Religiosity

The Unitarianism in the family environment

Religiosity was present throughout Chesterton’s life. His parents were followers of the Unitarian Church, though they did not attend religious ceremonies regularly. Gilbert was baptized according to this creed at St George’s Church. The family atmosphere was based on respect and freedom, so the children were never made to go to church. The Chestertons went to Bedford Chapel to listen to the sermons of preacher Stopford Brooke, a critical and unruly Unitarian.

Existential and religious crisis

The influence of Reverend Brooke’s sermons distanced Gilbert from the Unitarian Church. He went through a period of agnosticism, but even at this stage he continued to write poems to the unknown God, to the Virgin Mary and to Saint Francis of Assisi, all of them published in the Debater, the journal of the Junior Debating Club. The end of this youth club’s activities, the dispersion of its members and the sceptical and decadent environment at the Slade School of Fine Art led him to an existential crisis. In 1900 he met the Catholic historian Hilaire Belloc, who will become a great friend. On the religious side of things, his marriage to Frances Blogg and his friendship with the cleric Conrad Noel brought him closer to Anglo-Catholicism.

Anglo-Catholicism and the Christian Social Union

Chesterton’s relationship with Frances Blogg, a practicing Anglo-Catholic committed to her parish of St Michael and All Angels in Bedford Park, their engagement and his friendship with the cleric Conrad Noel brought him closer to Anglo-Catholicism; after going through an agnostic phase, Noel conveyed a serious and consistent vision of religion. Chesterton and his brother Cecil attended the meetings Noel organized at the parish of St Mary’s in Paddington Green. During this period, he collaborated extensively in the affairs of the Christian Social Union. In 1904 he took part in the Liverpool Church Congress.

Conversion to the Catholic Church

When Chesterton published The Napoleon of Notting Hill he received a letter praising the novel. It was written by John O’Connor, a Catholic priest from the parish of St Anne’s Catholic Church in Keighley. They subsequently met in person and, while strolling through the Ilkley marshes, a friendship developed which would prove decisive in his conversion. His rapprochement to Rome was slow and protracted. In 1911 he published The Innoncence of Father Brown, the first volume of the series, whose main protagonist is a Catholic detective priest inspired in his friend O’Connor. The influence of his friends Belloc and Baring, and that of the clerics Ronald Knox, Vincent McNabb, Ignatius Rice and the aforementioned O’Connor helped Gilbert take the definitive step in 1922. From that moment on his literary and journalistic career was centred on the defence of the Catholic faith. He published two biographical essays, St Francis of Assisi (1923) and St Thomas Aquinas: The Dumb Ox (1933). In 1932 he attended the Eucharistic Congress in Dublin. The Vatican invested him as Knight Commander with Star of the Order of Saint Gregory the Great. On his death in 1936, a funeral was held in Westminster Cathedral.