January One
by G. K. Chesterton on 1904-01-01 for The Daily News
Chesterton Gets a Standing Ovation
“Fires will be kindled to testify that two and two make four. Swords will be drawn to prove that leaves are green in summer.” These were the words with which Giorgia Meloni, the presumptive next Prime Minister of Italy, concluded a portion of a speech that went viral on social media, hours after her political …
The Problems with Progress
We have already become dull and unresponsive even to the marvels made in our own life time. We are no more amazed at telephones than at trains; and no more amazed at trains than at tubs. If the process goes a step further, we shall be no more amazed at television than at telephones. Some …
The Spirit of the Age
Why is G.K. Chesterton so prophetic? I would meekly suggest that it is because in his own age he never submitted to the Spirit of the Age. He is never swept away by fads and fashions. Rather, he recognizes and ridicules them. He always keeps his eternal perspective. By focusing on the timeless truths, he …
War and Rumor of War
It is a morbid and suicidal thing for two great nations to hate each other. But when they do hate each other it is not because their aims are different, but because their aims are alike. G.K. Chesterton, Illustrated London News, May 9, 1908 Of all the things I expected to be writing about right …
A Century of Other Evils
When you know the story behind the origin of legal contraception and abortion in the 20th century you should properly shudder, if not be repulsed. It was not about sexual liberation. It was not about a woman’s right to choose. It was not about the population bomb. It was about eugenics. The pretty word means …
Suffering Advent
At the risk of sounding like Scrooge, I fully intend to shoot Rudolph and mount his head, red nose and all, over my mantelpiece this holiday season. And I really don’t mind sounding like Scrooge, the immortal Dickens character from “A Christmas Carol.” His complaints are compelling, and we can laugh at them in a …
The Way to Heaven
Today – the day I am writing this – I received two letters. The first was from the White House. It was written on behalf of the President of the United States, who was requesting me to resign from the National Board of Education Sciences. It further informed me that if I did not resign …
Be Not Afraid
There are two ways of looking at the world. We can focus on the decline of our civilization, the collapse of our institutions that are supposed to represent us, the loss of truth in politics and public discourse, the caprice of tyranny, the assertion of godless philosophies, the unreliability of information, the loss of control …
Tolkien’s Reading of Chesterton
J.R.R. Tolkien and G.K. Chesterton, two giants of the 20th century literary scene, might even be considered as a pair of patron saints for Catholic writers. It is all the more fitting, then, to discover that Tolkien knew Chesterton’s work well—in fact, his daughter Priscilla said he was “steeped in it”—and delighted in it. Chesterton …
A Radical Idea That Might Not Be So Radical
I should naturally be inspired to sympathy with the ideal of turning all the rising generation into good citizens, if I could believe that what we call education really was turning them into good citizens, or into any kind of citizens. G.K. Chesterton, New Witness, Dec. 27, 1918 In a recent essay entitled “Taking Advantage …
Confronting Cancel Culture
Before I return to profiling some of Chesterton’s most famous debates with prominent figures, I believe that it is important to address a pressing issue that is a growing concern in today’s society. That issue is the phenomenon of people expressing opinions others object to, which leads to an uproar, often on social media, which …
Vexation
In his Illustrated London News column on September 18, 1909 (Oct. 2 American edition), G.K. Chesterton wrote the following: Suppose an Indian said: “I heartily wish India had always been free from white men and all their works. Every system has its sins: and we prefer our own. There would have been dynastic wars; but I prefer …
Venerable Fulton Sheen
If you have read the very brief epistle of St. Jude, as I’m sure you have, you will know that St. Michael had to fight the devil for the body of Moses. I don’t know why I brought this up. Today it is hard to imagine a bishop strolling onto a soundstage and simply talking …
St. John Henry Newman
I confess that I have had this plan all along and Dale fell for it! Even if my clerihew submissions for the Kansas City Conference did not impress themselves upon the judges as winners, how innocently I could volunteer to write a piece on Newman’s canonization as a way to ensure that my sad clerihew …