The Journey Home - 2014-07-14 - Scott Bloch - Former Evangelical

you you good evening welcome to the journey home I'm Marcus Grodi your host for this program EWTN gives me this wonderful privilege to join you each week to introduce to you men and women who moved by the work of the Spirit and their minds and their hearts open to a deeper walk with Christ or awaken to the beauty of the church and so we invite them here to tell them how the Lord opened their hearts and minds to that and our guest tonight is Scott block he's a former evangelical editor of a book that you may have seen discussed on a doug keck bookmark program the essential bellick and is available through the religious catalogue and scott welcome to the journey home thank you glad to be here it's good to have you here and it's good to have you here but it's also good to have you here to discuss one of my favorite guys as hell are bellick forgotten forgotten voice with as you said and as a subtitle to your book a prophet for our time so will so many of our guests that have been in the journey all don't always mention him but invariably when I talked to them about what were some books or authors that open their hearts to the mind it's we hear Chesterton a lot but invariably bellick is i think even a number one above Chesterton for many of them on the journey but won't talk about that later because this isn't a bookmark program you've done that on Dougs kaypro right this is about here and how the Lord moved your life so if you would start way at the beginning and give the audience a glimmer of your of your spiritual journey I will thank you I think when you talk about my story it's really a movie story or an entertainment industry story I grew up in that world and moviments yeah my parents met on Broadway my mother saw him in saw my father in a Broadway production called command decision after World War two he was acting on Broadway and she was also an actress and she was on Broadway too and shows musicals now kind of thing blue murder all in others so they married I was born in New York City my father began writing for radio and also television and then you know in the early days it was in New York City when I was three we moved to California where everything was moving in terms of television but before we grew up with some of those television folks that we may have seen back in those I did I did but but but back in the early days in New York my father had a show on NBC that he created called my son Jeep and the main character was named Jeffrey Scott Allison I was named after that character so my name is Scott Jeffrey block and so I actually started out just when I came into this world being marked by my television and entertainment but yes growing up in California I was part of that world my high school we had actors kids you know that there were friends of mine Doug Weaver's kid and you know yeah Robert Conrad's kid I went to school with that sort of thing so it was it was natural to me I didn't it didn't seem strange to meet stars and you know character actors so you have these two actors that meet each other on Broadway then was there any religious aspect of their life no not at that time my mother had been attracted to the Anglican Church and had thought about even going into being a nun but had gone into acting instead so she had a Christian background my father was Jewish from a Jewish home but they didn't have the religion maybe was brought up with he grew up in Kansas his father was an artist and a professor there at the University of Kansas so I was brought up with no ostensible religion at all we had Christmas and I heard stories sometimes from my mother about you know Jesus but I didn't really know anything so really in your sense you these two parents without deep religious convictions and then you maybe have just the awkwardness of how that comes about in a marriage if it doesn't come about then in the process the children it doesn't even never brought up right we just didn't talk about it okay I think my mother knew that she needed to give us something so she would take me to for instance a San Fernando mission I remember those images of the suffering Christ and Mary very powerful images that stuck with me really had an impact so she knew that we ought to be exposed to things like that but it was never really spoken about yeah what about that television Hollywood environment was there any religion is that even more distant from it well later it comes into the picture but early on no yeah with the transition the one of the key sort of turning points in my life and my parents life perhaps was my father got a show offered to him to go to England take the family to England he was going to be the story editor of a joint British American production which was on one of those channels I can't remember which it's called the persuaders Tony Curtis and Roger Moore okay so he was the American story editor they had to have that as part of the joint venture and so we went over that we lived in England and so this was a beginning of a journey that I didn't understand at the time I'm 12 years old but I ended up going to a school in the South in Sussex south of London in a little town called slin Dhin in a manner that had been owned by Henry the eighth and so it was there or that I was first exposed to faith and to beauty and to you know kind of a tradition that I had lacked in Los Angeles growing up there so that was really a big turning point to go to church on the Anglican Church of course on Sundays with a boater everybody file in and and so that that really had an impact on me and I and I adopted that the faith and the hymns and the sense of God and the beauty of the surrounding South Downs and later of course I'm foreshadowing something but later I learned much later the Hilaire Belloc had grown up there he had been a child in that town even on a plaque to him but I didn't know that if you lived on a farm just just a little bit south of our school about you know half a mile so that really had a profound effect and so when we came back to the United States I began a kid 12 said to my parents we should go to church and of course their heads whipped around I remember in the car but what are you talking about and I said well you know I am used to that and we should find a church so they hadn't been affected as much by it in England as you had right I mean I don't think so if they were here there there they passed on now God rest their souls but it was through the school mainly you would yeah that brought right right it was a boarding school although they call that in England a public school yeah so we did we they found a church through friends of ours and we ended up going to this church which was an evangelical type Church you probably heard of it pastor Jack Hayford and so that's where we ended up going to church and that's where I got more of my Christian kind of formation and it really came to believe okay and in again your parents did they evolve what that was yes your thing I don't know everything - alright and you know so the whole family really had a profound effect so now going to college then I went to the University of Kansas where my father had grown up in the town university town of Lawrence beautiful town and he didn't encourage me to do that but there was something I wanted to look into his his upbringing the past my grandfather his art you know it wasn't really talked about much just something that I wanted to explore my roots so I went to the University of Kansas and it was there that I went through the integrated humanities / oh yeah you you might want to talk more about that because that is that that program itself right as it's such a big impact on so many people not just the students who were in it but their writings and their influence right so it was a four semester great books program in take it was called the Pearson integrated humanities program I saw it in the freshman sophomore catalog and I said that is the kind of education I want I'm here at the University I want the grade books I on classical education I want to know something when I leave here now how how I knew that I wanted that I don't remember it may have had something that was everything that God it's grace you know but whatever it is I knew that I really wanted that but you know how things go you get advisors and then you just kind of go on with whatever you're doing second semester a friend comes from st. Louis specifically to go through that program and he's in our dorm and I see him reading these stacks of classics thing I'm jealous and he's you know this guy is an interesting fellow is not like the other people and he's reading these great books and the poetry and everything and I wanted to talk to him so I befriended him and sure enough he took me into that world he took me to a lecture John senior dancing and then Frank Malick and Dennis Quinn as well the three of them they were the triumvirate of great ideas you know I was totally captivated so I entered the program in my sophomore year and the rest was history it was a glorious world of beauty goodness truth you know through the eyes of the great writers some of them Christian most of not the pagans you know Plato Aristotle but you know leading up to Chaucer and and Agustin and all of the other Christian authors and by the time we got to agustin I saw something that I didn't ever expect to see because up to this time I did not think you know I would ever become a Catholic I didn't I wasn't attracted to it it thought probably really didn't cross your mind during all those years right if anything crossed my mind it was that that was the wrong direction that Christianity are taken and had been corrected you know I had that same thought that many have but I began to see the connections in history in the unbroken chain of I didn't use the word then authority but you know I saw that there was an unbroken chain that these authors had a recognition of a world that had never been anything other than christen had never been anything but the church Chaucer shakes dear you know servantes and so it was only later that we had this this thing in the Reformation the the breakup as Bella calls it that that caused this disintegration and this integration that we were studying what is knowledge how is it one how is it related to other things that was to be found in the great books but also in the church itself our guest tonight is Scott block just for those of you who are just tuning in former evangelical who you would say then in will talk a bit about before we get your actual entering into the church there you are in this program under john senior and the others the triumvirate and i've met many people that have been influenced by that program the reading of the great books but it was also their leadership and the way they presented it right i mean there are many people that became catholic out of that environment i don't assume but i don't presume that the Rapallo Jetix in the classes right it was not a catholic program right as such except in the universal sense of thort they sought to bring truth to people they believed that the truth existed and it could be known and they opened our minds and also our hearts and the two are important the mind is one thing that has a lot to do with the will but the heart or that center of us that has to do with how we know and really deeply know things was something they felt really needed to be opened up because students were in the early 70s were coming in full-form cynics at the age of 18 and they needed to be opened up we needed to be opened up to the truth in all of its fullness without that cynical attitude of i know everything and those you know medieval catholics back then were bad people and we've become perfected here in the 20th century and they really went after that concept and what and helped us to open up to the truth and to see reality because in modernity we have this problem of being alienated from nature as well as human nature our own nature and so they sought to bring us back to that through singing through stargazing through memorizing poetry which I still know some of that you know fit in my heart and that helps you to really open up to all of the dimensions of the truth and of knowledge itself I'm wondering from your experience both now as a lawyer and having your heart and mind change to the reading of these great writers and we'll get to Belloc later but I you know again about how this changed you would you say there's a sense in which the thread that is evidence of the work of God all the way back in the lives of Plato these great writers all the way back we're not Christian per se but there was a thread would you say that that thread is somewhat connected to the humility that comes from contact with truth you know I'm saying but it really changes the heart so that people before truth it humbles them and that which makes them a valuable witness to this truth of God even if they've never been a Christian but yet they've encountered the reality of God and truth that's what humbles them I think that's right we were taught early on about the Faculty of wonder of a sense of amazement and a sense of humility of standing under a subject or a beautiful sunset or the Stars or you know flowers standing under them and looking up at them look up not within arrogance you know of over looking over as if you know everything but really with a sense of humility of really contemplative Joseph's peeper talks about this and leisure the basis of culture of opening your eyes the eye of your mind and your soul to be able to really see requires a receptivity requires this humility that you're talking about a wonder that sense of amazement and the thread of that is in all of the great writers now of course you see it getting corrupted and getting twisted later in modernity you see Nietzsche grabbling grappling with all of this and it becoming very twisted and convoluted but it's still there the truth is still there it's just convoluted but you know that this is true what you're saying that threat is there and that humility that need to see the truth in a in a humble attitude is the key I think at what point it does really start you thinking about the Catholic Church well you never know how grace works that seed was planted and all of a sudden you see something sprouting you see where did that come from but I remember it was a Gustin that opened my mind and heart to the possibility not the probability but just the possibility that I might be one of these people that could become a Catholic he reminded me of me I don't mean that in a arrogant sense of I thought I was as smart as he was but just his struggles I think everyone has that you know universal sense of I'm a sinner I do things that are evil that I shouldn't do why do I do them it's in me to do them and I and I was very captivated by that plus his recollected sense of his own life and how he related that to the presence of God in his life he when he didn't know it and I began to see that in myself and of course Agustin is constantly struggling with can I it should have become a Catholic do I believe this stuff even if I believe it do I have to actually become a member of this thing and you know so when you're seeing him struggle with it you're kind of struggling with it why why would I have to belong to a quote religion you know because that's kind of an evil thing you know again that's that modern sense of things you know religion isn't a good thing let's be spiritual but not religious you know why would I want to become a part of this big institution what good is that and he really opened me up to see that you know one of the problems of human nature is we resist wanting to give up our will and our were reluctant to be obedient and to want to be a part of what God the order that God has has established so I began to see that Christ himself if he hadn't established this church with the Apostles with the laying on of hands of the various you know successors to the Apostles something was wrong something had gone wrong and he had made such a drastic move to the point where there's a quote that he a statement he makes I think in one of his letters to the about the Donatists and I wish I could quote it perfectly now that he he's gone to the point where first of all when we think of institution the church especially when you say coming out of the 70s and all that which was anti institution of every sense the institution is we immediately think about bad leaders and this and that and you know structures and overpowering but Luther had grown I mean Agustin had gone all the way to the point of saying that even if the leadership of the church has gone corrupt it's never justification for schism right he'd gotten to the point of recognizing this church as this institution that God had planted for the very Avenue of beauty and art and music and truth and there was never justification to leave that which is true even when we see the flaws of the institution well that's absolutely true and flipping forward to Belloc he says a very comical thing about that he says the Catholic Church is an institution I'm bound to hold divine for proof of unbelievers of its divinities founded this that no merely human institution run with such knavish imbecility would have lasted a fortnight wasn't it and you would have read the great books wasn't it I forget which of the writers the the the Cameron or one of those writers that talks about a Jewish convert to the church that is so drawn to the church because it could have only been held together by the spirit right if it's one of those two Renaissance I'm not sure it's Boccaccio but right I mean but there's the same thing you're talking about me this has to be of God it might not be of man right you know the sense that I got from Agustin you know was this overarching historical civilizational artistic you know knowledge based sense of unity of you're part of a great thing and you can't not be part of that why would you want to stay away from that and you know he talks about his journey says Oh beauty ever ancient ever new late have I loved the Oh beauty ever ancient ever new and that you know has echoed with me down the years and I still that sense of conversion of that late if I love thee is still with me every day really well did that late as I late did I lovely love the make you a Catholic the next weekend or how did your journey don't have well yellows ancient of Augusta well it started the process I went to you know there was a sort of subculture in the integrating managed program you heard a big State University there's all you know it's a cavalcade of things you know and wonderful things some but there was a subculture in the program of people and parties and friends and you know and and I kind of started into that and I got to know people and I was very attracted the principle of Attraction which is very important to conversion really began to get me I began to have my eyes open to the great you know friendships and and the fun of being among Catholics and among people who who regard the truth and in regard culture as important and not something to be just you know laughed at so that was an important part of the process but I went to John senior I just walked into his office after hours and I said well mommy I'm kind of struggling with something here he said what is that I said well I you know thinking maybe the Catholic Church maybe and he said oh well he's very thoughtful very contemplative individual he said okay well if that's real you know that will that will last nothing that you would want a rush I really wouldn't tell you to do anything in particular other than just ride it out like a wave if you're surfing it'll take you into the shore of its if it's a real wave he said oh one thing I might recommend to you is say a prayer maybe our Father or do you know the Hail Mary said no no no Hail Mary you know he said well he told you wrote it down for me how to say it he says you might try that you know see what happens and so I did and something happened a very pal Obul sense of a presence was with me something powerful that we can only describe as grace I think it is very similar to the feeling one has when one falls in love which is undeniable when you have that feeling in that sense of another person that's what it was like for me and there was someone listening to those prayers now I already prayed and believed but I didn't really have much of a context for that prayer or belief didn't really wasn't attached to much of anything this had a much more powerful palpable sense to it and so when I prayed the Hail Mary I actually felt a motherly presence which I'd never experienced very strange still to this day is very strange but it's there and that really began the journey in earnest for me and then after that time and I can't give you you know timeline but maybe a weeks or months I went to my friends in the program and they had a house and they had a opening I learned about in the house and I said gee I'm kind of looking for a place because I leave this other apartment and so kind of sealed my fate when I went to live at 11:32 Ohio he first of all had you been the tending evangelical worship and church during the time as a student up until then yes I I kind of bounced around I just thought that's one what one did it was like a smorgasbord you just well this week I'll go to the Anglican Church and get the beauty and the high sense of things and with hymns and then another week I go to an evangelical church and so I did I really didn't go anywhere in particular so to a certain extent you had kind of bought into the idea that really it's about you and God yes Church is not important right community set of doctrines not important it's you and God right Burger King yeah there you go now you're having an awakening to the church through literature had you visited a Catholic Church at all was was the actual experience of Catholicism parallel to that yes I visited a Catholic Church I looked at the stained glass I began to appreciate more of what I was seeing and hearing I didn't understand it but all of a sudden it had a significance to me that it never had before and I knew that there was a lot behind that historically and doctrinally and there were different wars and things I learned about some of those wars through a Lutheran minister I was volunteering with a good friend of mine the same one that had come to the dorm and first introduced me to the integrated humanities program his uncle was a Lutheran pastor and he was Lutheran and we would go to this mission in Kansas City and work with the underprivileged youth at the Lutheran mission of the Good Shepherd well pastor Bob working he knew all about the the different conflicts you know transubstantiation and the different attitudes that Lutheran's had about you know the devil lives in the cellar of the Catholic Church and he would tell me a lot of stories a lot of things and he knew that I was kind of starting on this journey so he appreciated and I've often told you know him and Greg his nephew you know that in some ways more than anything that that Lutheran minister helped me to understand how to become a Catholic so that was part of the journey too so he was telling you about these common beliefs of Lutheran's but not necessarily trying to convince you of them no he was no he was very fair guy yeah he wanted to show me what the arguments were I knew where he stood but he also knew that I was kind of on this journey in thinking about these things and we talked about it openly so he really helped me in a lot of ways what would you say then was the final straw that all right at 11:32 Ohio the house before I moved in there but just before they had a retreat and they invited me and I said oh what's a retreat it sounds like a treat with the rege and it's the treat again right we'll just you're just going to have fun we've got this great priest you'll love it so I said okay whatever these are great guys you know so I want to be around them so until sort Reta stayed there for the weekend and I met father James Flanagan who knew them somehow through one of the guys who was close to his father so father for James Flanagan who founded salt society of Our Lady the Trinity it's standing there in the living room with his great shocks of white hair he looked like Moses and he's a very imposing figure and he's got the Boston accent he says hello are you doing Scottie and so I got to know him and he said the mass and he gave confessions I didn't go to confession as I was in the Catholic yet but they warned me they said you know he's got mystical abilities I said what's that you know he can like read your soul I said oh so we actually met and he actually did tell me things about myself and he says you know you need to love Jesus just keep loving Jesus that's what he wants he says and you'll overcome these things you know that are that are bothering you you know and he told me about them and I said okay this is this is this is a fear there's something going on here and that that really really finally sealed the form and I started reading a catechism book I can't remember the name of it but it was popular at that time uh-huh maybe father hardens or something like yes that was a very popular very helpful book absolutely yeah very good father hardens yeah catechist pretty good all right let's take a break Oh Scott will come back a little bit because events you want to talk about Belloc but I'd like to see whether Bell lock himself had a place in your own journey back to the church will talk about that make it back welcome back to the journey home I'm Marcus Grodi your host and our guest tonight is Scott block forum evangelical and author editor of a book the essential Belloc which you may have seen discussed on Doug kicks religious catalog program and we'll get to that a little bit because I wanted to talk specifically on how to what extent you would almost see that the witness of Belloc has continued to have such an impact even on so many men and women coming back to the faith today as a result of when he lived wrote but first talked more about this program that so changed your life because that we know the how much it changed so many people's lives even people that weren't a part of the program but themselves but they were affected by it so first you know how it what was the trajectory it sent you forth on that program that what other things have come out of that great programming to repine absolutely well yeah you know first thing it did was it sent me on on a lifetime journey of learning and of reading and appreciating knowledge and in good culture and that's a good and of itself because you know it really taught me to love wisdom and and to seek it and desire it but then of course it had many ripple effects permutations in my personal life and other people's personal lives a lot of marriages of course came out of it with lots of kids big families so my the most important aspect of culture of course is the family and for me the most significant impact on my life was my wife meeting her and she also was in the program she converted as a result of it she was an Anglican grew up in Kansas Pisgah paling and Catherine and I got married a fuse after college and we've had seven children - nine actually two twins who died shortly after birth James and David are Saints baptized but so all of the children and then now we have grandchildren of course this is a profound change because if I had not become Catholic you know I'm sure I would have had some kids but maybe you know one or two as the case may be and I met a girl who loved kids and she was from family with five which to me was a lot I only had a brother a brother two years older but somehow it became a natural thing you know to have these children and to pass on to them this great love of learning and of the faith you know we would read aloud from the classics and poetry and you know great books and good books you know Dickens and you know all that kind of thing so it's had that effect and then in education it's it's certainly something that I have thought a lot about and been involved in promoting Catholic education both in the homeschooling arena as well as in lower forms and then upper education so I've been involved in the founding of some schools and also in the founding of Wyoming Catholic college and so those those are the kinds of things that really were affected in me by the program and then that had an effect on on me being involved in other promoting of other works and of course the family it the importance of this great books the reading of the literature the beauty the art the culture some Christian traditions get their focus so narrowed on to salvation what's going to happen in the end of our life you know are we going to be saved or are we saved in Christ that it puts such a focus on that that it takes seems to take away from the need for why do I study history why do I study philosophy what good is any of that what good is it if it doesn't save me and talk a bit about know the value of the now and the place that the literature this great wealth of wisdom that we carry as a thread not just starting with the New Testament but all the way back to Plato and this great thread why is that important right well what we learned you know in the program the integrated humanities program and then through our own study beyond that and all of us learn is that this thirst for knowledge comes from somewhere it's it's innate in us and we and we have to pursue it and if we don't we're denying something deep within us that the God put there and the the thing that we really embraced and I still embrace is this idea of the experiencial learning so not just a book kind of learning not just reading but tasting so there's a difference between shoving information into one's head you know in getting earbuds and getting a great books program online and learning all of the different segments of civilization and you know the Battle of Hastings and all of that or knowing ahead of time this is what I'll need for the SATs so these are the three thousand things I need to memorize so I get a good SAT so I can get a good right a Graduate Record exam and you know it's all it's about is getting the data for the test right so that we something went wrong in civilization at the really the the Renaissance but but certainly the Enlightenment and that is this this utilitarian idea that you just spoke of this idea that if something isn't good for something else that I can gain from then forget about it and if it's not going to make me money it's not going to be a great job if I'm not going to get a lot of you know goods that the world is going to look at and say that's a successful person what good is it and and we often you know in civilization I'm talking about we since the Enlightenment have actually imported that into spiritual things which is a real abomination it's an idolatry to say what good is X if I can't be saved by it what good is you know what God created over here or this person or that tree it's not going to lead me to salvation you say well that's a that's not maybe a good idea to be thinking that way it's really why why am I here what does God want from me what good can I do for others and that naturally will lead to the good the ultimate good of salvation and eternal life with God and with other people as well in other souls that I helped bring in I bear fruit and and so that is is why learning is so important is that it opens us up to reality and God has given us reality it is not a fake set it is not Hollywood you know where we for two hours you know have a nice story told and we cry and then we're done and we go back to reality reality is actually real so the the truth that Plato talks about in the apology or that Shakespeare talks about in Julius Caesar and you know there's a tide in the affairs of men which taken at the flood leads on to fortune there's great truth in that in our lives and for the benefit of others and it's not a utilitarian truth it's a it's a deep abiding kind of truth if you read the Bible for instance deeply if you contemplate it you don't just read it for memorization but you really drink it in taste it you find that it's really a lot it's very similar to poetry you know there's a love story there of the soul with God and we can only talk about those deep things of love in a poetic sense so this kind of experiential or poetic way of knowing this con natural knowledge is the same kind of knowledge that religious experiencing in a deep contemplative state and so I think we have to see learning in that sense that it is related to our deep yearning for God and to be with him now not just an eternity but now to have his presence with us if this utilitarian thinking as so infiltrated our culture it's the soup we live in and it's hard to break free from it of it if that's all that we've ever heard and experienced I know that the the idea the the Protestant work ethic that came about from the idea that you know if we are saved it's by God's grace well how do I know if I'm saved by how it shows in your life and so how successful are you to finding out what God wants you to do the way you'll know that is because you're being successful so again everything is driven this utilitarian which is the foundation of our American culture would you say that this great books program is one of those ways to slowly break free from this I think that's right I think we have to get out of the prison we've created for ourselves in the culture and also personally that we create for ourselves these demands that we have of I've got to have this and I've got to do this or this I'm no good or this isn't going to happen and realize that our life is for something other than that and I think we have to come out into the reality of things come out into the beauty of things get away from that thinking that those tapes that run in our heads and that that that Protestant work ethic which is nothing wrong with it's very important but we are made for something else our hearts are restless and they were they'll be restless but they're made for God and they won't rest until they rest in him but how do they rest in him he'll how do we get ourselves to rest in him how do we become recollected we have to first avail ourselves I think of the real world of that which is real including this beautiful spring here today including the great works that the best that has been thought and said beautiful music beautiful heart and really take it seriously not look at it as well I gotta you know go to a class and learn about that and I'll get any on the test and that'll be that but you know bring it into our lives beauty you know dust as you said famously will save the world well there's a sense in which that's really true these are transcendentals they're called the beauty truth and goodness and we don't get to God on an escalator God gives us the real world God gives us beauty God gives us you know the ingenuity of the human mind to help us toward him we're going to run out of time we got 15 minutes but I want to make sure we get back in here dude bellick does his writings did it play a place in your own journey yes I was exposed first to Belloc and Chesterton sort of in the same breath if you will by my friends at 11:32 Ohio they had books hanging around he had Belloc's hills in the sea which has some wonderful essays and at one of which we talked about earlier the unknowing afield ray which is just amazing and really leads you back into the the glory of the agrarian life and of nature and and of work you know human work and so I read those some of those essays and I read orthodoxy by Chesterton and I was helped into the church through that both intellectually as well as from from a humorous standpoint that we can laugh you know Belloc's talks about this in the path to Rome we laugher he calls us you know have a strange affiliation but we are laugher also you're not just knowers we're not just workers but we laugh what does that mean that's there's something significant about that we don't we don't hear about it in the Gospels you know that we hear that Jesus wept we don't ever see him laughing but we know that he had to and he smiled at the foibles of the Apostles and of other human beings but there is humor and and these are important things so Belloc as well as Chesterton helped me to see that the faith was a tremendous fantastic thing but also there was humor in our lives if the last thing I want to do is be critical of Chesterton he's you know absolutely wonderful witness for the faith in so many ways personally I prefer to bail Locke and he had a bigger impact on my journey and I probably recommended his books more to men and women who are exploring the Catholic Church and one of the reasons I liked Ballack is it seems to me he had a sense of urgency in the things that he wanted to point out were great flaws in our culture flaw and non-catholic Christian traditions the heresies an urgency for pointing out how the Reformation happened and urgency about Western culture and urgency about what what industry was taking us in the time was that urgency something you've seen in the writings of Chester Bella absolutely you know and one of the things that we saw ourselves as an integrated Mannix program and then in reading Belloc after that and founding the Hilaire Belloc society which we did in Kansas and now I have it in Washington DC one of the things was the sense that we have to be kind of warriors that save Western civilization how are we going to save the West you know and that was Belloc's project we got to save the West and so he went about showing you know what had happened what had gone wrong and what was going wrong in his own time but but he also was prophetic of our own times and survivals and new arrivals for instance he he talks about what what we're in the middle of right now the new paganism he talks about the spirit of the times that were in currently as as really worshiping the pleasure and you know achieving material good but not at all concerned about Christ and the church and faith Belloc is is a wonderful teacher about the interconnectedness of history and a Western civilization with the church they didn't happen without each other and the great works you know that we have in our and our art and our science and our you know historical developments all came in tandem with the Catholic Church yeah I remember in reading I think it was and how the Reformation happened or characters of the Reformation really pointing out that it was the closing of the monasteries that really caused so much of the poverty that we read about later in Dickens right you almost the direct connect to there in Dickens writing about what had happened in England but the reason that was there was because the monasteries were gone that always provided the hospital care for the people before they were destroyed during the English Reformation right now Bell looks very good on that showing the the rise of the mercantile class came at the expense of the poor and of the middle or lower middle class of all of Europe really but England he's talking about specifically and this this there was a safety net there that the church provided that the monasteries provided and they they took those lands for the mercantile class they made a deal to take the church and decimate it for the benefit of another class to a certain extent even if they had wanted to return to the church it was tough because they've made all those deals right I mean they put in place a whole new order that we're still living with in a lot of ways the injustice of the system that was created we have an email from Abby from Racine Wisconsin she writes how can I learn more about Hilaire Belloc in his writings I thoroughly enjoy reading Chesterton and have heard that bellick was also a well-respected and prolific catholic author also what is it about bellick that you find so appealing there are certainly many other catholic authors to choose from well bellick was was a great master of the catholic thing he created a world frank she'd said largely the english-speaking catholic world is Hilaire Belloc scree a ssin he was GK Chesterton's Godfather GK Chesterton sat at his feet and learned history he was responsible for the conversions of so many important people including evylyn law Graham Greene and others and bellick is a master of the English language so he is one of the greats of essay writing for instance in poetry father James shawl and others say he's probably the best essayist since the Montaigne and he's certainly the best essayist in the 20th century of the English language so he has a lot to recommend him but I think the important thing for a Catholic is that he gives a richness of history and faith and culture and a recognition of how how things can come back to roost if you do them wrong such as the problem with Islam and and and these these problems of the new paganism but belacan Cheston were they wrote together you know and they were warriors in common I mean they were called the Chester Belloc by bernard shaw so they're not they're not against each other they were friends and so you know bellick was is a very important figure and there's been a resurgence of interest in him and so you can certainly get you know sampling of his work from the essential Belloc but there's other sources and there's other books that have come out recently I just recommend to people they go to the source read the path to Rome or even read the great book like that or survivals in new arrivals or how the Reformation happened or the characters of the Reformation or the great heresies and you will come alive reading him and you'll say now I know why people love them well talk about my favorite book of his the four men it's wonderful well tell them what the book for man if you would and is it for geysers at all bellick well that's a question that many people have grappled with i think i think it's for men that are real characters that really existed in sussex his beloved area of in the south of england West Sussex the Rolling Hills the South Downs where I went to school it's an amazing place and a very magical place I have to actually ended up back there in 1996 for the founding of the inter international air bellick Society which took place in the old school where I went to school oddly near the West Grinstead it's fairly near we went to Wesker instead to his grave it's right it's near arendelle well we're arendelle Castle is and so but the Belloc is a tremendous lover of the countryside and of characters that you meet along the way and it ends the end is a very important image to him of conversation of human warmth and then how we can know God through each other and so the four men is a beautiful reflection on basically a conversation walking peripatetic of these four men that are that also represent probably four aspects of his character when he wrote that the reason I brought that up you see Chesterton and Bella these two deeply committed friends the four men are about friends friendship between men in some ways in the writings of Chesterton and Ballack we see remnants of male friendship that the devil has destroyed in the 20th century I mean you see I'm saying we get glimpses of a culture of friendship between men and men and women and women that has been decimated by the ulterior of lifestyles that are now running rampant in our culture well I think that's true I think one of the great aspects of the integrated humanities program was that friendship that was spawned I went to John's senior at the end of my college time and I said you know I don't feel like I've I've learned a lot I mean I don't know anything I'm an ignoramus he said look you have your whole life to learn he says but you came here for friendship and of course the friendship of my wife and myself was was the greatest friendship that came out of it but this aspect of friendship is very evident in Belloc he was a great friend to many and conversions happened because of that and he sailed and went you know on journeys across the countryside walking with people and through Europe as well we have the Hilaire Belloc Society in Washington DC for instance and we get together we just had had a meeting this last week Rick Santorum was our guest but we have gentlemen get together smoke cigars have a little wine toast have dinner and have a speaker and it's really the friendship and the comradeship that comes out of that that it's about it's not so much about you know the Catholic songs that we sang or the speaker but but really the friendship yeah and it's such a valuable thing to promote this idea of friendship in a culture that really misunderstands intimacy and friendship and we see glimpses of what it was like in the lives and the writings of men like before the tsunami of this change that's overwhelmed our culture we have another eat we have no email what peg from Waterbury what are some wit means by which Catholics can and should shape society for the better what should a culture based on Catholic principles look like well I think that we live in a time that it's becoming evident we have to stand up for the truth we have to speak it out you know that's why I came to Washington DC left Kansas nice comfortable living with a law firm entered public service and suffered a little for that because you know I stood up for the law and I spoke the truth about the law and sometimes certain quarters don't like to hear the truth well that's what we have to do our Lord calls us to be a witness and to speak up when speaking up is the appropriate thing it seems to me going into Washington's like going into the belly of the beast though well it is going to the belly a beast I talked to a friend about it once he said well you went to Washington wearing the cross I said gee I didn't but didn't think I was doing that but I think they may be right because we're marked the word if the word is in you it will bring about conflict it will bring about persecution not necessarily in a dramatic way now have you known for everybody but it does bring contradiction with the world but that rubbing that contradiction is what brings about change it's what brings about conversion when people see you taking a stand being courageous not I'm not talking about being outrageous but you know doing the right thing even when it costs you yeah you know I I sometimes think the reason our non Catholic brothers and sisters who love our Lord Jesus Christ who love Scripture that one of the reason that stands between them and the Catholic Church is because they live in the soup of this utilitarianism that influences a way they then read Scripture which then influences the way they interpret it to carry it out into their lives a suggestion for them you know what can they do what can they read what can they do to break start breaking free that to be able to see the beauty in the truth in the art that we find in the church well I you know would recommend that they go to a monastery and listen to Gregorian chant and see what happens you know if they're in Oklahoma they can go to the Clear Creek monastery there you know or elsewhere that's one way go to a beautiful Mass that said and see the the the art of faith in practice and how beautiful it is I mean John Adams even wrote about that about in when they're in Philadelphia you know what the Constitutional Convention he wasn't at the Constitution convention but the the founding of the the Declaration and he goes into a Catholic Church and sees the mass being said and he is struck by it he says it's so beautiful and that's what people need to do they need to get outside themselves outside of their minds if there's a passage in scripture in the Gospel of John where the Pharisees are talking to our Lord and you know rattling scripture off at him and and he says you think you will find salvation in the scriptures but God is among you and and I do the works of the Father and the father is in me so he's giving them a counterpoint to their obsession with Scripture and of proving things or disproving things in that fashion while well while their hearts are really not attuned to God who's right in front of them there was a French Jesuit priest named father Gro who was one of the priests expelled from France during the Revolution so he ended the 1700s and he talks about the danger of our whole life being focused on salvation he said the problem with that is at the core it's self-centered what we should focus is on the glory of God on loving others and then imitating God and holiness leaving salvation up to him it's how we live out that faith that bellick and others wrote about right right yeah and if you read a book like the path to Rome you will be so delighted if you're not a Catholic or if you're a utilitarian Catholic and you don't see the value of things you'd be so delighted and you so much that you'll realize you know this is good stuff I need more of this Scott thank you thank you Marcus thank you for joining us on the journey home and and again it's the essential bellick and i hope this book would be an encouragement to you hope his journey has been encouragement to you as you follow our Lord and His Church god bless you Oh

Channel: EWTN

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Id: UQozR1yZi6w

Length: 56min 10sec (3370 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 14 2014