Could there be a 'Saint G.K. Chesterton?'

By Ed West
6/9/2009
The Catholic Herald (UK) (www.catholicherald.co.uk/)

Scholars will soon meet in Oxford to discuss the possible Cause of G.K. Chesterton.

G.K. Chesterton

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LONDON (UK Catholic Herald) - G K Chesterton's reputation for holiness will be boosted next month when leading scholars meet in Oxford to discuss his Cause.

In this week's paper former Catholic Herald editor and Chesterton biographer William Oddie writes: "It is becoming clear that serious attention needs to be paid in the country of his birth to the question of Chesterton's holiness."

Dr Oddie will take part in a one-day conference on July 4 in Oxford where the speakers will include Dr Ian Ker, Fr John Saward, Fr Aidan Nichols OP and Dr Sheridan Gilley.

He said: "I have thought it possible for a long time, although when I wrote my book it wasn't something I particularly thought of him. But there was a time when no one thought Newman was particularly holy, just a bad-tempered, anti-Anglican polemicist. That's the way we think of Chesterton, as a polemicist.

"It'll be a long time before anything gets under way. The purpose of the conference is to make it thinkable."

Dr Oddie was surprised to find support for his Cause after delivering a paper at the American Chesterton Conference last year.

"I was asked what stage the Cause towards Chesterton's beatification had reached. When I said there was no Cause, the audience showed incredulity," he said.

Dr Oddie added that Chesterton had particular spiritual resonance in today's troubled climate. "As a social prophet he's coming into his own. First Communism collapsed, now monopoly capitalism has collapsed - what we're coming into now is the idea of small economic units, something clearly based in Catholic teaching."

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1 - 8 of 8 Comments

Martin Thompson
1 year ago
I have seen the remark often made, as indeed in the comments above: that Chesterton would have been highly amused at the suggestion of his being made a saint, or that he would certainly refuse.
But surely, no other answer could possibly be acceptable if we are to entertain canonisation.

"He was a huge heavy man, fat and slow and quiet, very mild and magnanimous… shy, even apart from the humility of holiness; and abstracted…. He was so stolid that his teachers thought he was a dunce… His stature was more remarked than his stoutness… His head gave the impression of caverns of thought… He unconsciously inhabited a large heart and a large head, and exercised there an equally generous if rather absent-minded hospitality…

He had a stupendous certitude, in the presence of which all his writings on philosophy, and even theology, were but a litter of pamphlets. It is certain that this thing was in him from the first, in the form of a conviction, long before it could possibly have even begun to take the form of controversy... He had from the first that full and final test of truly orthodox Catholicity; the impetuous, impatient passion for the poor; and even that readiness to be rather a nuisance to the rich, out of a hunger to feed the hungry…

He is both a mystic and a rationalist. The Mystic is right in saying that the relation of God and Man is essentially a love-story. The rationalist is equally right in saying that the intellect is at home in the topmost heavens; and that the appetite for truth may outlast and even devour all the duller appetites of man…

I do seriously believe that what protected him was very largely the prodigious power of his simplicity and his obvious goodness and love of truth."

A pretty apt description of G.K. Chesterton. Except that, technically, it’s not a description of G.K. Chesterton. It’s a description by Chesterton of St. Thomas Aquinas, from his book of the same name. Could it be one saint writing about another?
Brian
1 year ago
If he were worth his weight in papyrus, he would be either amused or outraged at the suggestion that a human -- any human -- should be pedestalized as more holy or saintly than another believer. Biblical sainthood is about identity and being "set apart" in Christian discipleship. Roman notions of sainthood are misguided.
John
3 years ago
I am sure Chesterton would have something very amusing to say about it.
mountainguy
3 years ago
Though not a catholic, I feel happy about this. Chesterton was a genius, and also a great christian.
Anne Rodrigues
4 years ago
I support the cause for sainthood for G K Chesterton - his writings are truly inspirational and reflective of the Catholic faith.
Peter Gallagher
4 years ago
Chesterton was a great man and eventual Catholic, after being a catholic most of his literary lifetime. I think canonization would bring him an enormous chuckle and many to a new understanding of the old true Faith.
E. Olaer
4 years ago
I do not wait for his canonization. I already ask him to intercede to God for me. England should push for his canonization. GK is a super special gift of God to mankind
Christina St. Hilaire
4 years ago
Hurray! Chesterton is just the kind of man we need as a role model and saint!

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