Chesterton and me

Nota do blog - O pessoal da Chesterton Review, revista publicada pelo Institute for Faith and Culture, me pediu para escrever um texto curto, para ser publicado na seção de cartas da próxima edição da revista, sobre a influência que Chesterton teve em minha reaproximação da Igreja. Eis aqui o texto que enviei para a revista. Deixo-o na língua de Shakespeare ... e de Chesterton. Espero não tê-la maltratado muito.

This is a little story on how Chesterton can influence people still today. It all began with Father Brown. I do not remember which short story I read first, but after this, I have read them all. The next thing I remember is the final paragraph of the Introduction to Heretics: “So, gradually and inevitably, to-day, to-morrow, or the next day, there comes back the conviction that the monk was right after all, and that all depends on what is the philosophy of Light.  Only what we might have discussed under the gas-lamp, we now must discuss in the dark.” Yes, the monk was right; he has been right all along. 

With Heretics I realized, guided by Chesterton, the superiority of Christianity, not only over other religions, but over other philosophies, over other metaphysics, and mainly, over all current cultural fads. Armed with those chestertonian weapons I then read Orthodoxy, which consolidated the Christian view I needed to re-approximate to the Church, the Catholic Church, without any shred of doubt, be it philosophical or doctrinal; “there comes back the conviction that the monk was right after all”. Then came the other books, which I am still reading and re-reading and translating to Portuguese. 

Chesterton has a very important role in my re-conversion to Catholicism. With him at my side, I could retake my early life devotion without any contradiction with the most basic metaphysical principles. I think that is what he called common sense. Chesterton reestablished the common sense in me, for what I am forever grateful to him. 

This gratefulness made me feel the responsibility to present Chesterton to my fellow countrymen, to set them free from all the cultural garbage that is flying around; cultural garbage that existed in Chesterton’s time and against which he fought so hardly and so brilliantly.  It is interesting to observe, from e-mails I received from readers of my blog, how strong and effective the influence of Chesterton can be, especially among young adults, most of them university students. Once they are exposed to Chesterton’s essays, articles and books, it is difficult for them to avoid being infected by the chestertonian common sense; no surprise he is called “the apostle of common sense”. 

Thus Chesterton has been for me not only an intellectual adventure (to read and translate him) but also a spiritual journey to the core of the Faith: “there comes back the conviction that the monk was right after all”.