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The War for Christendom

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The War for Christendom

Tag Archives: G.K. Chesterton

Integralism Resurgent

21 Saturday Apr 2018

Posted by Matthew Scarince in Christendom

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

christendom, Civilization, G.K. Chesterton, Integralism, Praxis, The Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy, Tradistae

Theology without praxis is the theology of demons

—Attributed to St. Maximos the Confessor

This short yet poignant sentence has been adopted as the motto of the new and growing movement, the Tradistae. Taking their inspiration from Integralists of the old guard, Pater Edmund von Waldstein of Sancrucensis and the writers of The Josias, their goal is the same: to bring about a civilization ordered to the Common Good and cooperation of the Spiritual and the Temporal. And their means of bringing it about is very simple and yet profound: to practice the Spiritual and Corporal Works of Mercy.

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The Virtue of Patriotism contra Thearchic Nationalism

13 Tuesday Jun 2017

Posted by Matthew Scarince in Christendom

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

christendom, Civilization, Country, G.K. Chesterton, Nation, Nationalism, Patriotism, Pius XI, Pius XII, Thearchic Nationalism, Virtue

The Church is now bringing together what that tower had sundered. Of one tongue there were made many; marvel not: this was the doing of pride. Of many tongues there is made one; marvel not: this was the doing of charity. For although the sounds of tongues are various, in the heart one God is invoked, one peace preserved.

-St. Augustine, Commentary on the Gospel of St. John

In my wanderings in this valley of tears, I have always tried to uphold the virtue of Patriotism, the love of my country, the land and its peoples. I have written in the past about the perversion of Nationalism which daily undermines the true Common Good of the countries it infects. Yet as with all philosophical errors it returns under different forms in different ages. As it was invoked against the Universal Church in the Sacred Ages, now the Nationalists dare even to invoke God for their defense in this Age of Godlessness. Continue reading →

G.K. Chesterton on the Legend of Emperor Charlemagne

17 Saturday Dec 2016

Posted by Matthew Scarince in Christendom

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Charlemagne, christendom, G.K. Chesterton, Holy Roman Empire, Imperial History, Legends, Sunrise in the West

ary_scheffer_charlemagne_recoit_la_soumission_de_widukind_a_paderborn_1840

It is when a fact is thus too big for history that it overflows the surrounding facts and expresses itself in fable. Nay, it is when the fact is in a sense too solid that its very solidity breaks the framework of ordinary things; and it can only be recorded through extraordinary things like fairy-tales and romances of chivalry. Everybody felt that merely saying that one Carolus or Carl had lived and died at a certain date, and had a palace at Aix, and fought such and such campaigns against Saxons or Saracens, was wholly inadequate to explain what had happened.

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Hope Beyond Defeat

03 Saturday Dec 2016

Posted by Matthew Scarince in Christendom

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Ballad of the White Horse, Crusades, G.K. Chesterton, Hope, the Long Defeat, the Resistance

That on you is fallen the shadow,
And not upon the Name;
That though we scatter and though we fly,
And you hang over us like the sky,
You are more tired of victory,
Than we are tired of shame.

That though you hunt the Christian man
Like a hare on the hill-side,
The hare has still more heart to run
Than you have heart to ride.

That though all lances split on you,
All swords be heaved in vain,
We have more lust again to lose
Than you to win again.

-G.K. Chesterton, The Ballad of the White Horse

The Humility of the Saints and the Nobility of Man

01 Tuesday Nov 2016

Posted by Matthew Scarince in Christendom

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

G.K. Chesterton, Humility, Mankind, Nobility, St. Bernard, St. Dominic

allegoryofreligion_overbeck

In one way Man was to be haughtier than he had ever been before; in another way he was to be humbler than he had ever been before. In so far as I am Man I am the chief of creatures. In so far as I am a man I am the chief of sinners. All humility that had meant pessimism, that had meant man taking a vague or mean view of his whole destiny—all that was to go. We were to hear no more the wail of Ecclesiastes that humanity had no preeminence over the brute, or the awful cry of Homer that man was only the saddest of all the beasts of the field. Man was a statue of God walking about the garden. Man had preeminence over all the brutes; man was only sad because he was not a beast, but a broken god. The Greek had spoken of men creeping on the earth, as if clinging to it. Now Man was to tread on the earth as if to subdue it. Christianity thus held a thought of the dignity of man that could only be expressed in crowns rayed like the sun and fans of peacock plumage. Yet at the same time it could hold a thought about the abject smallness of man that could only be expressed in fasting and fantastic submission, in the gray ashes of St. Dominic and the white snows of St. Bernard. When one came to think of one’s self, there was vista and void enough for any amount of bleak abnegation and bitter truth. There the realistic gentleman could let himself go—as long as he let himself go at himself. There was an open playground for the happy pessimist. Let him say anything against himself short of blaspheming the original aim of his being; let him call himself a fool and even a damned fool (though that is Calvinistic); but he must not say that fools are not worth saving. He must not say that a man, qua man, can be valueless. Here, again in short, Christianity got over the difficulty of combining furious opposites, by keeping them both, and keeping them both furious. The Church was positive on both points. One can hardly think too little of one’s self. One can hardly think too much of one’s soul.

-G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

“The Whole Modern Business…”

12 Tuesday Jul 2016

Posted by Matthew Scarince in Christendom

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Tags

christendom, G.K. Chesterton, History, Holy Roman Empire, Modernity

Carl_Friedrich_Lessing_-_The_Siege_(Defense_of_a_Church_Courtyard_During_the_Thirty_Years’_War)_-_Google_Art_Project

I have already shown that the real Outline of History for the last few centuries largely consisted of Prussia dragging down the Holy Roman Empire, and transferring the Imperial Crown, the Kaiserdom or Kingship of the Germanies, from the old Catholic Princes who claimed to have it from Charlemagne, to a Protestant prince who had been but lately a Prussian squire. In short, the whole modern business has been the building up of a new Protestant Empire in the north, on the ruin of the old Catholic Empire in the south.

-G.K. Chesterton, The Heresy of Race

More quotations on the Holy Roman Empire taken from the works of Chesterton can be found in my earlier post, Catholic Authors on the Holy Roman Empire: Part I.

S. Mauritius

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