EWTN Live 2012 10 24 GK Chesterton Apostle of Common Sense Fr Mitch with Dale Ahlquist

GK Chesterton said the unconscious democracy of America is a very fine thing it is a true and deep and instinctive assumption of the Equality of citizens which even voting and elections have not destroyed we'll learn more about GK Chesterton's wit and wisdom tonight so please stay with us thank you very much and welcome I'm father Mitch Pacwa and welcome to EWTN live our chance to bring you guests from all over the world but before we get to our guests I wanna mention that today is the feast of Saint Anthony merry claret he was the founder of the clinicians and he came as a missionary to Cuba he came from Spain and uh in the 1800s and eventually became a bishop and was really great at bringing in spirituality along with the facts of the faith and giving people good catechism and preparation of the clergy so he was canonized by Pope Pius the 12th and we pray that the Lord would bless the Clarice and fathers with many many more vocations now our guest tonight has brought G K Cheston once again to revered and recognized place among 20th century literary figures he is the creator and host of the EWTN series GK Chesterton the apostle of common sense he's also the president of the American Chesterton society and he is the publisher of Gilbert magazine he has written three books on Chesterton including a new one the complete thinker which was just released so please welcome good friend of the networks and of mine Dale all crust Dale well how are things going with taping this week we're taping a new season of shows on Cheston for the apostle of common sense today we tied my son to a tree up at the shrine and stabbed him with a pitchfork now was that your older son or your younger son it was my older son and we didn't have time to do my younger son well you know he hasn't lived long enough to really do that to him give him a chance and then do it well we had agreed a great time we also started to build the Tower of Babel up there too so there's lots of ways some did that at all every way I was working on that we also even brought in a deacon to help us build the Tower of Babel so that's something that people can look forward to in the next season Oh that'll be good be good well good to have you back thank you you know it's not only that the person you talk about so much GK Chesterton was so creative and so witty and uses our English language so wonderfully well but you know you do some pretty creative things like stabbing your son with a pitchfork and things like that well this the it's true that our show is not like any other show on this network on any other network yeah and we have the great privilege of doing all kinds of different things because Chesterton wrote about everything so we cover every topic and he used all different art forms and all different literary genres and we get to explore all of that yeah he wasn't no just writing theology books give us some sense of the breadth of his literary output well you have to start by understanding he wrote a hundred books and he wrote introductions to 200 more books he wrote hundreds and hundreds of poems he wrote the detective stories and novels plays but he was primarily a journalist and he was primarily an essayist and he wrote thousands and thousands of essays at least 5,000 literary essays we're still finding them we're still collecting them yeah there's not a place in the world that holds all of his writings we are still gathering them and trying to get them into my computer I hope you do back up oh yeah fact I have to go right now because that older son of you that you stabbed has work to do tomorrow I get him to do it all right now Oh in this new book you call it Chesterton the complete thinker the complete thinker the the marvelous mind of GK Chesterton's the subtitle and we were trying to do something to show that what's wrong with the world today is not only incomplete thinking but narrow thinking we tend towards specialization right away we start directing our children in school if they show an inclination towards the maths or the sciences they are just pushed into that direction they do not teach the humanities to those kids or the arts likewise but the kids who are showing any artistic inclination they don't get a complete education anymore and and so the book kind of epitomizes the kind of thinker we're trying to create because Chesterton not only wrote about everything but he puts it all together and we we have this great problem that because we think in fragments we're starting to talk in fragments and people do not speak in complete sentences anymore they they're trying to say more and more with fewer and fewer words yeah I was you know with some friends one of my closest friends had his birthday so we're having dinner together and the three of us there and you know I couldn't help overhear a relatively loud young man fairly unkempt who was saying like I was like wow and that was the extent of his vocabulary that was it was all the words he knew right there in like an awesome in a couple other words you know we're yet and then there are many many people including in the media who use vulgarities as punctuation they don't seem to know a wide range of words to express what they think and/or feel but they just use vulgarities as punctuation it's you know pretty blended unless we're using the well that we're using the vulgarities for the verbs and the nouns and the adjectives that's right yeah save money that way yeah yes and of course the it epitomizes a problem that we can't we can't think because we can't talk and and we can't teach as a result either and so that's one of the reasons why we started Chesterton Academy the the new high school that we founded up in in Minneapolis that you happen to be on the board of advisers for yes I am and we're privileged to have you do that and and the school is just starting its fifth year and we were just named as one of the top 50 Catholic high schools in the country that's remark yeah but your success now you named it after Chesterton but you were inspired by his breadth of vision yeah absolutely because Chesterton not only represents what a good thinker looks like he don't mean exteriorly because he'd be a little big for some of your students he's fun to look at because he's so big Oh Chesterton the the Politis man in all of England who could stand up on a bus and offer his seat to three women at one time No yeah whoo I was using the term metaphorically as the father that yeah he's what a complete thinker looks like in terms of a model thinker and that's what a normal thinker is supposed to look like who can see the connection between the arts and the sciences who can see the connection between math and logic and philosophy and and how every one of these subjects is tied to one subject which is it happens to be the Incarnation the fact that God became flesh informs everything else and is relevant to that truth and that truth then is sort of the trunk of the tree and every other branch of knowledge comes from that truth it's something that is a scandal to people on opposite ends of the spectrum of thought I mean have some Christians who think that the Incarnation is just not spiritual enough and others who think that the Incarnation is not materialistic enough you know that other atheists and such and in Chesterton loved to make sure that the extremes were well-founded in their offense by knowing the truth set before them yeah he has that wonderful image in orthodoxy about the wild truth reeling but erect because throughout history the church has been tempted towards one heresy on the one side and one heresy on the other and every heresy is an attack somehow on the Incarnation making God too much of a human as Christ and or too much of a spirit as Christ that neither neither getting it there that idea that fully God and fully man the great paradox of the god man yes and and yes that is the truth that informs evidence God became flesh and that's why we our art has to be beautiful that's why our philosophy has to make sense that's why we try to measure God's created world with with the sciences and that's why we have to promote economic and social justice as well all those things are tied together and what we've done is we separated them all from each other Chesterton says the world has become one wild divorce court what does he mean by that because we've separated every topic and every discipline from from each other which is why we're not allowed to bring religion into politics which is why we're not allowed to bring religion also it makes a lot of the politicians very uncomfortable it's nice when you get to some of the - Oh nuts yeah that's that is uncomfortable and you know Chesterton has some remarkable things to say about America which I bring out in my book because he says it's the only nation that's ever been found on a creed we established our Creed in our founding documents we say this is what we believe we believe that we have these inalienable rights that were given to us by God yeah and so our rights are divine rights and Cheston says we can always promote human rights better if we regard them as divine rights see and this is very much one of the issues at stake in our culture because in the same Declaration of Independence in the last paragraph it also says we will be judged by the Creator for what we've done and so that they saw themselves as having these rights but also the responsibilities for which they are responsible to God who gave them the right yeah Chesterton always emphasizes the connection between freedom and responsibility when he talks about the great the great rights of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness liberty is is always misunderstood as being able to do whatever you want but no it means obeying the rules but you have freedom within the rules and there's this framework that within which we are very free and and but we are responsible we at means we have to act responsibly and he points out that the pursuit of happiness is not the pursuit of pleasure happiness is an end pleasure is not an end and and then of course the great right that is most neglected and abused the right to life and Chesterton was absolutely prophetic about that he says the only object of Liberty is life well it's an important fact of the 20th century some he didn't live to see the worst of the horrors of the 20th century he died in 1936 6 and 36 so it was that the Third Reich was established Stalin was in place not certain was not but the Empire Japan was also on the move in those horrors of people who said that we have to get rid of the limits of morals and have freedom didn't want and then become absolutely totalitarian murderers on a scale never seen in the history of the world and yet you say Chester did live to see it but he absolutely saw it coming yes because they did that it would come because he saw the direction the world was going and he said if you take away the God the government will become the god yeah and that's that's what happened in the 20th century he also predicted the the sexual revolution he said the Knicks in 1926 he said the next great heresy will be an attack on morality especially on sexual morality he says the madness of tomorrow is not in Moscow it's much more in Manhattan and and he saw that he saw the attack on marriage and and on the family he was speaking out against contraception long before anyone else was on a public basis and said contraception would lead to abortion it would lead to infanticide and euthanasia and and he said this that the we would lose our respect for life itself as a matter of fact you know for all the talk and rhetoric that you hear well if we just have more contraception available we will need to have so many abortions whereas you look at the graph of the use of the contraceptive pill in 1970 when it becomes available that graph of its use has exactly the same curve as the increase of abortion and a divorce yeah and uh and then in the year after Roe vs. Wade the murder rate for children five and under increased by 100 percent in one year yes and he was absolutely right yeah yeah and and he said that the moment that sex ceases to be a servant it becomes a tyrant and that's Pitta Mises the problem that we're experiencing in the in our society sex has become a tyrant because it has ceased to be a servant yep and if you dare to disagree with the change in sexual mores that the modern world pushes then the anger and rejection becomes extremely strong so that they the tyranny of those who want sexual Liberty nism to take away the freedom of virtue is very rampant today he also makes the connection that that this this rise of the the worship of sex is connected to a rise in the worship of nature and you know he sees this the skewed devotion to nature as our mother as opposed to nature as our sister which he says you know nature we our proper attitude towards nature is that she's our sister because we both have the same father and so we take care of our sister we respect her but she has no authority over us but he said that in the modern you know kind of returned to paganism an attempt to return to paganism the rejection of of the Christian God there'd be this kind of nature worship it and and he said there's also be this new reverence for animals and he said wherever you have animal worship you will have human sacrifice and that's why we have these giant pet stores and we don't have anymore baby stores anymore or also that you know the divergence between the right to life for an infant in the womb is not protected by law well the right to life for an unborn eagle is extremely pretty and you go to jail if you break an eagle egg or kill an eagle and again I'm not in favor killing you by any means but there is a great disproportion between what happens with the animals and what they care for human beings well you used the word proportion Chesterton talks about proportion proportion being the essence of beauty and that's what we've lost everything is disproportionate in the modern world and and part of being a complete thinker is putting everything in its right place and in its right proportion its right balance and and that's what Chesterton is the master of and that's why it's such a pleasure to read him and to to see how he he has his finger on the pulse of what's going on right now it's it's truly a divine prophetic insight that he has you know one way in which I recommend people get a sense of that proportion in beauty is to go to a your local art museum and go first note make makes it make a beeline to the modern art section and take a look at the use of color especially of human figures and look at the sense of proportion in human figures and then when once you get to the point of no longer being able to stand it then go look at the medieval section go look at the classical Greek section or they have a Roman section you know to take a look at that sense of beauty in contrast to what the modern and the modern art is all about making sure I express myself my self-expression is what this is all about and if you don't like it you don't understand the modern world yeah and Chester didn't actually got his start his very first published article was was an art review so he started out as an art critic and and he saw this exact same thing starting in 1899 1900 and and he saw that it was starting to it was starting to fall apart with the Impressionists yeah all sudden everything is becoming fuzzy and the very term Impressionism means it's my impression it's totally subjective and it's already starts to be a disconnect with with an audience and it starts to become an interior product and though in contrast to the later 20th century art the Impressionists are welcome relief oh absolutely that's what so that's what's so ironic people say well but I like the impressions well that's because you're comparing them with what came after them look at look at art right before the impressionist though it was really the high point of Western art in terms of classical realism the Bouguereau the lord leighton the absolute astonishing things that were done with a paintbrush and that's what's forgotten about and and we we like the oppression because there's so much better than this what came after it but Chesterton saw it coming he says Impressionism means there's no floor in the universe it'll start just falling apart the standards will disappear the loss of beauty will follow and again you can think of it as having a binoculars or a telescope that when you get to the impressionist you're getting the fuzziness and then when you get to the modern the late modern then you see the distortion yet you know whereas you have to go to see clearly in the Renaissance and you know sometimes broke is overdone but you know you see at least a sense of you know what seeking beauty and of course part of it is the separation of art from religion which is Chester and always pointed out that it was a church that was responsible some of the greatest art in all of history and it started within the churches themselves the the churches produced the beautiful art that the physical churches themselves right and and they were the source of beauty and inspiration and and storytelling and everything else yeah I really have seen tour groups to Europe going from train station to Factory they when they go to Rome they go from church to church yeah wonder why that is yeah because it's beautiful and in same thing with the rest of Europe you know that you you this is where you find beauty and harmony well Chesterton is you know he not only defends the the Catholic faith he just he's defending Western civilization which is under attack from every direction the art is under attack the the idea of justice is under attack but certainly though the basis of civilization itself is under attack and that's the family and chessmen sees that if we don't preserve the family the entire society will fall apart another absolute prophetic insight of his he started by defending marriage against easy divorce and he said that if we don't honor the vow you know there's there's nothing to hold marriage together after that and and then nothing to hold the family together right and you know that's why we're fighting these bizarre battles right now because we lost the respect for Marriage a generation ago well yes 1965 marks the turning point in this country when no-fault divorce there's no but again you don't want to blame anybody you want anybody feel bad for the various things that they did wrong and so a no-fault divorce and from that point on we see the increase of single mothers and children living in greater and greater poverty and it's gotten to the point already just fifty years now that 40% of our children are born to unwed mothers nationwide and this is an amazing change compared to 2% in 1940 and Chesterton warned he said that the result of frivolous divorce will be frivolous marriage and now we have just absolutely frivolous marriage in fact the most frivolous type of marriage imaginable is being proposed yes it's not even marriage right and and that's the battle we're fighting now and Chesterton was even amazingly prophetic about what would have been really unmentionable in his time the idea of a same-sex Union but he said something about it a couple a couple little giveaway lines that indicated that he could see that undercurrent coming and for instance he said Noah took two of every animal on the ark with him but he didn't take to know us and but he also had a great line which is a reference he says the lily is beautiful and the lily was that was sort of the symbol of the Oscar Wilde decadent movement the lily they always held a lily since the lily is beautiful but the purpose of the lily is not to be beautiful the purpose of the lily is to make more lilies yes that's death talk that's a way of being of suddenly explaining a truth when you can't speak about unmentionable things openly and I never forget being in an airport coming back from giving a retreat I was in the Miami Airport transitioning and I overheard the young adults they were in the 20s behind me say well I'm going to move to Las Vegas and have a lot of fun out there with the new job I've got and maybe have a starter marriage so that and and I asked around and that has become a fairly commonplace and phrase that of a starter marriage and then later on I'll settle down to a more serious marriage well I've been working on my starter marriage for 31 years that's a good start as we say and polish me you live 100 years yeah well I'll have to talk to my wife about that if she wants me to live that and of course you know that I've been married to Chesterton as long as been married to my wife because I started reading Chesterton on my honeymoon is that right yeah because that's when most people start reading gesture too yeah actually I've never been on a honeymoon and I started reading Chesterton well you would be what they call the exception that proves the rule it's but over and over again the value of reading this man of the early 20th century is that he keeps on seeing the roots that will develop into the fall weeds of the late 20th and early 21st centuries and the thing about a prophet is this people forget that a prophet wants to be wrong a prophet is not saying that this is inevitable and this will happen it's only saying he's prophet is only saying this is the road you're on and you need to turn around and repent and get off that road but I can tell you where that roads gonna lead it's going to lead here and Chesterton sees exactly where the road was going and he paints a very clear picture what it looks like but the but the prophets always saying like Isaiah you know seek the Lord while he may be found and call upon him while he's near and let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thought and we turn unto the Lord and He will have mercy and abundantly pardon in what is also a key characteristic of that prophetic gift of someone like Chesterton is that he didn't do it through third sight through necromancy term nonsense he used thought he could he was able to see logical steps would that have necessary conclusions and you're just going down that path as and you will see the disaster cuz there's no other way down that path the other thing you know Chesterton is not only defending the faith he's also defending reason cuz reason itself is under attack yep and he says the Catholic Church he says is the only institution today defending reason yep and of course he said it then but it's still true now absolutely all right we've got to take a break before we go to questions and comments I just want to mention to you on the American Chesterton society can be reached at their website WWDC org and we'll be back in just a couple minutes because we want to get your questions and comments as well as those of our studio audience so please stay with us thank you welcome back first I want to mention that there are a number of books and videos on G K Chesterton that are available at EWTN religious catalogue and you can call them at one eight hundred eight five four six three one six or you can also go to the website ewtn religious catalogue calm and you can see what's available and on tape and books and all that and including dale's books glad to have it there also we all want to mention that we have a wonderful audience here from different parts of the country one large group from outside the country in the Dominion of Canada good to have all you here and and also we have one father I want to mention father Sebastian he's one of the original members of Mother Teresa's order for men and it's good to have you here is given a retreat to you in town I would love to have you come here on pilgrimage as well you can contact our pilgrimage department by calling them at two zero five two seven one two nine six six all right or you can go to the website WWWE can they will help you with scheduling of masses and shows tours of the studios information how to get up to Hanceville to see the sisters and places you can stay and eat right here in beautiful Irondale Alabama are you ready for some questions I am indeed all right let's start off with the call you have Larry on line hold Larry hi father hi mr. Alcala we're from Larry I'm from Wyoming Pennsylvania in the northeastern Pennsylvania Scranton diocese all right what's your question I'd like to ask because I know that Chesterton was an art school dropout and never officially studied theology philosophy or journalism I've always been curious how he ended up becoming one of the 20th century's most prominent representatives of them because how did he get so smart because he didn't go to the University yeah let that be a lesson he obviously had a great mind a gifted mind he read an awful lot and he had a great way of digesting books you know once he read them they were there forever so there was a Mozart II in mind to him that he had just so much knowledge at his disposal and it was without the benefit of a formal education you know just to clarify for our audience um in his day the Chesterton Academy wasn't established yet was it that's that's a true statement father he might have gone to that and done fine I'm thinking that if he'd gone to Chester's Academy he would have been as exactly as great as he was are you from from Toronto Ontario good the Canadians who are just wondering if father Ian Boyd in the chessmen Society of Canada they put out the Chester's in review just wondering if there's any communication or collaboration between the two groups yes I if you had not told me you were from Canada I would have suspected you were from Canada but no it's because the question not the accident that the father Boyd was established up at Saskatoon for many years where he created the Chesterton review and I I was an early reader of it and he and I have known each other for a very long time and I'm privileged to to work with him on a lot of operations so does your justice in society do cooperative work yeah and forth we're totally independent of one another his chest in society with our long absolutely that what's what's interesting is that he kind of goes towards he has a more scholarly appeal with the Chesterton review is a much more scholarly journal and and appeals and doing great work there and he has international conferences that he does all around the world because like I said they're international conferences I don't know if you knew that's what it meant but but we we just focus on different aspects of Chesterton and and complement each other I think very nicely oh that's good that's good we have another call host even stir you got are you there yes thank you for taking my call sure were you from Binghamton New York only a few miles north of the previous caller and I'm in a Syracuse diocese great good to have you and what's your question are there any known voice recordings of GK Chesterton yes there are there at least three well when I say at least three there's only three known recordings of his voice to BBC radio broadcasts that were preserved and one after dinner speech and then there is one little small newsreel clip where he's speaking when he came to minister to the United States at Worcester Massachusetts at the Holy Cross College so you can get a DVD or rather a CD of the of the three recordings from our website at Chesterton org so you you make that CD available yeah of the only of the only known recordings of his voice yeah now I understand that his voice one of the comments I'd never heard these things but one of the comments I heard is that how did such a large man have such a small voice and and he was always people recorded people talked about voice being very high but then you hear it on the recordings and it's not very high it's just a normal voice but since it came out of such a large man it sounded high I say yeah we have the recordings of his voice that are not high so that okay that's that's the Dale Alquist explanation of that oh man where you from I'm from Port Colborne in Ontario can you welcome and what is your question I was just wondering how your wife enjoyed chesterton on your honeymoon I first told the story to Mother Angelica when she interviewed me on this very stage and we had the funny the funny story that I read the everlasting man and my wife read Lamy zurab the mother did a good job of embarrassing me but she's does your wife read much well yes and as she always says the three of us get along very well but she is my chief critic so everything I write has to be filtered through her and that's that's where she gets it yeah and just so folks know Chesterton himself was married and had a very charming wife yes and was totally dependent on her and that's they had such a beautiful marriage because he could not have been the writer he was without her total support and devotion and simply taking care of him because he was such a completely helpless and absent-minded man yeah but he said to be absent minded means to be present minded about something else yes let's take another caller we have Dixie on the line Oh Dixie hi hi were you from I'm from Mississippi well now that is a name I would expect from the Mississippi my daddy named me that's not I don't even take it as a fault now what is your questions my question for mr. Alquist is I thought I heard that mr. Chesterton had some last words on his biscuit and I just never could find out exactly the story behind that yes his his last words the last real thought that came from his great mind that was recorded by his biographer Macy Ward is that he kind of just sat up and or looked up and said it's all very clear it's between light and darkness and everyone must choose absolutely profound thought yeah good way to move on and then go to you make yeah yeah there are a lot of really dumber things I have heard from the dying than that sir were you from part time Texas part time Florida good for you so sometimes you want a little bit of wet sometimes little drive that'll do it and what's your question I was asking Dale if he'd be willing to tell us a book that he would recommend as sort of the best perhaps overall introduction to Chesterton and perhaps the best CD or DVD as well well father Pacwa said I couldn't recommend a book that was not by Chesterton but in spite of him saying that the best introductory book to Chesterton is the one that I wrote I only say that because I used to be asked that question all the time and I never had a good answer because I was never content with the answer that I gave because any time I said something I I would always say well that's a good book to read but it's better to read this one before that one so before you read the first Chester's Brooke read this one before that but but my introductory book is called the the apostle of common sense and it was based on our first season of shows here and it was just designed to introduce people to Chester it's an overview of his most important books plenty of good quotations from Chester and that's what kind of brings people in and then in case in case you can't find that when the common sense 101 lessons from GK Chesterton by a writer named Alquist but but then after you start we you know those are the those are the primer books but then you have to eat orthodoxy and then after that you have to read orthodoxy and the key then is is for the third book you should read is orthodoxy but don't read it unless you've read it twice before that and then after orthodoxy you know a lot of people have read you know I I know I went over to everlasting man because I couldn't find heresy I want heretics yeah heretics yeah I had a look around I find eventually found at a used bookstore yeah yeah heretics is back in print now that's the great thing when I started reading Chester and you had to comb through the used bookstores to find him now all of the stuffs in print and that's one of the great signs of the Chester and revivals that his books are available again well as I've one of my professors had told me that uh one of the v-2 bombs had hit the printing house where all the plates were for printing his books and they got destroyed in World War two yeah well several several things got destroyed because she didn't ward publishing in London was destroyed by the bombs but they also had created a new publishing house in America but it's all available now in Ignatius press yes has come up with Lada they also publish your books right and they publish that Pope guy's books - yeah yeah they publish his books but but they're working on the collected works they've got 28 volumes of the collected works are now available and that's not of a projected 60 volumes of and all this thick so get started another call on the line Oh sister Gina yes Father Mary where are you from I'm from Southern Connecticut great local thank you and my question is either for you or for Dale Alquist I was wondering if there is a movement that that G G K Chesterton lived a life of holiness and you know it's going to be proclaimed venerable or blessed or whatever canonization that's my question thank you sister appreciate you calling in thanks for that question we are absolutely working on getting Chesterton cause out cause yes and it's it's not it hasn't officially been introduced but there is a lot of work being done and I can tell you there is a groundswell of devotion to Chesterton he's there's a universal cult that's forming around him because he demonstrates his his heroic virtue in his writing but also in all the evidence from his life he was a good man who was very connected to God and all of the all of the personal accounts indicate that and we do have an episode in Inara in our sixth season exploring the idea of Chesterton being a saint and some of the personal testimony and that's that's what an episode worth seeing from the sixth season and you know my argument is real real plain we need more 300-pound cigar-smoking Saints you want to give a little competition to Saint Thomas Aquinas who was a pickled herring eating pig and that was his favorite yes pickled herring yeah there's just too much fat in here so but yeah the the Bishop of Northampton England is definitely starting to open his mind towards this and he's he and I've been in contact or some people in England that have been in contact with him but there are other bishops around the world who would like to see this go forward yeah why would it have to be the bishop oh he's the most natural one because that's where Chesterton's diocese was that's where he's buried but there's even though there's local devotion to him he's really a universal Newman really never had a local cult in England he always had a universal cult right yeah well I think another question from our studio audience man worrying from I from Iowa good to have you and I'm here with riffle a missionaries of charity to be with father Sebastian and hope to bring them to Iowa yeah thank you question my question yes you mentioned everlasting man both of you and when I read that I thought oh my gosh I wish this guy were here today because his arguments against the sort of atheist Darwinists that are out all over arguing today and also even the radical anti-humanist environmental fringe are so pertinent and I wondered is anyone using his arguments to argue with those people well yes that's exactly what we're doing and when you say you wish she was here that great thing is he is here we obviously we believe there's a lot of us who believe he should be counted among the Saints but the fact is we have his writings his writings are here we just like we have Thomas Aquinas his writings they are pertinent and and absolutely applicable today the everlasting man a great book but that really just just scratches the surface of his great arguments against the Darwinian mentality and that's you know think about Darwinism is it's it's a bad philosophy you know what whatever whatever merits it may have in the scientific world and even those are debatable because it's been revised so many times you know but Darwinism as a philosophy Chesterton absolutely picks apart because that's what's taking over this whole idea of endless progress endless improvement things will always get better and and we will keep waiting for this better form of humanity to inevitably come it's an attack on free will it's an attack on morality and it's attack on tradition you know one of the guests I had on here Ben Wiker wrote a wonderful book called the Darwin myth and he brings out an extremely one of the extremely important points that Chesterton did that it's in not so much an origin of the species but in his second book that Darwin writes the scent of mania that certain races are not really human so he said that that blacks are a race in between the ape in the human being and we need to breed them out of the population like you would breed inferior cattle out from a herd I what a horrific mentality and that this idea was used in the the racism of later periods yeah no racist weeding out and mass murder well then it led to the eugenics movement which was started by Sir Francis Galton Charles Darwin's cousin yes and eugenics was embraced by all the leading intellectuals in Europe especially in England in the early 20th century and of course Margaret Sanger embraced eugenics confounded Planned Parenthood which still you know as much as they don't like to admit this they still do have 60% of their abortion clinics in african-american neighborhoods even though African Americans are only 12% of the population well that's what she wanted she wanted the birth control clinics in all the neighborhoods of the types that she did not want reproducing yeah and there was a direct connection between the eugenicist movement in America and the one in Nazi Germany oh that yeah they met in 1935 to collaborate a Chester and Chester was the only leading intellectual who wrote an entire book against eugenics this is young reasons why I'm solidly against the federal government giving Planned Parenthood money they give three hundred million dollars and what are they doing with it you know I don't trust but let's go over now to Karen Oh Karen good evening father and good evening Dale this is Karen from El Paso Illinois and life is worth living our soon-to-be st. the Archbishop Fulton sheen mentioned Chesterton as well as in his treasure and clay biography as one of his favorite authors had they ever met thank you yes Chesterton wrote the introduction to Fulton Sheen's first book and Sheehan had just graduated from blue bag he finished his dissertation and he wasn't wanted have his dissertation published as a book it was called God and intelligence so he and he was living in England he went to GK Chesterton asked him to write the introduction to the book and Chesterton said Fulton sheen I don't know anything about philosophy and Sheen was stunned by the comment and he he said are you kidding your book orthodoxy is one of the greatest books of philosophy of the modern world and with so many of us who just depend on that book and and you know Chesterton very humbly said well I guess since we're both Catholic we think the same way so I can write the introduction to your book so he did yeah he did and she actually attended Chesterton's funeral as well yeah the question was Judy's father where are you from on the Brian Noland Mount st. Mary's University and the campus chaplain you're gonna be on The Rock this week I will be right what's your question the question I has is can you speak of Chester dunes epic poem The Ballad of the white horse and its relevancy for today yes the Battle of the white horse and truly one of the last great epic poems in the English language something that every high school student should study in fact at Chester's an academy they do study it but it is truly the the about the the battle to save civilization the attack on civilization is saying earlier there's the new barbarians that are attacking us it's it's a historical event of King Alfred of Wessex the only the only English king called the Great King Alfred the Great in the ninth century he's attacked by the the barbarians from the north the the Danes but as you know the Chesterton group groups them all together as the Vikings and calls them huge half-witted men a reference to the football team from Minnesota you know so I'm from there I can say that yeah and yeah he says they they were as trees walking the earth as witless and as tall but but they they are attacking civilization they're the barbarians and Chesterton absolutely in a beautiful poetic exploration of the difference in the two philosophies and of course a great stunning account of the battle itself but then as far as the the relevancy is Alfred's prophecy at the end of the book where he sees a new form of barbarians attacking and they won't come with weapons they're they're their weapon they will come with swords their weapons will be their pen and ink and dry ideas yeah well you know I've been talking a lot over the last few months about the New Atheists in our culture that movement that's good movement New Atheists I don't know who finances them but I suspect that it's some billionaires that are doing this and they are helping to create a new barbarianism and it's it's really coming true as he said and what's amazing is that they look upon every moral degradation as a sign of their own victory yeah they do and I guess yeah Chesterton actually talks a lot about that because he says they always are well well-funded is there's very rich men who have probably gained their money in morally and just to us ways their conscience they're trying to destroy morality itself yes and that so they're attacking everything that's good because that's their way out that's their escape they don't want to face God instead they want to try to get their sins forgiven by claiming they're not sins yes and I I always I've started but I started imagining that on the parapets of their castles they'll have these large poles and from them instead of flying great banners of victory it'll be Playboy magazines that's about as much as they can muster in terms of morality yeah and it's it's it's amazing how how Chesterton talks about the these are the things that really make people uncomfortable to talk about and Chester had a way of talking about them that is not uncomfortable he had this great way of explaining the truth and explaining delicate and uncomfortable truths in a charming and loving and joyful way and that's the gift that we we have to get from him so we can do the same thing ourselves I just have to keep reading more him I want to thank you very much for being with us and I want to give you all blessing oh mighty God bless you and keep you the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit amen remember we can bring you Dale all Crist and his series and all the other programs that we do because you make this network possible it is your gift I keep us going so we asked you as Mother Angelica always did please keep us in between your gas bill and your electric bill and your cable bill and we'll be able to pay all of our bills too thank you you

Channel: EWTN

Views: 12,272

Rating: 4.8518519 out of 5

Keywords: EWTN, Live, 2012, 10, 24, GK, Chesterton, Apostle, of, Common, Sense, Fr, Mitch, with, Dale, Ahlquist, Catholic

Id: PGCLcK_umJk

Length: 56min 32sec (3392 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 25 2012