If he is wrong, he has missed age of the decadents. talking about it under the image the secret; and even if he is right he has There are some for of suicide. One might have said not increased the interest. If there is no whom the unman- “I would fling myself into the fire, secret there is no sphinx. As I have said, ly moral antics in if I knew it was of burning roses”; I warmly second the motion that a scar- which it ended are or another might say “Haman was let snake be induced to dance to fantas- soT horrible that they can have no the most enviable of human beings: tic tunes. But if it be finally settled that patience with the quaint and harmless I would willingly hang myself, but my there are no snakes in Iceland, I will not accessories. They have come to dread gallows must be higher than the stars”; go to Iceland and play fantastic tunes for every dandy as a possible criminal; they or another might say “If I committed the indefinite periods, to stimulate a snake think the praise of emeralds can only be Hara-Kiri I should not be thinking of the who I know isn’t there. The same kill- a prelude to the drinking of absinthe; sanguinary pattern on the floor, but of the ing of all further interest in the topic can the praise of rubies only a prelude to the silvery patterns on the sword.” One may be seen in the parallel pictures of wom- shedding of blood. I am not of that tem- like that style or dislike it; it is still true en by a man like Beardsley. The portrait per. I think the jokes of the decadents to point out that whether you burn your- of a lady by Gainsborough or Romney were extremely good—as long as they self or hang yourself or stab yourself, your may suggest almost any shade of mor- were jokes. I derived, and still derive a next stage of development is being what is als and manners between Lady Hamilton very positive literary pleasure from such known as “dead”; and, except on theolog- and Mrs. Siddons. But every touch of fantasias as The Sphinx. I like fantastic ical hypotheses, done with. Qualis artifex the brush on dress or distance somehow moons to shiver in some stagnant lake. I pereo [“What an artist the world is los- suggests that the sitter, like the painter, positively request a scarlet snake to dance ing in me.” Nero’s last words - Ed.] is your had a thing called a heart, whether it led to fantastic tunes. I am very much grat- last epigram; any other would be an an- her right or wrong. There-fore she is still ified to hear that there is a hole “left by ti-climax; and there are neither epigrams alive, and Meredith might have written some torch or burning coal on Saracenic nor climaxes nor flatterers nor foolish la- a novel about her, or Shaw a play. But tapestries”; partly because it is such fun dies nor sycophants of the intellect in the Beardsley, in black and white (both lit- to think that the tapestries are spoilt. A grave, whither thou goest. eral and symbolic) in lines as clear as small but strong pleasure is really given fine print, does succeed in suggesting a by these fancies; and can do no harm as woman without a heart. And to me look- long as we know they are fanciful. The ing at a heartless lady is as great a bore mistake of these people was that they as talking to a headless lady. A headless tried to turn dolls into idols. lady (to use the ladies’ phrase) has no expression. “Sometimes a horrible marionette There is the use of the colour white, Came out and smoked his cigarette which some sought to make a sort of Upon the steps like a live thing.” symbol of the purer element in aesthet- You are all right if you never fall into icism. But it is not the purer element the error of thinking it is a live thing. that predominates. What predominates The authors and artists in question is this sense of the word “Finis”; with a were not only coming to the end of the Beardsley tail-piece. One thinks of those century but to the end of everything. terminal figures that Beardsley could There was an element in their work not draw. The head on the pedestal might easy to define except by some simile of laugh like Pan; and not merely leer like death. They were “the last word in art,” Priapus. But it is in every sense a termi- or “the last word in criticism,” not only nal figure. It stands and smiles at the lim- in the general sense of being the newest, it of our lives; and beyond it there is no but in the literal sense that there was no road. more to be said. Their self-emancipation From The New Witness, November 20, 1913 was suicide. If I may presume to imagine Beardsley

24 Volume 22 • Number 3, January/February 2019 A Short history of G.K.Chesterton CHESTERTON Who was Gilbert Keith Chesterton? A rotund has man inlately a cape brandishing been a walking en - stick? Certainly. A twentieth-century writer? Prolifically. A great champion and joyingdefender of thea Christianresurgence Faith? Gallantly. He in is known popularity. too as the “prince of His paradox” and an “apostle of common sense.” Chesterton has lately been enjoying AHLQUIST namea resurgence appears in popularity. His nameon appears blog on blog posts posts and news and articles news alike. His name is spoken more often on college campuses, and schools around KNIGHT the United States are being named after him. Who was this engaging, witty, articlesprophetic man? alike. Allow Dale Ahlquist,His the name president of isthe American spoken Chesterton more OF THE Society, to introduce you to him. In a rollicking adventure quite Chestertonian oftenin flavor, Ahlquiston captainscollege an expedition campuses, of discovery into who thisand GKC fellowschools is. He deftly and cleverly explores Chesterton as a man, as a writer, and as a Garound Kthe Unitedpotential States saint. are being named after him. HOLY Those curious about Chesterton will have their initial questions answered.

Who was this engaging,Those who might witty,be dubious about prophetic Chesterton’s reputation willman? be challenged Allow Ghost Holy the of Knight to reconsider. Those who consider Chesterton an old friend will be delighted. All will be engaged by amusing anecdotes, plentiful quotations, and a thoughtful Dale Ahlquist, the presidentstudy of the life of G. K. ofChesterton. the American Chesterton GHOST Society, to introduce you to him. In a rollicking adventure Dale Ahlquist is probably the greatest living authority on the life and work A Short History of quite Chestertonian ofin G. K. flavor,Chesterton. As such, nobodyAhlquist is better qualified captains to offer a concise and an expe- illuminating overview of Chesterton’s important contribution to contemporary G. K. Chesterton faith and culture. dition of discovery into—Joseph who Pearce, this Author of WisdomGKC and Innocence: fellow A Life of G. is.K. Chesterton He deftly and cleverly exploresAhlquist on Chesterton Chesterton is like Plato on Socrates, as ora Boswell man, on Johnson. as a writer, and as a potential saint. —New Oxford Review

Dale Ahlquist is president of the American Chesterton Society. Through his Those curiouslong about Chesterton will have their ini- running television series, The Apostle of Common Sense,

and lectures, he has helped bring about a great renewal of interest as well in the as hisworks books IGNATIUS PRESS | AUGUSTINE INSTITUTE AUGUSTINE | PRESS IGNATIUS tial questions answered.of G. K. Chesterton. Those He has authored andwho contributed tomight several books be on dubious Chesterton, including Common Sense 101: Lessons from G. K. Chesterton, G. K. Chesterton: The Apostle of Common Sense, about Chesterton’s reputation will andbe In Defense challenged of Sanity: The Best Essays to re- of G. K. Chesterton. consider. Those who consider Chesterton an old friend will be delighted. All will be engaged by amusing anec- DALE AHLQUIST dotes, plentiful quotations, and a thoughtful study of the life of G.K. Chesterton.

ß Retail price $16.95 Dale Ahlquist is probably the greatest living au- Member price $13.55 thority of the life and work of G.K. Chesterton. As such, nobody is better qualified to offer a a concise and illuminating overview of Chesterton’s important contribution to contemporary faith and culture. —JOSEPH PEARCE, Author of Wisdom and Innocence: A Life of G.K. Chesterton ß

Ahlquist on Chesterton is like Plato on Socrates, or Boswell on Johnson. —New Oxford Review ACS BOOKS

Order your copy today (800) 343-2425 Or visit www.chesterton.org

The Magazine of the Apostolate of Common Sense 25 NEWS WITH VIEWS or clouds, visibly but with a loathsome slowness. The swamp is alive. And I Compiled by Mark Pilon found again a certain advantage in for- getfulness; for I saw all this incredible country before I even remembered its name, or the ancient tradition about its nature. Then even the green plague- spots failed, and everything seemed to “When the real revolution happens, fall away into a universal blank under it won’t be mentioned in the newspapers.” the staring sun, as I came, in the great spaces of the circle of a lifeless sea, into the silence of Sodom and Gomorrah. For these are the foundations of a Birth Prevention And: fallen world, and a sea below the seas on TORONTO—The Canadian Broadcasting Of course sane people always thought the which men sail. Seas move like clouds Corporation has published a helpful ar- aim of marriage was the procreation of and fishes float like birds above the lev- ticle demonstrating how Canadians can children to the glory of God or accord- el of the sunken land. And it is here contribute to the battle against “climate ing to the plan of Nature; but whether that tradition has laid the tragedy of the change.” The CBC article highlighted they counted such children as God’s re- mighty perversion of the imagination of four ways for citizens to cut down on ward for service or Nature’s premium on man; the monstrous birth and death of emissions, and published a helpful chart sanity, they always left the reward to God abominable things. I say such things in to show the effectiveness of different or the premium to Nature, as a less de- no mood of spiritual pride; such things methods. Number one on the list, by far, finable thing. are hideous not because they are distant was “Have one fewer child.” The emis- but because they are near to us; in all sions reducing effect of having one fewer our brains, certainly in mine, were bur- child was listed as over twenty-four times Fire and Brimstone ied things as bad as any buried under as effective as living car-free, the second SAN DIEGO, California—At the annu- that bitter sea, and if He did not come most effective item on the list. al meeting of the American Schools of to do battle with them, even in the dark- Of course, the repercussions of an Oriental Research, archeologist Phillip ness of the brain of man, I know not even further reduction of the birth rate Silvia presented a paper publicizing pre- why He came. are beyond the scope of such a piece, but liminary findings suggesting that the cit- why trouble yourself with such details ies of Sodom and Gomorrah may have when faced with the dire emergency of been destroyed by a meteor explosion “climate change.” Surely the government in the sky above, some 3700 years ago. should step in, for the good of all. Silvia’s presentation explained that the Tall el-Hammam Excavation Project has GKC: seen evidence of a thriving civilization of The births we prevent may be the births over two millennia, that ended abruptly of the best and most beautiful children; in fire around 1700 B.C. One piece of ev- those we allow, the weakest or worst. idence is the existence of pottery turned Indeed, it is probable; for the habit dis- into glass by exposure to temperatures courages the early parentage of young in a range around 8,000 degrees Celsius. and vigorous people; and lets them put After this catastrophe, the soils of the Ye Shall Be as Gods off the experience to later years, most- plain were contaminated with Dead Sea SPRINGFIELD, Illinois—The state of ly from mercenary motives. Until I see a salts that destroyed the fertility of the Illinois had an interesting addition to its real pioneer and progressive leader com- land now called Middle Ghor, for hun- holiday display this December. It depict- ing out with a good, bold, scientific pro- dreds of years. ed an apple upheld by a snake-encircled gramme for drowning babies, I will not arm. On the base of the statue was the in- join the movement. It was very different in the final stage scription “Knowledge is the greatest gift.” of the descent, where my mind woke The sculpture has a name: “Snaketivity,” up from its meditations. One can only and was supplied by the Chicago branch say that the whole landscape was like a of The Satanic Temple. In an effort to add leper. It was of a wasting white and sil- the much-needed diversity and inclu- ver and grey, with mere dots of deca- sion to the state holiday display, the tem- dent vegetation like the green spots of ple launched the traditional GoFundMe a plague. In shape it not only rose into campaign to raise the $1,500 considered horns and crests like waves or clouds, necessary for the display. The state of but I believe it actually alters like waves Illinois posted a notice near the display,

26 Volume 22 • Number 3, January/February 2019 News with Views explaining the constitutional require- O blind your eyes and break your heart as the central feature of any service to ment to allow such displays, as long as and hack your hand away, recognize liturgically a person’s gender they are not funded by taxpayer mon- And lose your love and shave your head; transition. ey. The Satanic Temple describes itself as but do not go to stay non-theistic, and explains its mission on At the little place in What’sitsname where The guidance has met with oppo- its website, “to encourage benevolence folks are rich and clever; sition by some bishops. We wish them and empathy among all people, reject The golden and the goodly house, where luck. tyrannical authority, advocate practical things grow worse for ever. Henry VIII was a Catholic in everything common sense and justice, and be direct- except that he was not a Catholic. He ob- ed by the human conscience to under- served everything down to the last bead take noble pursuits guided by the indi- Transpastoral and candle; he accepted everything down vidual will.” CANTERBURY—The House of Bishops to the last deduction from a definition; he Mucho inspirational. of the Church of England has ap- accepted everything except Rome. And in proved “Pastoral Guidance for use in GKC: that instant of refusal, his religion became conjunction with the Affirmation of The human race, according to religion, a different religion; a different sort of reli- Baptismal Faith in the context of gen- fell once, and in falling gained knowl- gion; a different sort of thing. In that in- der transition.” edge of good and of evil. Now we have stant it began to change; and it has not fallen a second time, and only the (T)he House of Bishops commends the stopped changing yet. knowledge of evil remains to us. rite of Affirmation of Baptismal Faith A man cannot think himself out of mental evil; for it is actually the or- gan of thought that has become dis- CORNER eased, ungovernable, and, as it were, The Originator independent. He can only be saved by Celebrating Famous will or faith. The moment his mere rea- & Infamous Names President Hoover son moves, it moves in the old circu- with E.C. Bentley’s Felt in need of a soother After his little tiff lar rut; he will go round and round his CLERIHEW Elusive Light Verse Form logical circle, just as a man in a third- With Governor Al Smith class carriage on the Inner Circle will go round and round the Inner Circle The Imitators: unless he performs the voluntary, vigorous, and mystical act of getting out The Greek physician Hippocrates Evangelista Torricelli at Gower Street. Decision is the whole Studied our infirmities. was fond of refried beans and business here; a door must be shut for He mastered the diseases of his day, jalapeno jelly. ever. Every remedy is a desperate rem- And then invented the co-pay. One of his lesser-known achievements edy. Every cure is a miraculous cure. —STUART KOLNER, Ames, Iowa was a way to measure Curing a madman is not arguing with a frequent bouts of abdominal pressure. philosopher; it is casting out a devil. Young Thomas Aquinas —LEE STRONG, Rochester, New York One more note. The members of The Was a consistent ‘B -’ Satanic Temple spend much of their time Until he made it his business Miss Mary Shelley and money trying to rehabilitate the rep- To study God’s ‘is’ness Had quite a story to telly. utation of Satan, going after those who —CIARAN GUILFOYLE, Derby, England Her imaginative Frankenstein picture associate satanic images with evil. Made her a literary spectre Jane Austen —ELIZABETH WOOD (GRADE 7), It was the Christians who gave Satan a gro- Never went to Boston. Oshkosh, Wisconsin tesque and energetic outline, with sharp And never hailed a cabbie. Stan Lee horns and spiked tail. It was the saints who But she wrote Northanger Abbey. Whose first name was Stanley drew the Devil as comic and even lively. —ANITA GORMAN, Canfield, Ohio Is dead. The Satanists never drew him at all. ‘Nuff said. And one more comment. Knowledge —LOFTON STRAND, Marcell, Minnesota is, of course, not the greatest gift. We’ll let the members of The Satanic Temple CLERIHEW: A humorous, unmetrical, biographical verse of four short lines—two closed argue that the knowledge promised by couplets—with the first rhyme a play on the name of the subject. Readers are invited to the serpent in the Garden was any gift submit clerihews for “The Clerihew Corner,” with the understanding that submissions at all. But if knowledge is a gift, who is cannot be acknowledged or returned, nor will all be published. the giver?

The Magazine of the Apostolate of Common Sense 27 THE FLYING INN their absence were students and teach- Home Rule at Home ers from the publicly funded Catholic schools—again, typical of any parish. When we blocked traffic, many of the drivers got out and took photos of us with their phones, some of the more rude ones honked (though maybe they were honking their approval). There were people sitting on their balconies with cig- An Answer to a Prayer arettes and coffees in hand, watching us By David Beresford as we passed, some waving, some just staring. At the first fall of Our Lord onto The man who represents all thought of Our Lord carried a large wooden cross the asphalt I winced, it looked real, and as an accident of environment is simon his shoulders, while a Roman Soldier Simon the Cyrene helped him up and ply smashing and discrediting all his whipped him across his back. Other took a turn carrying the cross. When own thoughts — including that one. Roman Soldiers carried spears to keep Veronica wiped the Face of Jesus, she —“THE WIND AND THE TREES,” TREMENDOUS TRIFLES back Women of Jerusalem and general- held the cloth out for the crowd to see the ly look fearsome. In front drove a pickup image as a Roman Soldier yelled at her. e were walking along truck carrying loudspeakers, and when Walking past the shops it was strangely Hunter Street, the it stopped, a narrator read the various familiar and yet unfamiliar at the same main street that cuts prayers into a microphone. time. across Peterborough. It was cold out, about 25 degrees “Good turnout” said Adam, a friend Peterborough, Ontario, but no wind, and sunny. Being a holi- of mine, as we walked along between is a smallish city with day the stores were closed, but the bars stations. Wabout 65,000 people in it, an old-fash- were open and many of the patrons came “Everything looks pretty good” I said, ioned city that still has a downtown with out to look at us we passed by. Beside the “More people than I thought.” shops, restaurants, and banks, and we dignitaries and clergy, the people in the “Yep, that is the mayor and his wife were walking toward this downtown as crowd were typical of any parish except up front with the bishop.” members of a crowd of about 1500 peo- for the large number of young people: “Nice to see the Anglicans waving at ple. Our crowd was flanked by police cars teenagers, and children, all either home- us when we passed St. John’s back there,” which stopped traffic at all the intersec- schoolers or from the local parent-run I observed. “We should invite them next tions as we passed. It was the first year we private Catholic school. Conspicuous by y e ar.” held this event, a public Way of the Cross for Good Friday with teenaged actors playing Our Lord, the various Women of Jerusalem, Roman soldiers, Pontius Pilate, Herod, and others in costume as non-speaking followers. The event was organized by local students who were quite active in the Catholic community, and had been given approval by our bishop, Bishop deAnge- lis. Walking with us was an assortment of the more traditionally-minded priests and sisters, the kind who are not ashamed of the garb of their chosen vocations. The Bishop himself was walking beside the mayor and a small assortment of local and federal politicians, Catholics and non-Catholics, and other dignitaries. It was quite impressive; after walking a block we stopped at each corner to say the prayers out loud from the Way of the Cross, an Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be, and sing a verse of the Stabat Mater. The student who acted in the part

28 Volume 22 • Number 3, January/February 2019 The Flying Inn

“There is only one thing missing,” www.zazzle.com/theobear said Adam, “The crowd of mockers, that was part of it too.” “Yeah, I thought the same thing,” I answered, and we continued walking in silence. Up ahead, we heard a small commo- tion. We craned our necks to see as we approached the source of the interrup- tion. Within earshot, we saw a man wear- ing a gorilla mask, and other men and women dressed-up in Victorian cloth- ing. One was carrying a sign that read WE CAME FROM MONKEYS NOT GOD. There were about 15 of these pro- testors yelling at us that it was their body and their choice, that Darwin proved we evolved from apes, that we should stop being superstitious, that we evolved from random chance, that we had no right to force our religion on their ovaries, that we should be ashamed that we brought our kids with us, that we should be ashamed that we had kids, that we were conservatives, that Christ had died for no reason, that nobody was saved, that there was no God, that God caused war—the usual assorted non-sequiturs, illiteracies, insults, and diatribes. Adam and I looked at each other in simultaneous joy—the good Lord had provided for us in abundance, here were the missing mockers! Our implicit prayers were answered and the play was complete.

Fools ✦ ✦ There are those who dislike playing the fool, pre- ✦ ✦ It is not my fault that existence is a strange and dim affair, ferring to act the same part in a more serious spirit. and not adapted to the intellectual delight of shallow people. (Illustrated London News, Jan. 13, 1906) (Daily News, Dec. 19, 1903)

✦ ✦ There are quite as many varieties of fools ✦ ✦ Give me the common human jolly healthy in the world as there are clever men, and fool and let him govern me. I would rath- the fools are very often infinitely more er be governed by nine million peo- healthy and interesting. (The Bookman, ple mostly fools than by nine people Oct. 1902) mostly mono-maniacs. (Manchester Guardian, Jan. 21, 1907) ✦ ✦ “The wise few” must mean either the few whom the foolish think wise ✦ ✦ The world has made a fool of it- or the very foolish who think them- self in all sorts of ways from the be- selves wise. (“The Priest of Spring” A ginning of time, but its rich stores of Miscellany of Men) foolery are by no means exhausted yet. (Illustrated London News, April 13, 1929) ✦ ✦ The French Romantics made fools of themselves in all sorts of ways, as clever men ✦ ✦ When it comes to folly we are all at home. always do. (Illustrated London News, Aug. 20, 1932) (Speaker, June 1, 1901)

The Magazine of the Apostolate of Common Sense 29 CHESTERTON’S GREAT CHARACTERS becomes clear that Valentin’s talent as an investigator is due in part to his powers of intelligence, but also to his remarkably Aristide Valentin perceptive instincts. Other, less success- By Chris Chan ful investigators might dismiss a broken window or misplaced signs in a shop, and judge them unworthy of further scruti- Aristide Valentin was unfathomably French; and the French intelligence is intelligence spe- ny. Valentin in contrast has gut feelings cially and solely. He was not “a thinking machine;” for that is a brainless phrase of modern that consistently steer him in the right di- fatalism and materialism. A machine only is a machine because it cannot think. But he rection. Up until the end of “The Secret was a thinking man, and a plain man at the same time. All his wonderful successes, that Garden,” Valentin comes across a highly looked like conjuring, had been gained by plodding logic, by clear and commonplace French efficient and competent investigator, man- thought. The French electrify the world not by starting any paradox, they electrify it by car- aging a complex situation with aplomb rying out a truism. They carry a truism so far—as in the French Revolution. But exactly and taking pains to remove a cloud of sus- because Valentin understood reason, he understood the limits of reason. Only a man who picion from an innocent man. knows nothing of motors talks of motoring without petrol; only a man who knows noth- In “The Blue Cross,” aside from a few ing of reason talks of reasoning without strong, undisputed first principles. Here he had no fleeting, oblique hints as to Valentin’s strong first principles. Flambeau had been missed at Harwich; and if he was in London at personal opinions, there is little to re- all, he might be anything from a tall tramp on Wimbledon Common to a tall toast-mas- veal his worldview and the passions ter at the Hotel Metropole. In such a naked state of nescience, Valentin had a view and a that drive him. In “The Secret Garden,” method of his own. —“THE BLUE CROSS” Valentin’s mask of calm contemplation (SPOILER WARNING: This essay contains shatters when he reveals himself to be spoilers for the Father Brown short stories characters are equally as surprising as the a God-hater. Much has been said about “The Blue Cross” and “The Secret Garden.”) solutions. the dangers of religious fanaticism, but “The Secret of Father Brown” makes it Chesterton never shies away from point- hen Aristide Valentin is clear that the heart of Father Brown’s de- ing out the dangers of irreligious fanat- introduced in the open- tective skills lies in his ability to place him- icism as well. The mere prospect of the ing paragraphs of the very self in the mind of a murderer, but “The Catholic Church receiving an influen- first Father Brown sto- Secret Garden” illustrates that his acumen tial convert is enough to send Valentin ry, the reader can be ex- is not merely psychological and spiritual, into paroxysms of rage. A simple glimpse cused for thinking that he it is logical and imaginative as well. Father of a priest’s cassock produces a scowl. Wwill be a prominent character through- Brown can use lateral thinking and cre- Chesterton makes it clear that bigotry out the series, like the more famous and prejudice can destroy a man, and Inspectors Lestrade and Japp. Instead, Chesterton never shies for every instance of anti-clerical bias, he only makes two appearances, in the Valentin’s persona of logical adeptness is first and second Father Brown mysteries, away from pointing diminished. though he is a pivotal character in both. There is also a streak of vanity When “The Blue Cross” ends, it seems out the dangers of throughout Valentin’s character. At the that Valentin will be a longtime ally of irreligious fanaticism. end of “The Blue Cross” he is gracious in Father Brown’s, possibly in recurring his acknowledgement of Father Brown’s match-ups against Flambeau. Instead, ativity in order to make sense out of con- abilities, but when Father Brown inadver- Chesterton subverts (or perhaps super- founding clues. While every Father Brown tently shows him up at various points in verts would be the better word) the read- mystery is a standalone, with no need to the investigation in “The Secret Garden,” er’s expectations, making Flambeau the know what happened earlier in the series asking questions and raising points that repented, redeemed friend of Father (aside from Flambeau’s character develop- Valentin ought to brought up much ear- Brown’s. ment), “The Secret Garden” gains in nu- lier, given his reputation for brilliance, As for Valentin, he goes from ally in ance and richness when compared with its Valentin cannot keep the aggravation his first appearance to hidden adversary immediate predecessor, “The Blue Cross.” from his voice. in the second tale. In Neverwhere, Neil In “The Blue Cross,” Valentin compares In the end, Valentin’s story is a trage- Gaiman wrote that, “When angels go himself to Flambeau: dy—a man of great ability, whose many bad, they are worse than anybody else.” good deeds throughout his life were He thought his detective brain as good as At the end of “The Blue Cross,” the read- overshadowed—and perhaps even cast the criminal’s which was true. But he ful- er would be justified in thinking that into permanent doubt—by his sins. It ly realized the disadvantage. “The crimi- Flambeau was damned and Valentin was is a supreme Chestertonian irony that nal is the creative artist; the detective only the saved soul. Chesterton takes pains to Valentin sought to destroy the Church, the critic,” he said with a sour smile. stress that it’s not just the crimes that are and wound up only destroying himself more complex than they appear, for his Over the course of “The Blue Cross,” it and his own reputation.

30 Volume 22 • Number 3, January/February 2019 ALL I SURVEY “It is true that I am of an older fashion; much that I love shan’t know the difference between right has been destroyed or sent into exile.” —G.K. CHESTERTON and wrong.” Then it struck me that this whole story apes the Garden of Eden story. The di- abolical appears in both, but to different ends. How does the serpent tempt Eve to eat the forbidden fruit? “God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, know- Doing Eden Backwards ing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5). How does the Diabolist liberate himself from David W. Fagerberg morality? By a dangerous doubt that will close his open eyes, and make him un- n author is worth reading if This question pulls forth from like God, not knowing the difference be- he gives you something; an Chesterton his famous passage about tween right and wrong. I wonder if that author is worth rereading virtue being required for pleasure. He is what the Diabolist wanted all along: we if he continues to give you directs attention to the fire burning be- cannot be held responsible for what we something. This Chesterton tween them, and says “Once I thought do not know. does. I am very familiar like you, that one’s pleasure in a flying Satan says (in Genesis): eat, know, with one of his more fa- spark was a thing that could come and and you will not need God to tell you Amous stories, if I had to choose one from go with that spark … But now I know good and evil. The Diabolist says: se- among a hundred famous stories. It is that the red star is only on the apex of duce the woman, confuse yourself, and the dialogue described in Tremendous an invisible pyramid of virtues. That you shall be freed from the bothersome Trifles with a fellow student at the Slade red fire is only the flower on a stalk of difference between right and wrong. art school whom Chesterton only names living habits, which you cannot see … The lie that Satan told is that only as the Diabolist. I have read the story to Seduce a woman, and that spark will be God can know things in their essence, my students, I have used this story in ar- less bright. Shed blood, and that spark and human beings can only know things ticles, I have gone over the story in my will be less red.” by experience. This is the part of the memory numerous times, but I usually truth that Satan left out. God can know stop penultimately. That is, until yester- the essential difference between good and day’s rereading. Virtue is required evil, without himself experiencing evil, The conversation began when the for pleasure. but human beings can only know evil Diabolist observed that Chesterton was by experiencing it. This is what God was becoming orthodox. Chesterton writes, trying to spare Adam and Eve. But the “Until he said it, I really had not known I have gone over that sentence a hun- Diabolist seems to be making the trek in that I was; but the moment he had said it dred times in my memory, and I usual- reverse. In the Garden, humanity moved I knew it to be literally true.” Sometimes ly end with Chesterton’s voice ringing from innocent trust to a corrupt knowl- it is like that. You recognize a truth only in my ears. But the other day my atten- edge of evil that comes from experience. when it comes to its fruition, and you tion was brought to the very end of the In that nighttime conversation round recognize a process only when some- story, to the Diabolist’s final word. “But the fire, the Diabolist was trying to move one has pointed it out, because the pro- shall I not find in evil a life of its own? to a pseudo-ignorance that would process has been so gradual. So Chesterton Granted that for every woman I ruin one duce a pseudo-innocence. He can pro- self-examines for a reason why. “I am be- of those red sparks will go out”—lead- test that he is not culpable, because “I do coming orthodox because I have come, ing Chesterton to suggest the fire might not know the difference between right rightly or wrongly, after stretching my be better used for burning the man like and wrong.” brain until it bursts, to the old belief that the devil-worshiper he is. “‘Perhaps,’ he One can easily see how such a heresy is worse even than sin … I hate said, in his tired, fair way. ‘Only what mangled thought process would set modern doubt because it is dangerous.” you call evil I call good.’” And as they Chesterton upon a lifetime of untan- Considering himself a flamboyant parted company, Chesterton hears one gling the warp. All that he writes about doubter, the Diabolist wants to know the of the Diabolist’s other associates say, certitude, and conditional joy, and here- reason behind Chesterton’s reason, and “Nobody can possibly know.” I presume tics, and doctrine is designed to say the guesses that his burgeoning orthodox he meant one cannot possibly know human race most certainly does know friend only thinks doubt dangerous be- if what we call evil is actually good. the difference between right and wrong, cause it is dangerous to morality. “I ex- Radical doubt. And Chesterton heard though painfully learned, and must stop pect you are right. But why do you care the Diabolist’s chilling reply, “I tell you deceiving itself with justifications for fail- about morality?” I have done everything else. If I do that I ing to choose the good.

The Magazine of the Apostolate of Common Sense 31 BOOK REVIEWS Later in the same chapter Golonka borrows from The Thing at a point where Chesterton had similarly borrowed from Belloc. But first a little context. Chesterton had just engaged in what Golonka labels descriptive “burlesque.” The Thing and Not the Thing Here goes: “If I say that the Reformation was a relapse into barbarism…an idola- Protestantism As Seen things are different in a way that is at try of dead Hebrew documents full of vi- By G.K. Chesterton once refreshing and familiar. sions and symbols…a stampede of bru- Wojciech Golonka For that matter, their targets are dif- tal luxury and pride…a riot of thieves Warsaw: St. Thomas Aquinas ferent as well. Chesterton’s were such and looters with a few foaming and gib- International Institute for contemporaries as George Bernard Shaw bering lunatics carried in front of it like Catholic Apologetics, 2018, and Dean William Inge. On the other live mascots for luck…I should think 147pp hand, Golonka’s main target is the entire that these remarks about Protestantism liberal ecumenical movement, which had a slightly provocative flavor.” Reviewed by Chuck Chalberg seems to have taken on new life with the Note the conditional “if.” Of course, papacy of Francis I. Of course, historical- Chesterton wouldn’t really write such n this small volume readers have ly speaking, their joint targets are John things, even if he just did. It was all a been given two for the price Calvin and Martin Luther, prime among king of “bantering,” to borrow again of one. What we have here is other lesser figures. from Golonka. But then Chesterton’s G.K. Chesterton’s assessment of Messrs. Chesterton and Golonka burlesques and banterings come to a “full Protestantism mainly from the van- share friends, or at least compatriots, as and somber” stop: “But, if I were to say tage point of his post-1922 conver- well, Hilaire Belloc prominently among with Mr. Belloc, that Protestantism was Ision and a glimpse at today’s Catholic- them. In fact, if Belloc and Chesterton the shipwreck of Christendom, I should Protestant relations courtesy of a young were a bad boy-good boy tag team of sorts regard it as an ordinary historical state- Polish Catholic academician born near- during their day, Golonka and Chesterton ment, like saying that the American War ly a half century after Chesterton’s death. are a pair all their own of Independence was a A slight correction is quickly in order. in these pages. Here we split in the British Empire.” “Two for the price of one” should not be find Golonka playing This time ignore the taken to suggest that readers will encoun- Belloc to Chesterton’s conditional “if,” as Golonka ter two entirely different takes on either Chesterton. immediately strips it away Protestantism or the state of Catholic- Something called a by declaring Belloc’s orig- Protestant relations. It is simply to sug- “Chesterlonka” doesn’t inal statement to have gest that Wojciech Golonka has both have quite the ring of been a “clear and scarce- done his homework and resisted two the “Chesterbelloc.” ly ecumenical judgment.” temptations. Nor does a youth- His burlesquing and ban- In the first place, he has read, di- ful Wojciech Golonka tering aside, Chesterton gested, and organized some of the key (whom we learn also would certainly agree with Chesterton works. In the second and works as a professional Golonka, who just as cer- third places, he gives both Chesterton guide in an historical tainly agrees with Belloc. and himself very free rein in these pag- salt mine of all things!) The heart of the book es. Any hesitation he might have had to yet have anything com- then proceeds to give resist the temptation to borrow from parable to the reputa- Chesterton plenty of significant swaths of Chesterton, espe- tion—or bite—of Hilaire Belloc. Here’s room to explain his disagreements with cially The Thingand the Well and the hoping that he will, if he doesn’t land in Protestantism in general and with John Shallows (and to a more limited degree a different sort of salt mine, for he clearly Calvin and Martin Luther in particular. Orthodoxy) was apparently overcome. is a fighter in the Bellocian mold. Chesterton, of course, was serious about And any second thoughts about keeping After detailing Chesterton’s conver- his disagreements, but Golonka remains his own views and enthusiasms to a min- sion and laying out some main themes of close at hand just in case Chesterton’s imum were successfully resisted as well. Heretics and Orthodoxy, Golonka turns to burlesquing and bantering threaten to Suffice it so say, Mr. Chesterton and the topic at hand by borrowing a line from get out of hand. Mr. Golonka are in basic agreement here. Belloc’s biography of Cardinal Richelieu: Which they don’t. Chesterton always But this is not meant to suggest that the “When Europe was united before the ca- did his best, well mostly his best, to make result is agonizingly repetitious. After all, tastrophe of the sixteenth century, before sure of that. And Chesterton always and there are always the not so small mat- the shipwreck of Christendom, one reli- automatically did his best to be fair to his ters of tone and point of reference. Here gion inspired the soul of the west.” adversaries. Golonka concedes as much.

32 Volume 22 • Number 3, January/February 2019 BOOK REVIEWS

In fact, he might be more inclined to do and well in what Chesterton has termed Chesterton would share, namely a pro- so than Belloc would have been. the modern mind. That would be the al- hibition against an ecumenism that While there is little that is new in this legedly progressive modern mind of var- would sacrifice orthodox Catholic slim volume, it is good to have Chesterton’s ious prohibitions, whether that be the teaching. There was a time when liberal thinking on this subject so succinctly declaration that there must be no wine ecumenism was very much on the rise. gathered and organized. Golonka makes or no smoking, or the pacifist’s declara- That was a time that seemed to have no claim to having exhausted this sub- tion that there be no war, or the commu- passed, but perhaps not. Therefore, it ject, but what he has given us is well worth nist’s declaration that there be no private is good to have Chesterton on hand, reading, whether it is fresh information to property, or the secularist’s declaration not to mention Bellocian-style authors some or reminders for others. that there be no religious worship. who can put his wisdom, as well as his It is especially good—and helpful— To be sure, Wojciech Golonka is burlesque bantering to good use, all to be reminded that the Puritan mind- not without a prohibition of his own with some Bellocian-style bite for good set of centuries ago remains all too alive in mind. It’s also a prohibition that measure.

extraordinary. The chapter on the war- The Arts and Science rior gives helpful advice about both understanding one’s stress level and what to of Manhood do in an active shooter situation. Several chapters have sections on The Illustrated Art of Manliness now. Men are generally floundering and “Things Every Man Should:” keep in By Brett McKay and The yet the hip talk is about “toxic masculin- the car, have in his desk, and carry on Art of Manliness ity,” often defined pretty much as “mas- a date. “The Gentleman’s Arsenal” in- Illustrations by Ted Slampyak culinity.” To teach about masculinity as forms us why the man on a date should New York: Little, Brown, something positive is not p.c. But there have a hankie, cash, mints, umbrella, and Company, 2017 has been pushback. and sport coat available. Each section Hardcover, 271 pages; $17 Brett McKay and some collabora- has very handsome illustrations by Ted tors started up a website called “The Art Slampyak, very helpful for such skills as Man of the House of Manliness” in 2008. It was dedicat- deploying a crescent wrench, defend- By C.R. Wiley ed to giving tips and how-to lessons on ing oneself against a knife attack, and Eugene, Oregon: Resource what used to be thought of as distinc- holding a baby. (Don’t worry: “Deliver a Publications, 2017 tively manly arts. They now have pro- Baby” is not overly graphic.) Softcover, 160 pages; $21 duced a very handsome vademecum of In his introduction, McKay ex- manliness. plains that his understanding of man- Reviewed by David P. Deavel The Illustrated Art of Manliness is di- hood is about “the competence to be ef- vided into six chapters giving skills that fective in the world,” skills that include attended a conference for college enable a man to be an: adventurer, gen- both physical and cultural proficien- student life professionals 25 years tleman, technician, warrior, family man, cies and are summarized by the French ago. One speaker’s talk I have nev- and leader. Chapter phrase “savoir faire.” er forgotten. While all the attention One, “The Adventurer” The goal of his website in modern society went to women, opens with Chesterton’s (and now book) is to he said, men were the ones strug- line, “An inconvenience help modern men who Igling—women were already ahead of is only an adventure were “adrift, lacking men at the university level and in oth- wrongly considered; an the confidence, focus, er ways. Worse yet, women had support- adventure is an incon- skills, and virtues that ers no matter what life path they took venience rightly con- the men we look up to while men mostly had detractors. That sidered.” It includes embodied.” His book is struck me as both factually correct and such Boy Scout skills aimed at helping “per- politically incorrect. Sure enough, even as building campfires fect the skills to be hon- at this gathering of mostly conservative and splitting wood, orable, well-rounded, Protestant and Catholic college employ- but also such action capable husbands, fa- ees, the Q & A featured a number of ob- hero skills as jumping from a speed- thers, brothers, and citizens.” jections to the speaker’s daring to bring ing car, landing a plane, and surviving a I have no beef with this goal, but up such notions at all. bear attack. The other chapters are simi- it seems to me that skills are good for What was true then is only more so larly balanced between the ordinary and well-roundedness and capability, but to

The Magazine of the Apostolate of Common Sense 33 Book Reviews pursue honor requires a bit more in the not just a home but a social and cultur- Distributism. —Ed.] The household as way of a substantive philosophical vision. al shelter for others. He specifies that a economic unit, he suggests, would opti- It requires an organized body of knowl- household is not a family but it can have mally be registered as a Limited Liability edge. Arts, to be effective, need a science. a family in it. The biggest step in creating Corporation. And it would unite the As it so happens, at around the shelter (ordinarily) is marriage, which family and provide children with the same time McKay published his book, itself “makes shelter” and “establishes a work experience they are so often denied C.R. Wiley, a Presbyterian pastor from household.” today due to an overweening regulatory New Hampshire and We still have marriage state. [Which is sort of like running one’s the author (writing as and family these days, own business. —Ed.] “Mortimus Clay”) of but it too often crum- This view of the home is powerful fantasy adventure story bles for want of purpose. because it is not merely economic, but The Purloined Boy(see He wants to return to a political and theological. For Wiley, the my review in Gilbert Chestertonian vision of household should be a source of power in 13.6), published Man the family being not sim- the community wherein families should of the House, which ply a unit of affection and be involved in local politics. Their eco- certainly includes a pleasure, but a true economic independence gives them the ca- number of skills the nomic unit. And he sees pability to resist economic pressures and modern man needs to the internet and other to exercise power. They can then serve as learn. But the virtue of technological develop- the true mediating institutions between Wiley’s new book is less ments as aiding the re- individual and the state they are meant as a how-to than a why- vival of family life insofar to be. to and whither-to book. as they allow us the tools But for the modern family to be a Wiley is, in essence, to make households inde- truly sheltering institution there needs advocating all of what’s pendent again. His prac- to be a deeper reason that neither pol- positive and right in a tical advice is all about itics nor economics can fully give, but Distributist vision of a family-centric so- how one truly creates “productive prop- theology can. Families are meant to be ciety. (It’s no surprise that Allan Carlson erty.” Like all Distributists, Wiley over- the essential elements in the city because writes a glowing afterword to this vol- does the “wage slave” talk. Sorry, but families are the smallest unit of the City ume.) Wiley’s notion of manhood is there are reasonable reasons why not ev- of God. And fathers are the high priests. not just having skills or competence but erybody can run a business. [But there is Wiley wants us to return to a Pauline what it means to be that husband, father, more to Distributism than that. —Ed.] Trinitarian view of the family in which brother, and citizen. For Wiley believes But he’s right that creating more capital- there is both hierarchy and radical equal- that man is meant to establish, build, and ists is a consummation devoutly to be ity. St. Paul’s now dreaded notion of hus- defend a household—and a household is wished. [Which is more to the point of band as “head” of the family is all over his book. Many modern people will object to this idea of taking husbandly headship seriously, but Wiley gleefully informs readers that “sex roles are sexy,” citing data showing that more traditional arrangements make for happier marriag- es. Nobody will agree with all of Wiley’s judgments or suggestions, but his main point stands: traditional arrangements give a role to men that, when done well, leads to happiness for the family, society, and Church. If men have no role, they generally disappear. Wiley thus meditates on true husbandry and its traditional virtues such as gravitas and justice as well as the skills of productive property. While some popular books herald The End of Men, I think them prema- ture. The rediscovery of manhood is well under way. Wiley, McKay and company have given us a good start on the arts and science necessary for it.

34 Volume 22 • Number 3, January/February 2019 CHESTERTON’S MAIL BAG are eaten slowly by worms, instead of being torn in pieces by wolves? Gilbert Keith Chesterton Answers His Mail Your friend, G.K. Chesterton Thou Shalt Not (Daily News, Aug. 17, 1912) By G.K. Chesterton Dear Editor, In my opinion, at this time of day, it Dear Mr. Chesterton, Dear Mr. Chesterton, is absolutely impossible for a young man I’m tired of all the Thou Shalt Nots. We do not agree on the solution to with a first-class intellectual apparatus Morality should always be positive, and problems facing our society in regards to accept any form of dogma, and I am seldom, if ever, negative. to sex. Things are changing, and I un- therefore forced to the conclusion that Signed, derstand how these changes are inevi- Mr. Chesterton has not got a first-class New Moralist table, but it is possible that the changes intellectual apparatus. have come too quickly, which is why they Signed, Dear New Moralist, have had such a disruptive effect. I think Arnold Bennett How it can be either without being you will be surprised to hear that I ac- both, is beyond my narrow mediaeval tually agree with you that it would be a Dear Editor, mind; but it is in practice rather than the- bad thing if conventions were abandoned Mr. Chesterton has often hypothet- ory that the notion is generally praised. suddenly. ically entertained that conclusion him- It is specially urged in connection with Signed, self; but what interests his apparatus education; and we are told to offer a Slow Change Artist (such as it is) at the present moment child the affirmative ideal and never the is one phrase which his critic probably negative commandment commonly at- Dear Slow, wrote down quite rapidly without notic- tached to it. Thus we must not forbid lit- By conventions you mean Christian ing it. It is not merely the odd idea that tle Arthur to pull his uncle’s nose. We morality. Now I say it would be a jolly “dogmas” held by Dante or Dr. Johnson should rather expatiate upon the beauty good thing if conventions were aban- are incompatible with first-class intel- of the nose in its unpulled state, poised doned suddenly, if they are not really sa- lect, though a good deal might be said like an unplucked flower; and our eulogy cred, and most of us could have a jolly about that. What arrests my apparatus in should leave to be inferred the improba- time before we die. But if to me, or you, its ponderous operations is that the dog- bility of the nose, even in the most skilful or anybody these moral bonds are real- mas are considered untenable at this time hands, being moulded into a fairer thing. ly sacred, why on earth should it be any of day. Mr. Bennett probably did not even The superficial, logical objection (if consolation to us that our sacred things notice that he was using a metaphor, still such people cared even about superfi- less that the metaphor exposes and ex- cial logic) would presumably be that this plodes his whole philosophy. He would avoidance of negatives is itself a negative; think it very absurd to say he could be- a veto upon all vetoes. It amounts to say- lieve in Reincarnation at 12.30 a.m., but ing: “Thou shalt not say, shalt not;” which not at 3.30 p.m. He would think it ridicu- is rather close to a contradiction in terms. lous to say after lunch that Mahomet was The negative commandment is a dec- the true prophet, and then to say after tea laration of liberty. Anyhow, it is a bound- “One cannot believe in Mahomet at this less prairie of emancipation compared time of day.” Yet it is every bit as irratio- with the other theory of always offering nal to deal thus with mere centuries as to one attractive alternative; for that ties deal thus with mere hours. My appara- down every man at the very moment tus, not to mention his own apparatus, is when he most needs to be decisive and at any rate a more subtle, lively and flex- personal. It may be arbitrary and invidi- ible apparatus than a clock. He does not ous to put your foot down; but it is a vast worship an eight-day clock (if I may so deal more uncomfortable to keep your far intrude upon his private habits) and foot in the air. I will not worship an eight-century clock Your friend, either. G.K. Chesterton Your friend, (Eye-Witness, Mar. 7, 1912) G.K. Chesterton (New Witness, July 12, 2014)

The Magazine of the Apostolate of Common Sense 35 LETTER TO AMERICA or else from that even more stupid con- G.K. Chesterton in the New York American vention that he must rebel against tradition. He must pass through the stages of depending on his mother and defying his father before he really begins to think. Third, a real enthusiast is stronger in lat- The Frenzy of the Mature er life because the enthusiast knows that he knows the world which confirms it. by G.K. Chesterton The English revolutionist Charles James Fox ended as the champion of democratic ideals for the whole world. have come to the conclusion that of the same kind again. His biographer, He began as the utterly shameless cham- the middle-aged man is the wild with a wisdom to be recommended to pion of an utterly corrupt aristocrat- and visionary person. He is the en- other biographers, simply says that he ic clique, defending the wickedness of thusiast; the idealist; he is the poet does not understand it. He does not at- Lord Holland against the just anger of and the prophet. The current press tempt to whitewash it; the solid white of the people. The excuse for him was not is full of appeals to youth, written the background may even look whiter for that he was not old enough to be idealis- by excited, elderly men. the blot. tic. He was not old enough to have found IThey tell us that youth is hopeful; But this single cynical action hap- his ideal. youth is courageous; youth will lead us pened at the very beginning of a single There are a good many millions of on to new visions and new revolutions. heroic career. And when I considered young men today who are at exactly the And youth, as it lets the cigarette droop it it suddenly occurred to me that this same stage. from its lips, lets the newspaper drop young Polish squire was probably not From New York American, May 21, 1932 from its fingers. Youth is relatively old old enough to be idealistic. and cold and cannot bear the fanatical The moment I optimism of its uncles and grandfathers. had thought it so Some part of this is due to particular dis- many other ex- CHESTERTON’S SKETCHBOOK eases of the time, but I have begun to sus- amples occurred pect that there was something of it even to me. I remem- in other times. bered many young I propose to launch in all the papers cynics who had of the world a grand appeal to the mid- turned into middle-aged; or, if that fails, a more hopeful dle-aged fanatics. appeal to the aged. And I conclud- I was put on the track of this discov- ed that there is ery by a trifle I read recently in an excel- something wrong lent book on Sobieski, the great Pole who about the whole saved Vienna and Christendom, written theory of enthu- by Mr. J. B. Morton. siasm and youth. Mr. Morton completely consolidates, First, in very ear- I think, his proof that Sobieski was a pas- ly youth the im- sionately sincere Christian crusader, who mediate pleasures really loved his country as the bulwark and passions ab- against barbarism, and loved it more sorb a man so that than himself. He proves that Poland was he cares less what in the seventeenth century the one real he believes; there rampart against the Turks, just as it was is a halt at Capua in the twentieth century the one real in the march on rampart against the Bolshevists. Rome. Now there is only one isolated blot Second, it takes on the career of this great Christian hero, a young man some and it came at the very beginning of his time to be dis- Courtesy of the Special career, almost before it was a career. He entangled either Collections at the Kelly did help the Swedes to invade his own from some tradi- Library, University of St. country; nobody knows why; just as notion that is really Michael’s College, Toronto body can point to his doing anything only a convention

36 Volume 22 • Number 3, January/February 2019 New from ACS Books

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STORIES OF CONVERTS whose path to Rome was paved by G.K. Chesterton. Edited with an introduction by Dale Ahlquist Jewish converts, Muslim converts, former atheists, ag- 34nostics, and Protestants of all stripes. Drawn to Chesterton for utterly different reasons. All arriving at the same destination. A book of curiosity and confrontation and consolation. Contributors include BISHOP JAMES CONLEY, FR. DWIGHT LONGENECKER, PETER KREEFT, JOSEPH PEARCE, LEAH LIBRESCO, KEVIN O’BRIEN, BRANDON VOGT, EMMA FOX WILSON, CARL OLSON, VICTORIA DARKEY, MATT SWAIM, DAVID FAGERBERG and others. An utterly engaging collection of conversion stories. Includes a fascinating “new” account of CHESTERTON’S OWN CONVERSION in his own words.

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The family is the test of freedom; because the family is the only thing that the free man makes for himself and by himself. — G.K. Chesterton

hither goest the family? That fundamental institution that has survived kingdoms and ep- ochs seems to be under attack from all sides. Is it warproof? Is it weatherproof? Or is doomed? And what does G.K. Chesterton have to say about this? Join us in America’s Heartland at the beau- Wtiful Sheraton Overland Park Hotel for three days of intellectual stimulation, spiritual edification, and pure delight.

Speakers include:

✦✦Rod Dreher, author of the ✦✦Writer and poet provocative best-seller The Charlotte Ostermann: Benedict Option “The Poet as Troublemaker” ✦✦Prolific author Joseph Pearce, who will speak on “Economics as ✦✦Panel on Conversion, If Families Mattered” featuring David Fagerberg, Robert Moore-Jumonville, ✦✦Carl Olson, editor of Catholic and Cameron Moore When: August 1-3, 2019 World Report: “On Certain Modern Stupidities and the ✦✦Kevin O’Brien and Where: Sheraton Overland Park Hotel, Institution of the Family” his Theater of the Word Overland Park, Kansas Incorporated will perform ✦✦Popular writer Brandon Vogt: “Adam and Eve Go “Chesterton as Husband... to Marriage Counseling.” and Father.” Plus:

✦✦William Fahey, President of ✦✦Andrew Youngblood, Head Thomas More College of the of the Regina Chesterton Liberal Arts Academy in Philadelphia

✦✦And Dale Ahlquist! PHOTO: ARNO SMIT@_ENTREPRENERD