Hang Some of Those Politicians!

 

“It is the mark of our whole modern history that the masses are kept quiet with a fight. They are kept quiet by the fight because it is a sham-fight; thus most of us know by this time that the Party System has been popular only in the sense that a football match is popular.” - G. K. Chesterton

We just finished an election here in the United States. Well, almost finished. With slow coun ting, odd systems, and possible lawsuits the final results might not be clear for days, or weeks.

The campaign was full of false claims, insults, personality clashes, and lots of passion. Like a football match indeed.

In the U.S., the two main parties are the Democrats and the Republicans. If Chesterton was with us in the flesh, I suspect he would not belong to either of them. The Democrats have strayed so far from reality on a number of moral and common-sense issues they are in danger of exploding. And the Republicans are dutifully following their lead.

Chesterton did at one point flirt with politics, but reason prevailed and while he commented on political winds and nonsense, he remained apart from them. And he was very clear about his rejections of socialism and communism - with which the Democrats are playing these days.

There is only one political party around now that Chesterton might have at least appreciated: The American Solidarity Party.

The ASP has a platform that very much aligns with Catholic social teaching on multiple issues. And the party embraces a form of distributism. Indeed, the party's platform plank on Corporate and Monetary Policy declares: 

The American Solidarity Party believes that political economy is a branch of political ethics, and therefore rejects models of economic behavior that undermine human dignity with greed and naked self-interest. We advocate for an economic system which liberates people from being cogs in a pitiless machine, instead creating a society of widespread ownership, or distributism.

The plank goes on to say: 

We believe the American economy should be reordered to place human dignity first and to recognize that the family is the basic unit of economic production. We are committed to policies that emphasize local production, family-owned businesses, and cooperative ownership structures.

Policy should encourage and incentivize families who run their own small businesses and help them to provide just wages to their workers. Government policy must not favor large corporations, help them to outcompete small businesses, or encourage administrative bloat.

One can imagine Chesterton applauding enthusiastically.

I could go on.

I believe the ASP has been represented at a past Chesterton conference. I don't know if that connection has continued.

Indeed, I don't know what future the party has. They have run Presidential candidates, each time getting more votes. And some people have run for state and local offices as a member of the party (including me). I don't know if any of them won (I didn't).

It's something to watch, though, as our two main parties continue their downward spiral and ultimatley fail to improve the lives of so many. As Chesterton noted:

“The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected.”

He is right that government in an "ugly necessity,"

However, he may also be right when he says, “It is terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged.”

And Reading "Friends"

Last week I listed some of the Chesterton works I've read. I think I caught them all.

Now for the "Friends."

First, his beloved wife:

The Children’s Crusade by Frances Chesterton 

Sir Cleges by Frances Chesterton 

Piers Plowman’s Pilgrimage by Frances Chesterton

(Special mention of a book about her - The Woman Who Was Chesterton by Nancy Carpentier Brown)

Hilaire Belloc was his good friend in life. I have not read as much of him as I should:

The Path to Rome by Hilaire Belloc
Hilaire Belloc’s Cautionary Verses

He also associated with Dorothy Sayers when it came to mysteries:

Whose Body? by Dorothy L. Sayers
Clouds of Witness by Dorothy L. Sayers
The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club by Dorothy Sayers
Unnatural Death by Dorothy Sayers
Have His Carcase by Dorothy Sayers
Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers
Strong Poison by Dorothy L. Sayers
Busman’s Honeymoon by Dorothy L. Sayers
The Five Red Herrings by Dorothy Sayers
Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy Sayers
The Nine Tailors by Dorothy Sayers

Then there are those who were influenced by him:

Til We Have Faces by C. S, Lewis
A Grief Observed by C. S. Lewis
Surprised by Joy by C. S. Lewis
The Pilgrim’s Regress by C. S. Lewis
The Weight of Glory by C. S. Lewis
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis
Prince Caspian by C. S. Lewis
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C. S. Lewis
The Silver Chair by C. S. Lewis
The Horse and His Boy by C. S. Lewis
The Magician’s Nephew by C. S. Lewis
The Last Battle by C. S. Lewis
Out of the Silent Planet by C. S. Lewis
Perlandra by C. S. Lewis
That Hideous Strength by C. S. Lewis
The Screwtape Letters (and Screwtape Proposes a Toast) by C.S. Lewis
Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis
The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis

The Father Christmas Letters by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Adventures of Tom Bombadil by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien
The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien

And plenty of folks writing about Chesterton or promoting him and his friends.

The Complete Thinker: The Marvelous Mind of G. K. Chesterton by Dale Ahlquist
All Roads by Dale Ahlquist
Knight of the Holy Ghost by Dale Ahlquist
My Name is Lazarus edited by Dale Ahlquist
The Gift of Wonder: The Many Sides of G. K. Chesterton edited by Dale Ahlquist

G. K. Chesterton: A Biography by Ian Ker

Heroes of the Catholic Reformation: Saints Who Renewed the Church by Joseph Pearce
Faith of our Fathers: A History of True England by Joseph Pearce
C. S. Lewis and the Catholic Church by Joseph Pearce
Literature: What Every Catholic Should Know by Joseph Pearce
Beauteous Truth: Faith, Reason, Literature and Culture by Joseph Pearce
Divining Divinity (poems) by Joseph Pearce
Wisdom and Innocence: A Biography of G. K. Chesterton by Joseph Pearce

Gilbert Keith Chesterton by Maisie Ward

Now back to our regularly scheduled posting.

Books Read: Chesterton

Dan Pelzer, who died in 2025 at age 92, left behind a 109‑page handwritten record of 3,599 books he read between 1962 and 2023.

Wow.

I'm an obsessive sort, so I thought I'd check how many books I'd read. I started keeping count in 2013, but I also had a blog before that, and some journals. Digging though all that, I came up with 869 books. I'm currently averaging 60-70 books a year. He averaged about 60 a year.

If I'd kept a tally for 61 years like him and read at the rate that I am currently, I might have been able to come close to his total. Alas, late start. And while I was working, I read fewer books - in part because as a teacher I was reading the same books over and over each year. How many times did I reread To Kill a Mockingbird, Jane Eyre, The Scarlet Letter, Romeo and Juliet, and so on as I was teaching them? If I counted each rereading that could easily add 40-50 to my tally. But I don't count them, and even if I did, it would not be enough.
If I keep up my current rate, I'll have more than 2,000 books read by the time I reach his age.

Not even close to his remarkable total.

Among those works I've read are many by Chesterton. Here's what I have on that list from Chesterton so far:

The Coloured Lands by G. K. Chesterton
G. K. Chesterton’s Early Poetry
Lepanto: With Explanatory Notes and Commentary by G. K. Chesterton
The Ballad of the White Horse by G.K. Chesterton
St. Thomas Aquinas: The Dumb Ox by G. K. Chesterton
St. Francis of Assisi by G. K. Chesterton
Heretics by G. K. Chesterton
Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton
The Everlasting Man by G. K. Chesterton
Autobiography by G. K. Chesterton
In Defense of Sanity: The Best Essays of G. K. Chesterton
Tremendous Trifles by G. K. Chesterton
Chesterton in Black and White
Manalive by G.K. Chesterton
The Poet and the Lunatics by G. K. Chesterton
The Man Who Was Thursday by G. K. Chesterton
The Napoleon of Notting Hill by G. K. Chesterton
The Club of Queer Trades by G. K. Chesterton
The Flying Inn by G.K. Chesterton
The Ball and the Cross by G. K. Chesterton
The Incredulity of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton
The Wisdom of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton
The Secret of Father Brown by G.K. Chesterton
The Innocence of Father Brown by G. K, Chesterton
The Scandal of Father Brown by G. K. by some of his "friends" Chesterton -
“The Donnington Affair” by G. K. Chesterton
“The Vampire of the Village” by G. K. Chesterton
“The Mask of Midas” by G. K. Chesterton
Magic by G. K. Chesterton
"The Turkey and the Turk" by G. K. Chesterton
"What You Won’t" by G. K. Chesterton
The Surprise by G. K. Chesterton
The Judgement of Dr. Johnson by G. K. Chesterton

There are parts of other books I've read - essays mostly. But I didn't count them as I hadn't read all of the books.

Then there are books about Chesterton I've read, and books by some of his "friends" - Belloc, Sayers, Lewis, Tolkien, Williams - but that's for another post.

A Reading Goal Met

 

Each year I set reading goals. I have an overall goal based on number of works and pages - this year 60-70 works and 15,000 pages.

I also set specific goals about genres and particular writers. One of those writers each year is G. K. Chesterton. I had two goals related to him: a book about him, and a book by him that I had not previously read. 

Earlier this year I read The Gift of Wonder: The Many Sides of G. K. Chesterton edited by Dale Ahlquist, meeting the first goal. In the last week, I finished The Club of Queer Trades, meeting the second Chesterton goal.

It was an early effort on his part - 1905. And it seemed to be making fun of detective fiction. The "detective" in this case, Rupert Grant, keeps getting things wrong. Meanwhile his brother, the retired judge Basil Grant, solves the puzzles, always ending up with no crime being committed!

I had the sense that Basil was Chesterton projecting himself into the story. Hmm.

The title is based on a club where the members come up with odd and original trades that provide them with a living. 

There is plenty of Chestertonian humor in the characters. I think he was having fun.

I enjoyed it. I was considering several of his books to read, and I'm glad I chose this one.

By the way, among my other individual reading goals, ones that I also met:

The Adventures of Tom Bombadil by J. R. R. Tolkien

A book by C. S. Lewis, possibly a reread - The Weight of Glory

A book by Charles Dickens I have not yet read - Our Mutual Friend

A book by Dostoevsky - The Possessed

Indeed, I have met all of my specific goals, with The Club of Queer Trades being the last one met.

All have left are my overall goals, and I am on my way to meeting them. I'm up to 56 works, so 60 - 70 is well within reach. And my page count is up to 13,141 - so I just have about 2,000 pages to go.

Oh, That Don Juan

 

October 7 was the anniversary of the Battle of Lepanto, which took place on October 7, 1571. The fleet of the Holy League, under the command Don Juan of Austria, the illegitimate son of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, defeated a larger, more powerful Turkish fleet. The Christians credited the praying of the Rosary for the victory - hence October 7 is now celebrated as the Feast of Our lady of the Rosary. Meanwhile, Don Juan was lauded as a hero.

G. K. Chesterton wrote his most famous, and one of this best. poems about the victory, "Lepanto." In the poem he referred to Don Juan - in the poem, "Don John" repeatedly, calling him "the last knight of Europe." 

"Don John of Austria is going to the war."

That particular line is repeated a copuple of times later in the poem.

Chesterton also says at later points:

"Don John of Austria/Is riding to the sea."

And

"Don John of Austria/Is gone by Alcalar."

 And

"Don John of Austria is girt and going forth."

And so on.

Okay, Don Juan was the hero of the battle, and the poem. But what happened to him after the battle.

It's unclear all that he was up to at first, he captured Tunis in 1573, for example, but it was retaken by the Ottoman Empire a year later. In 1576, he was named governor-general of the Spanish Netherlands, part of which were in rebellion against Spanish rule, in part because they had become Protestant and did not want to be controlled by a Catholic ruler. In 1577, Don Juan led the forced that captured Namur, and in 1878 won the Battle of Gembloux, but on July 31, 1578, he was defeated at the battle of Rijmenam. He retreated, and before he could pursue further action, got sick and died October 1, 1578. He was just 31.

In addition to his fighting, Don Juan also engaged in some activities that make him less than a Catholic hero. Prior to the battle he had fathered an illegitimate daughter by one woman, and after the battle, another illegitimate daughter born in 1573 to a different woman - who was just 17 - and an illegitimate son in 1574 by yet another woman. At the time of his death, he was in a "relationship" with still another woman. 

Chesterton did not dwell on this part of "Don John's" life. Or even allude to it.

The poem ends simply:

"But Don John of Austria rides home from the Crusade."

 

St. Francis

"Now for St. Francis nothing was ever in the background. We might say that his mind had no background, except perhaps that divine darkness out of which the divine love had called up every colored creature one by one. He saw everything as dramatic, distinct from its setting, not all of a piece like a picture but in action like a play. A bird went by him like an arrow; something with a story and a purpose, though it was a purpose of life and not a purpose of death. A bush could stop him like a brigand; and indeed he was as ready to welcome the brigand as the bush." - G. K. Chesterton

Back in the mid 1970s I was struggling with my faith. Three books helped to right my spiritual ship: The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton, The Confessions St. Augustine, and St. Francis of Assisi by G. K. Chesterton.

Chesterton's book about St. Francis is considered one of the best biographies of the saint. It certainly was inspiring to me.

I'd known a little about St. Francis before reading the book. I grew up near a Franciscan monastery. I'd seen the 1961 movie about him. But reading Chesterton's book pushed me to learn more, and St. Francis has been pivotal to my life since. I've now read multiple books about him and seen several movies about him. Fifteen years ago, I even professed as a Secular Franciscan.

This year marks the 800th anniversary of St. Francis' transitus - his transition from earthly life to life in heaven with God - which took place October 3, 1226. Franciscans around the world will be celebrating that anniversary.  

In 1980, I was inspired to write a poem about St. Francis.  

San Damiano

"One day in the church of St.
Damian, he (St. Francis) hears
words spoken from the Crucifix:
'Go, Francis, and repair my
house; as you can see, it is
falling into ruin.''

   --- Fr. Stanislaus Majarelli, OFM

The roses are in bloom at San Damiano.
Their scent bleeds into the air,
flows down from the hills,
floods the streets of Assisi
like the beggars who cry,
``Bread and stones,
bread and stones.''

In the shadowy cafe,
men sit
hearing to the calls.
One man spits and mutters a curse.
Another man begins a bawdy song
that pours out
into the darkening air.

At midnight: silence.
Fog shrouds the streets
and snakes into the hills.

The hills rise above the fog
like islands in a dead sea.
And taller still
rises
San Damiano's half-built steeple
reaching toward

heaven. 

Blessed Fulton Sheen and Chesterton

"The greatest influence in writing was G. K. Chesterton who never used a useless word, who saw the value of a paradox, and avoided what was trite." - Fulton J. Sheen

Today, Blessed Fulton J. Sheen was officially beatified. 

I wrote something earlier this year about Blessed Sheen and Chesterton, a writer whom Sheen admired. The two even met, Chesterton wrote a preface to one of Sheen's books, and Sheen attended Chesterton's funeral in 1936.

Here's part of what I wrote earlier - 

I was reminded of something Dale Ahlquist wrote a couple of years ago:

In addition to being a radio and television personality, Sheen was a popular author. He wrote over 30 books that were bestsellers. But his first book is less well-known. It was his doctoral thesis. He had the bright idea that it would be more attractive to a publisher if it had an introduction by a famous writer. Like G.K. Chesterton. Sheen recalled the encounter:

My first meeting was when I asked him to write the preface to my book God and Intelligence. Chesterton said, “I know nothing about Philosophy.” I retorted that he had written an excellent philosophy himself entitled Orthodoxy. Scratching his bushy head, he said, “I will write it! We both belong to the great mystical corporation called the Catholic Church in which we stand responsible for one another’s opinions. You know what I must believe, and I know what you must believe.”

The last meeting was in 1936, when Monsignor Sheen traveled from Catholic University to Beaconsfield, England, to attend Chesterton’s funeral.

One day a woman called me up because she wanted to tell me about the time she met Bishop Sheen. She had been a librarian at a university and Sheen was visiting. He was at the height of his popularity. He was being escorted through the library by university officials and one of them introduced her to the bishop by saying that she had read all of Sheen’s books. The bishop smiled and asked her: “But who’s your favorite author?”

She didn’t hesitate: “G.K. Chesterton.”

Sheen smiled even bigger. “Mine, too!”

Sheen said that the writer who influenced him the most was G.K. Chesterton. It is obvious to anyone who reads Sheen. In fact, many of those great Sheen lines are actually lines from GKC, such as: “We don’t need a Church that moves with the world, we need a Church that moves the world.”

But talk about moving with the world …

Maybe someday we will be able to celebrate Blessed Gilbert Chesterton too!