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G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc discussing Hitler and the Jews (1933-1937)
Some of G. K. Chesterton’s fervent defenders (especially those who would like to see him declared a saint) argue that he could never have been antisemitic because he was a staunch and early critic of Hitler. The argument that he could not have been antisemitic on the grounds that he criticised Hitler is weak and unsound. Interpreted in the very best light, it would only demonstrate that Chesterton, in the final years of his life, eventually overcame his anti-Jewish discourse. However, the evidence does not even support the conclusion that he overcome his antisemitic prejudice, for there is little to suggest that he actually altered or softened his opinions about Jews or the so-called “Jewish Problem” after Hitler rose to power in Germany. If anything, Chesterton considered his critiques of “Hitlerism” and Nazi antisemitism to be entirely consistent with his earlier deprecating stereotypes of the Jew and his proposed solutions to the Jewish Problem. As far as Chesterton was concerned, the rise of Hitlerism clarified the urgency of solving the so-called Jewish Problem. Significantly, he not only continued to maintain his antisemitic stereotypes of the Jew from 1933 onwards, he incorporated them into the very articles in which he condemned and criticised Hitlerism. So yes, he did say in an oft-quoted interview in 1933 that he was “quite ready to believe” that he and Belloc would “die defending the last Jew in Europe” (“Mr. G. K. Chesterton on Truculent Prussianism,” Jewish Chronicle, 22 September 1933, 14.) But then he also claimed in G.K.’s Weekly in July 1933 that “it is perfectly true that the Jews have been very powerful in Germany. It is only just to Hitler to say that they have been too powerful in Germany.” Chesterton argued that it will be very difficult for Hitler to persuade Germans to amputate the Jewish contributions to German culture, such as Heinrich Heine and Felix Mendelssohn. “But again,” he continued, “it is but just to Hitlerism to say that the Jews did infect Germany with a good many things less harmless than the lyrics of Heine or the melodies of Mendelssohn.” Chesterton went on to state that “it is true that many Jews toiled at that obscure conspiracy against Christendom, which some of them can never abandon; and sometimes it was marked not be obscurity but obscenity. It is true that they were financiers, or in other words usurers; it is true that they fattened on the worst forms of Capitalism; and it is inevitable that, on losing these advantages of Capitalism, they naturally took refuge in its other form, which is Communism” (G. K. Chesterton, “The Judaism of Hitler,” G.K.’s Weekly, 20 July 1933, 311).
G. K. Chesterton, “The Judaism of Hitler,” G.K.’s Weekly, 20 July 1933.
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Chesterton repeated the antisemitic stereotype of rich greedy Jews in other articles that were critical of Hitler. For example, in an essay entitled “On War Books,” he condemned “Herr Hitler and his group” for “beat[ing] and bully[ing] poor Jews in concentration camps,” but then he stated that “what is even worse, they do not beat or bully rich Jews who are at the head of big banking houses” (G. K. Chesterton, “On War Books,” G.K.’s Weekly, 10 October 1935, 28). Interestingly, a later version of this essay, published posthumously in a volume entitled The End of the Armistice in 1940, omits the entire sentence in which Chesterton lamented that rich banking Jews escaped the beating and bullying (G. K. Chesterton, “On War Books,” in The End of the Armistice, edited by Frank Sheed, London: Sheed & Ward, 1940, 192). Presumably the decision to remove the offensive sentence was made by Frank Sheed, the volume’s editor and publisher.
Chesterton repeated the stereotype of the pro-German Jew in his critique of Hitler. He asked, “was Hitler really so ignorant, that he did not know that the Jews were the prop of the Pro-German cause throughout the world?” (G. K. Chesterton, “A Very Present Help,” G.K.’s Weekly, 4 May 1933, 135). Chesterton criticised Hitler, and then repeated his claim that there is a Jewish Problem. He stated that “there is a Jewish problem; there is certainly a Jewish culture; and I am inclined to think that it really was too prevalent in Germany. For here we have the Hitlerites themselves, in plain words, saying they are a Chosen Race. Where could they have got that notion? Where could they even have got that phrase, except from the Jews?” (G. K. Chesterton, “A Queer Choice,” G.K.’s Weekly, 29 November 1934, 207).
Chesterton’s criticisms of Dreyfus and the Dreyfusards, which he often repeated throughout his journalistic career (link for G. K. Chesterton and the Dreyfus affair), were also repeated in his critiques of Hitler. He stated in March 1933 that when England “wanted to abuse France, where there is really very little real Anti-Semitism, we turned the world upside about the condemnation of one isolated individual Jewish officer, who had attained a high position of confidence, and who was charged, rightly or wrongly, with violating that confidence.” Chesterton combined criticising the Germans for persecuting Jews with repeating his earlier assertions that Dreyfus was probably a Germany spy. According to Chesterton, the English were never informed that “Dreyfus had got leave to go to Italy and used it to go to Germany; or that he was seen in German uniform at the German manoeuvres.” Chesterton criticised Hitler for persecuting ordinary Jews, and then observed that in the case of Dreyfus, the “particular Jew in France may or may not have been a traitor; but at least he was tried for being a traitor” (G. K. Chesterton, “The Horse and the Hedge,” G.K.’s Weekly, 30 March 1933, 55). As Julia Stapleton has rightly noted, it seems that it never occurred to Chesterton to question whether there was any truth in the highly dubious allegations that Dreyfus was seen “in German uniform at the German manoeuvres,” or whether the claims “were suspect and thus beyond the realms of responsible journalism” (Julia Stapleton, Christianity, Patriotism, and Nationhood: The England of G. K. Chesterton, Plymouth: Lexington Books, 2009).
Chesterton also sometimes defended Hitler as if he were a mere puppet or “tool”. In September 1934, he stated that “I may possibly cause some surprise, if I conclude the composite portrait by saying that in certain aspects, and under certain limitations, I do not believe that Hitler is altogether a bad fellow; and that he is almost certainly a much better fellow than the men who are going to use him.” Chesterton suggested that in the beginning “he did really intend to do something for the poor, and especially for the peasants.” If he “did not do enough for his better ideas, and later did much more for his worst ones,” Chesterton argued, then “the reason is quite simply that he is not the Dictator.” He concluded that Hitler’s puppeteer or “drill-sergeant” will “soon give him his marching orders again” (G. K. Chesterton, “The Tool,” G.K.’s Weekly, 6 September 1934, 8-9). He repeated this idea in March 1936, when Hitler ordered the occupation of the Rhineland in contravention of the Versailles treaty. Chesterton stated that: “I have always said that there were healthy elements in Hitlerism, and even in Hitler; indeed I rather suspect that Hitler is one of the healthy elements in Hitlerism.” Chesterton argued that Hitler was “a better man than the men around him or behind him” (G. K. Chesterton, “Why did he do it?”, G.K.’s Weekly, 26 March 1936, 18).
As mentioned near the beginning of this short essay, Chesterton did say in an interview in 1933, that he was “quite ready to believe” that he and his close friend Hilaire Belloc would “die defending the last Jew in Europe”. Like Chesterton, Belloc did criticise Nazism. Chesterton and Belloc were also both staunch critics of the eugenics movement – though Chesterton’s book on eugenics included caricatures of Jews (See G. K. Chesterton, Eugenics and Other Evils, London: Cassell and Company, 1922; “Hilaire Belloc and the Ministry of Health,” Catholic Federationist, September 1920, 6). However, also like Chesterton, Belloc’s defence of Jews was somewhat equivocal. In his third edition of The Jews published in 1937, Belloc framed the problem of the Nazi persecution of Jews as one primarily of efficacy in solving the so-called “Jewish Problem”. Belloc asked what effect Nazi policy would “have upon a solution of the Jewish question?” “Is it,” he asked, “an advance towards a just solution of that question or not?” He observed that “there is no doubt that the Nazi attack was sincere” and that “there is no doubt that in the eyes of its authors it was provoked by a situation which they thought intolerable.” But the “Nazi attack”, he concluded, could be “neither thorough nor final.” Belloc argued that “it is not immoral, to declare a new policy and to say, ‘we will in future regard Jews as citizens of a different class from those around them, their hosts.” However, he concluded that the attack was unjust because “when things of that kind are done, justice demands that the effect shall be gradual, and that the loser by any new regulation shall be compensated.” It seems however that the main point of contention for Belloc was not that the Nazi policy was unjust, but that it was a failed policy. “The Nazi attack upon such of the Jewish race as are subject to Berlin is,” Belloc concluded, “not thorough, not final, but incomplete, and I think soon to prove abortive.” According to Belloc, “the policy has missed its mark, on lower grounds: it has missed its mark, because it has not dared to be thorough and has not had the competence to be well thought out” (Hilaire Belloc, The Jews, third edition, London: Constable, 1937, xxxix- xliii).
At best these essays by G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc reveal an ambivalent sentiment about Jews (which is to say, thinly veiled antipathy towards Jews, combined with equivocal defences of them). They were more an attack on what Chesterton referred to as “truculent Prussianism”, and an equivocal criticism of Hitler, than a defence of Jews. And this was the period in which, according to his defenders, Chesterton’s discourse about Jews was at its most sympathetic.
For more about G. K. Chesterton’s antisemitism, see: Chesterton’s Jews: Stereotypes and Caricatures in the Literature and Journalism of G. K. Chesterton
“Ludicrous, surreal” defence of G. K. Chesterton
A few days ago, Michael Coren reported a so-called “ludicrous, surreal episode” [1]. The episode in question was a Twitter discussion about a claim made in one of his books that the Wiener Library defends G. K. Chesterton from the charge of antisemitism. From the language employed, one might imagine a particularly bitter exchange, for Coren uses phrases such as the following to describe – and presumably to deter – those who dare to criticise Chesterton: “monomania, wrapped in the last acceptable prejudice of anti-Catholicism,” “the fundamentalism of those so committed to damaging Chesterton’s reputation,” and “the most extreme, bizarre lengths to have their way” [1]. The ad hominem tactic of dismissing out of hand the critics of Chesterton as “anti-Catholic” is regrettable and unfounded (especially as the discussion in question focused on Chesterton and the Wiener Library and not Chesterton’s Catholicism). Speaking for myself, I harbour no hostility for Catholics or Catholicism, and my concerns about Chesterton end with his hostile stereotypes and caricatures (about Jews and other “Others”). If I harbour a prejudice it is – to use a phrase once used by Chesterton to describe the sentiments of Americans – “a prejudice against Anti-Semitism; a prejudice of Anti-Anti-Semitism” [2].
But back to the article. Coren points out that he devoted a chapter to the issue of Chesterton’s discourse about Jews, and that only “one brief passage concerned London’s Wiener Library, a small institution devoted to the study of the Holocaust and anti-Semitism.” He stated that: “I spent a morning there in 1985 and discussed my research with a librarian. He told me that Chesterton was never seriously anti-Semitic. ‘He was not an enemy, and when the real testing time came along he showed what side he was on.’” Coren then expresses his indignation that “a self-published writer in Britain” – a reference to my recent examination of Chesterton’s stereotyping in Chesterton’s Jews – “demanded a name, proof, a reference.” “Sorry, mate: no name, no proof, and it was, as I say, a quarter of a century ago,” Coren replies. [1]
If Coren had originally stated merely that he had discussed his research with “a librarian” and that this librarian had defended Chesterton, then this would indeed be a relative non-issue (though a source citation would still have been useful). However, in the New Statesman in 1986 he attributed the defence of Chesterton to “the Wiener Institute” [3]. And in his biography of Chesterton the statement in defence of Chesterton is attributed to “the Wiener Library” [4]. There is of course a world of difference between the personal sentiment of an unnamed librarian and the position of the Wiener Library. Interestingly, he now describes the Wiener Library as “a small institution,” whereas back in 1986 when he was citing the Wiener Library in defence of Chesterton, he described the Wiener Library as “the best monitors of anti-semitism in Britain” [3].
The real issue is not Coren’s book per se – as he acknowledges, there have been plenty of subsequent biographies of Chesterton, and “some of them, frankly, rather better” than his [1]. However, subsequent authors have taken Coren’s earlier claim that the Wiener Library defended Chesterton at face value, and have repeated it in books, articles and web sites. As Ben Barkow, the current director of the Wiener Library states, “numerous websites cite a made-up quotation by the Library stating that Chesterton was not antisemitic. Our efforts to have these false attributions removed have largely failed” [5]. As a result, the myth that the Wiener Library defends Chesterton from the charge of antisemitism has acquired currency, when according to Coren’s latest article, he only discussed his research with an unnamed librarian he once met there [1] [6].
Turning to Coren’s other main point, he observes that Chesterton was “an early anti-Nazi” [1]. Here Coren is on safer – which is not to say solid – ground, and many of Chesterton’s defenders make the same point. Chesterton was anti-Nazi and it would be unfair to equate his particular brand of anti-Jewish discourse with Nazi antisemitism. However, if we are going to be fair and balanced, we should also point out that often in the very same articles in which Chesterton criticised Nazi antisemitism, he also repeated the stereotypes and caricatures of Jews that he had maintained before the 1930s. His defence of Jews was therefore not without its equivocation. Let’s look at a few examples. In March 1933, he criticised Hitler’s antisemitism, but then repeated his old claim that the English were never allowed to hear that “Dreyfus had got leave to go to Italy and used it to go to Germany; or that he was seen in German uniform at the German manoeuvres” [7]. In July 1933, he criticised “Hitlerism”, but then observed that it was “only just to Hitler” to point out that the Jews “have been too powerful in Germany.” He stated that “it is but just to Hitlerism to say that the Jews did infect Germany with a good many things less harmless than the lyrics of Heine or the melodies of Mendelssohn. It is true that many Jews toiled at that obscure conspiracy against Christendom, which some of them can never abandon; and sometimes it was marked not be obscurity but obscenity. It is true that they were financiers, or in other words usurers; it is true that they fattened on the worst forms of Capitalism; and it is inevitable that, on losing these advantages of Capitalism, they naturally took refuge in its other form, which is Communism” [8]. In November 1934, he criticised “the Hitlerites”, but then stated that: “There is a Jewish problem; there is certainly a Jewish culture; and I am inclined to think that it really was too prevalent in Germany. For here we have the Hitlerites themselves, in plain words, saying they are a Chosen Race. Where could they have got that notion? Where could they even have got that phrase, except from the Jews?” [9]. (For more on Chesterton’s discourse about Hitler and the Jews, see G. K. Chesterton discussing Hitler and the Jews, 1933-1936).
Coren concludes that he would rather be in the “valley with Gilbert than the peak with his critics,” because according to Chesterton it is possible to see “only small things from the peak” [1]. If viewing Chesterton’s discourse from the valley means missing such “small” details as these, then I am happy to occupy “the peak with his critics.”
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Notes for “Ludicrous, surreal” defence of G. K. Chesterton
1. Michael Coren, “‘Ludicrous, surreal episode’ against G. K. Chesterton returns,” The B.C. Catholic, 13 September 2013, http://bcc.rcav.org/opinion-and-editorial/3069-canonization-attempt-resurrects-anti-semitic-claim (downloaded 17 September 2013).
2. G. K. Chesterton, What I Saw in America (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1922), 140-142.
3. Michael Coren, “Just bad friends,” review of G. K. Chesterton: A Biography, by Michael Ffinch, New Statesman, 8 August 1986, 30.
4. Michael Coren, Gilbert: The Man Who Was G. K. Chesterton (London: Jonathan Cape, 1989), 209-210.
5. Ben Barkow, “Director’s Letter,” Wiener Library News, Winter 2010, 2.
6. For an examination of this resilient myth, see Simon Mayers, “The resilient myth that the Wiener Library defends G. K. Chesterton from the charge of antisemitism,” 1 September 2013, https://simonmayers.com/2013/09/01/the-resilient-myth-that-the-wiener-library-defends-g-k-chesterton-from-the-charge-of-antisemitism/ (downloaded 17 September 2013).
7. G. K. Chesterton, “The Horse and the Hedge,” Straws in the Wind, G.K.’s Weekly, 30 March 1933, 55.
8. G. K. Chesterton, “The Judaism of Hitler,” Straws in the Wind, G.K.’s Weekly, 20 July 1933, 311-312.
9. G. K. Chesterton, “A Queer Choice,” Straws in the Wind, G.K.’s Weekly, 29 November 1934, 207.
Further reports of G.K. Chesterton’s cause for canonization being advanced: The BBC, Independent and Spectator
Since my last blog posting (17 August 2013) there have been further reports of G.K. Chesterton’s cause for canonization being advanced. In addition to an on-going flurry of twitter posts, there have now been online reports by the Independent, the Spectator and the BBC. According to the BBC: “Bishop Peter Doyle said he had spoken to the ACS and would appoint a priest to make ‘tentative inquiries’” (the ACS is the American Chesterton Society). This, according to the BBC, “is the first official step towards the possible canonization of Mr Chesterton.”
The following are some of the posts relating to this event:
The BBC: “G.K. Chesterton: Bishop of Northampton probes sainthood claims”
The Independent (Oscar Quine): “Saint GK Chesterton? Bishop begins preliminary tests for canonisation of writer”
The Spectator (Melanie McDonagh): “Why G.K. Chesterton shouldn’t be made a saint”
Catholic News Agency (Kevin Jones): “Possible sainthood cause for Chesterton sparks excitement”
Catholic Herald (Francis Phillips): “I hope Chesterton is canonised and made a new patron saint of journalists”
Catholic Herald (William Oddie): “Chesterton’s Cause has not yet been officially opened: but this is surely the beginning of the end of many years of prayer for that day to come”
Jewish Chronicle (Oliver Kamm): “G K Chesterton: a writer unfit to be a saint”
It will be interesting to see if Chesterton’s antisemitic stereotypes and caricatures of greedy, usurious, capitalist, bolshevist, cowardly, disloyal and secretive Jews, which appeared not only in his fictional works but also in his journalism and articles in the New Witness and G.K.’s Weekly, will be taken into account when considering his worthiness to be considered a saint. It is of course not my place to venture a theological judgement on the holiness of Chesterton and his suitability for beatification. A number of individuals recognised by the Church as saints also wrote texts and sermons which contained hostile images and stereotypes of “the Jew” (for example, John Chrysostom’s Adversus Judaeos). Whilst I decline to advance a religious or theological opinion, I would venture a purely social one. Considering Chesterton’s discourse about “the Jew” and the so-called “Jewish Problem”, which was replete with ugly deprecating stereotypes, the appropriateness and wisdom of considering him a saint or a prophet is, from the perspective of promoting understanding rather than misunderstanding between Christians and Jews, at the very least questionable.
Chesterton, Jews and Sainthood: Bishop approves investigation of G. K. Chesterton’s Cause
Many of G. K. Chesterton’s admirers fervently deny the presence of anti-Jewish hostility in his writings. For example, in 2008, a special double issue of Gilbert Magazine, the periodical of the American Chesterton Society, devoted sixty pages to “Chesterton & the Jews.” According to the editor, Sean Dailey, the aim of the issue was to “deal in a thorough and forthright manner with the oft-repeated accusation against G. K. Chesterton, that he was an anti-Semite.” According to Dailey, in the various essays and reviews in the issue of Gilbert Magazine, “we take the ‘mean and wretched lie’ that Chesterton was an anti-Semite, and tear the entrails out of it.” According to Dale Ahlquist, president of the American Chesterton Society, the accusation of antisemitism is “poisonous.” Ahlquist later stated that “it’s an unfair charge, and it gets repeated and repeated.” The accusation, he concluded, “has to stop.” See Sean P. Dailey, “Tremendous Trifles,” Gilbert Magazine 12, no. 2&3 (November/December 2008), 4; Dale Ahlquist, “Chesterton and Anti-Semitism: A Personal Reflection,” Gilbert Magazine 12, no. 2&3 (November/December 2008), 6-7; Dale Ahlquist, “I am Fond of Jews,” Gilbert Magazine 12, no. 2&3 (November/December 2008), 20-27; “Chesterton and the Jews,” Chesterton Review XXXV, no.1&2 (Spring/Summer 2009), 216.
In his booklet on Chesterton as a prophet for the twenty-first century, Aidan Mackey described it as “deplorable that it is still sometimes necessary to deal with the empty old charge that G.K.C. was anti-Jewish.” He argued that Chesterton did attack Jews, “but not for being Jews, but only as individuals, for what they did or for what he genuinely thought they had done.” Mackey concludes that Chesterton was not anti-Jewish, and that he wrote in “more open days when differences could be discussed without incurring the wrath of the Politically Correct.” “Only Jewish people,” he suggests, “are to be held exempt from any criticism at all.” See Aidan Mackey, G. K. Chesterton: A Prophet for the 21st Century (IHS Press, [2009]), 23, 28.
Chesterton however did not confine himself to discussing religious or cultural differences, or the faults of particular Jews as individuals. My recent book, Chesterton’s Jews: Stereotypes and Caricatures in the Literature and Journalism of G. K. Chesterton, reveals that he repeatedly stereotyped and caricatured the Jew qua Jew in his fictional and non-fictional works and journalism. This began in the early twentieth century. Before the twentieth century, Chesterton expressed sympathy for Jews and hostility towards antisemitism. He was agitated by Russian pogroms and felt sympathy for Captain Dreyfus. However, from circa 1906 onwards, he started to fear the presence of Jews in Christian society. He frequently repeated antisemitic stereotypes of Jewish greed, usury, capitalism, bolshevism, cowardice, disloyalty and secrecy. Rather than defending Dreyfus, as he had at the end of the nineteenth century, he started to argue that there was evidence that Dreyfus had obtained a passport for Italy and then secretly gone to Germany, where he had been seen in German uniform at German army manoeuvres. He also argued that the Jewish Problem was an intrinsic fact that needed to be recognised and addressed.
One explanation for the heated language of some of Chesterton’s defenders is that some believe that Chesterton was an important figure within the Church, perhaps even a prophet or a saint. In fact, a growing number of people would like to see Chesterton canonised as a saint, and no doubt some are concerned that the accusation of antisemitism might prove an obstacle to such efforts. The holiness of Chesterton was raised at least as early as 1986, when Cardinal Emmett Carter, the Archbishop of Toronto, stated that “there is no dearth of holy lay persons, many of whom have exercised a truly prophetic role within the Church and in the world. Such, in my opinion, was Gilbert Keith Chesterton.” He did not suggest starting a Cause for Chesterton’s beatification, but only because of the problems he believed it might create. One such problem was that “if Chesterton ever starred in a canonisation process,” some of his remarks “might upset the whole ecumenical movement.” However, according to William Oddie, Cardinal Carter subsequently “withdrew his reservations.” See Gerald Emmett Carter, “Homily for the Mass of Anniversary of the Death of G. K. Chesterton,” Chesterton Review XII, no.4 (1986), 439-440; William Oddie, “A New Kind of Saint?”, Catholic World Report, June 1995, 59.
There is a vein of deep admiration for Chesterton in Argentina, and Basil Hume, the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster from 1976 to 1999, was approached in the early 1990s by a number of important people from Argentina with a proposal to have Chesterton beatified. The letter that was sent to the Cardinal Archbishop, which asked for the initiation of procedures that would lead to the beatification of Chesterton, was signed by politicians, diplomats and an archbishop. According to a report posted in the Daily Mail Online just a few days ago (11 August 2013) by Jonathan Petre: “Just days before he was elected Pope in March, the then Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, wrote to a Chesterton society in Argentina approving the wording of a private prayer calling for his canonisation.” According to the report, “Pope Francis is known to be a fan of Chesterton’s work.”
A number of Chesterton’s current admirers and defenders embrace a similar hagiographic discourse. William Oddie has argued that Chesterton should be recognised as a saint on a number of occasions. Dale Ahlquist refers to Chesterton as “the apostle of common sense,” but like Aidan Mackey, he suggests that he could also be called “a prophet.” One of his “prophecies,” Ahlquist suggests, was his warnings about Hitler and the violent persecution of the Jews. Like William Oddie, Ahlquist has also argued that Chesterton should be recognised as an important saint whose Cause for beatification needs to be moved forward. See William Oddie, “A New Kind of Saint?”, Catholic World Report, June 1995; William Oddie, ed., The Holiness of G. K. Chesterton (Leominster: Gracewing, 2010), 1-19, 124-140; William Oddie, “The Holiness of Chesterton,” Catholic Herald, 5 June 2009, 8; Dale Ahlquist, G. K. Chesterton: The Apostle of Common Sense (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2003), 173-174; Dale Ahlquist, “St. G.K.C.?”, an episode of G. K. Chesterton: The Apostle of Common Sense, EWTN Global Catholic Network.
The Catholic Herald reported in June 2009 that Chesterton’s reputation for holiness was going to be considered by a number of scholars at a conference in Oxford in July 2009. The Chesterton Society has produced prayer cards with a prayer for the intercession of Chesterton. These have been well received in America, have been translated into Italian and Spanish, and according to Oddie, “indications are emerging that the prayer is being widely used, sometimes in circumstances of grave illness.” A website for “the Catholic G. K. Chesterton Society” has taken the text from the prayer cards and produced a version for people to print out. The prayer cards were distributed and well received at a one-day symposium at Beaconsfield in October 2010. The question of the holiness of Chesterton was again raised at this gathering. The main focus of the symposium was G. K. Chesterton and Cardinal Newman. Newman was recently beatified and it seems that one purpose of the symposium was to suggest that Chesterton was the natural successor to the Cardinal. In June 2009, Oddie observed that there could be no Cause towards Chesterton’s beatification until evidence of a cult could be demonstrated, though he suggested that such a movement was emerging in America. He suggested in 2010 that a similar movement is emerging in England, and that “a cult of Gilbert Chesterton” has existed for many years in other countries such as Italy and Argentina. See “Scholars to meet in Oxford to discuss Cause of Chesterton,” Catholic Herald, 5 June 2009, 1; William Oddie, ed., The Holiness of G. K. Chesterton (Leominster: Gracewing, 2010), 1-19, 124-140; William Oddie, “The Holiness of Chesterton,” Catholic Herald, 5 June 2009, 8.
A flurry of twitter posts, blog posts and news reports in the past few days suggest that the Cause of Chesterton has just been moved forward significantly. According to these reports, which can be found on the online reporting and blogs for the Daily Mail, Catholic Herald and Catholic News Agency, the present Pope is sympathetic to the Cause of Chesterton (having approved the wording of a prayer for Chesterton’s intercession), and the Bishop of Northampton, Peter Doyle, has ordered an examination of Chesterton’s life which may be the first step in a formal campaign for his canonisation. According to William Oddie’s recent blog posting in the Catholic Herald (7 August 2013), the Bishop has given the Chesterton Society permission to say that he “is sympathetic to our wishes and is seeking a suitable cleric to begin an investigation into the potential for opening a cause for [G K] Chesterton”.
It is of course common to find some faults with any potential saint. In fact it has been common practice for “the Promoter of the Faith” – or ‘Devil’s Advocate’ – to present reasons against the Cause proceeding. Cardinal Carter’s original reservations were principally that the Devil’s Advocate would bring to light narratives that might upset ecumenical movements. However, the proposition that Chesterton only disliked particular Jews (the argument of his defenders) is problematized by a detailed examination of his discourse, with its proposed solutions to the so-called Jewish Problem and its antisemitic stereotypes and caricatures of greed, usury, capitalism, bolshevism, cowardice, disloyalty and secrecy, which were generalised not to a handful of particular Jews but to the Jews in general. It seems fair to conclude that from the perspective of promoting understanding rather than misunderstanding between Christians and Jews, the wisdom of considering Chesterton a saint is at the very least questionable.
Religious Histories and Discourses 
