StJoGreenwich
Feature of the Week
A Catholic Writer
Most writers, like most rock singers, are the victims of fashion: brief moments in the stratosphere of fame followed by long years in the valley of fallen stars. And while there’s a small squad of musicians and a bigger army of writers whose fame outlasts them, their names remain largely forgotten despite the importance and quality of their work. Among these is the Catholic writer, journalist and story-teller Gilbert Keith Chesterton.
G K Chesterton was born in 1874 . His father Edward was an estate agent, and the company is still active to this day, a century and a half later. You might well have seen the Chesterton sign-boards outside properties for sale in Greenwich and across London.
Chesterton is probably best known for his mystery stories in which the Catholic priest Father Brown acts as a detective solving always intriguing and often apparently impossible crimes. Over the last few years a series of Father Brown dramas has featured on television and, while these have a certain entertainment value, they aren’t the original tales and miss out the important spiritual dimension that makes them so compelling and enlightening.
But Chesterton was prolific and the stories were only a small part of his massive output. He wrote novels, he wrote for periodicals, he produced wonderful biographies of the Catholic saints St Aquinas and St Francis. His great work The Everlasting Man was, according to the writer C S Lewis, a major factor oil his own conversion.
Chesterton was a great man in many ways: six foot four and 20 stone, but also one of the major figures of his time, debating publicly with the leading atheists of the day such as George Bernard Shaw and H G Wells. But he was known for his extraordinary humility, not interested in his own fame but only in producing honest and straightforward words that would speak truth to ordinary people. Although he has earnest followers across the world, particularly in the United States, his quieter profile means you can now get his books for bargain prices. If you own a Kindle you can get the complete world for nothing. For anyone who likes quality writing, and particularly for Catholic readers, he’s well worth exploring.
The below link is to a short video in which the Dominican friar Fr Gregory Pine gives his '5 reasons to love G K Chesterton'. (As it's on YouTube you may have to put up with some ads.)