Chesterton, Dale Ahlquist, and the Civil War in the Church

I'm a great fan of G.K. Chesterton and the American Chesterton Society. Let me amend that statement. I am a great fan of Chesteron and was a great fan of the Society. Dale Ahlquist, its founder, has done a splendid job bringing Chesterton to a modern culture that knew little about him. If Chesterton isn't yet a household word, there are many in the last two decades who have come to know him through Dale's work and programming on EWTN. I congratulate him for that.

Unfortunately there's a "but." The first problem for me was the Society jumping on the hate-Trump bandwagon. Up to that time I belonged to the Society, had attended several of their annual conferences, and subscribed to Gilbert, the Society's magazine. I did not renew my subscription, however, after the Society's taking sides that would have, if successful, guaranteed Hillary Clinton's election. After several anti-Trump articles, the final straw was a suggestion from one of their main writers to enter Chesterton's name on the ballot as a write-in. What insanity! So I did not renew my subscription and have no plans to attend another conference.

The Wisdom of G. K. Chesterton and St. Francis de Sales

"Live in such a manner that one will
recognize clearly in you a person who
loves God with his whole heart."
St. Francis de Sales

I read this Chesterton quote on Mundabor's blog and found it interesting and thought provoking:

"If a critic tells a particular lie, that particular lie can be pointed out. If he misses a specific point, that point can be explained. If he is really wrong in this or that, it will be on this or that that the insulted person will eagerly pounce. But “malice and spite” are vague words which will never be used except when there is really nothing to pounce on. If a man says that I am a dwarf, I can invite him to measure me. If he says I am a cannibal, I can invite him to dinner. If he says I am a coward, I can hit him. If he says I am a miser, I can give him half-a-sovereign. But if he says I am fat and lazy (which is true), the best I can answer is that he speaks out of malice and spite. Whenever we see that phrase, we may be almost certain that somebody has told the truth about somebody else." 

  The Illustrated London News, 13 November 1909.

Twisting the Pope's Words

The media loves to take the pope's words, twist them, spin them and fling them out backwards. His statement a few days ago about the Catholic faith not being only about abortion, same-sex marriage, and contraception has been turned into the pope dismissing these evils. Planned Parenthood even had the audacity to thank the pope in the name of "pro-choice women everywhere!"

But addressing Catholic doctors on Friday, the pope made it clear he stands with the Church on respect for the unborn. "Every unborn child, though unjustly condemned to be aborted, has the face of the Lord, who even before his birth, and then as soon as he was born, experienced the rejection of the world." The pope certainly wasn't sending a message of approval for sexual immorality. What he did was emphasize that Christ's message is about more than sexual immorality. And I agree.