31th Annual Chesterton Conference

31th Annual Chesterton Conference
Aug. 2-4, 2012, at the Silver Legacy Hotel (and Casino) in Reno, Nevada.

Saturday, October 23, 2010

November 17th Meeting to Feature "The Honor of Israel Gow"

Why not join us for our November meeting where we will be enjoying a viewing of Chesterton's Father Brown story, "The Honor of Israel Gow?"

From a guy named Geoff Prewett's web site:

The Honor of Israel Gow: The death of a nobleman is investigated by Father Brown and the now private investigator Flambeau. The piles of snuff, candles with no sticks, and the manuscripts with the name of God removed are not dark evil, but merely Israel Gow, who was promised all the gold in the house taking only and exactly what he was given.




Friday, October 22, 2010

October 20 Meeting

There were four of us at this month's meeting. As advertised, we listened to Christopher Check's "Lepanto: The Battle and the Poem." The talk is almost 75 minutes long, ending with a stirring recitation of Chesterton's poem Lepanto. Some of the folks took notes during what could easily be called a Mediterranean Catholic history lesson.


Dale Ahlquist's book was available for review.

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

G.K. Chesterton is Author of the Month at St. Peter Parish

Here are the Chesterton books (top 2 shelves) currently in The Holy Family Library of St. Peter Parish. The collection of Chesterton works is just getting started. Eventually, the Library will have a full collection of Chesterton's Collected Works.


The books on the bottom 2 shelves are on loan for display purposes to The Holy Family Library from my library.


Saturday, September 18, 2010

Uncommonsense Podcast 32, Chesterton and Public Schools


The Chillicothe Chesterton Society and I get a mention in the latest Uncommonsense Podcast by Nancy Brown. Click the start button on the Podcast icon to the left.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

September Meeting

Well, we had our first meeting in the St. Peter Parish library, The Holy Family Library. Several folks attended, which was a nice change from the last couple of meetings which were held in our previous venue. We read a couple of essays aloud from What's Wrong With The World and then commented on them. I fielded a question on Distributism and felt fairly comfortable with my answer.

We agreed to read and discuss Lepanto at our next (October) meeting. We're going to use Christopher Check's "Lepanto: The Battle and the Poem" CD as a major part of the meeting.

Finally, the folks who manage the library have asked if we could put together a display having G.K. Chesterton featured as the "Author of the Month" and also put a notice about it in the Parish Bulletin.

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Draft Article for the St. Peter's Parish Newsletter

Chillicothe Chesterton Society

The Chillicothe Chesterton Society will now meet in the new Holy Family Library of St. Peter’s Parish Hall. While the previous meetings of the Society have been held at Schlegel’s Coffee House, all future meetings, beginning on September 15th, will be held in the new Library. Meetings are held on the 3rd Wednesday of the month, at 7 p.m. The meetings are scheduled for an hour.


The Chillicothe Chesterton Society is a group of people who are interested in the writings of British author Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874 - 1936). Here is some information on Chesterton which is taken from the web site of the American Chesterton Society. This was written by the President of the Society, Dale Ahlquist.


Chesterton argued eloquently against all the trends that eventually took over the 20th century: materialism, scientific determinism, moral relativism, and spineless agnosticism. He also argued against both socialism and capitalism and showed why they have both been the enemies of freedom and justice in modern Society.
And what did he argue for? What was it he defended? He defended "the common man" and common sense. He defended the poor. He defended the family. He defended beauty. And he defended Christianity and the Catholic Faith. These don’t play well in the classroom, in the media, or in the public arena. And that is probably why he is neglected. The modern world prefers writers who are snobs, who have exotic and bizarre ideas, who glorify decadence, who scoff at Christianity, who deny the dignity of the poor, and who think freedom means no responsibility.

The Chillicothe Chesterton Society was formed a couple of years ago as a local Society of the American Chesterton Society. The goals of the national society and the local societies are the same: to reintroduce people to the writings of G.K. Chesterton. Last year, as part of that effort, St. Peter’s and the Society sponsored presentations by Dr. John C. Chalberg in “An Evening With G.K. Chesterton” and “Old Thunder: An Evening With Hilaire Belloc.” Fans of EWTN recognized Dr. Chalberg as portraying G.K. Chesterton on “The Apostle of Common Sense” and Kevin O’Brien, President and Artistic Director of The Theater of The Word, as having portrayed just about everybody: Belloc, Father Brown, Stanford Nutting, etc.


For more information on the Chillicothe Chesterton Society check out our blog at chillicothe-chestertonian.blogspot.com or find us on Facebook at Chillicothe Chesterton Society. There are links on those sites to the American Chesterton Society.

Sunday, August 29, 2010

Subject for September 15, 2010 Meeting - What's Wrong With The World


The 29th Annual Chesterton Conference has just ended (Aug 7, 2010). The Conference celebrated the 100th anniversary of Chesterton's book What's Wrong With The World. You can still see the Conference agenda here. You can read WWWTW at Project Gutenberg here. While it was not listed on the agenda, we had a great treat when G.K. himself made a special appearance. Yes, Chuck Chalberg (pictured above) attended the Conference and donned his wig, cape, hat, pince-nez and swordstick, as he provided a short visit from Mr. Chesterton. The crowd loved it.

At any rate, all that was simply to alert potential meeting attendees to the fact that the initial subject of discussion at the meeting will be selected essays from WWWTW. I'll suggest these three; The Emancipation of Domesticity, The Modern Slave, and Folly and Female Education. I'll have copies of those available. We can, of course, discuss anything and everything.