… what of the ‘sins’ of the title? Here too it may be a question of weakness. Ingrams has Chesterton led astray, like a medieval king, by evil counsellors. There were two: his adored younger brother, Cecil, and his admired mentor Hilaire Belloc. Chesterton had a better mind and sharper intellect than either of them, as well as a kinder and more generous, if weaker, character. He and Cecil had always loved arguing, but Gilbert argued for the pleasure of disputing, Cecil for victory. Cecil, short and ugly, seemed to Leonard Woolf to have ‘a grudge against the universe’, whereas Gilbert ‘gave one the immediate impression of goodwill, particular and general’.
I think that Chesterton’s antisemitism disqualifies him from canonization. All of these people should have known better (though plenty of people don’t seem to either.
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