Chesterton and Sheen

Speaking of Joseph Pearce (as I just did below), I see that he has posted a nice anecdote sent to him by a priest who, while in seminary in the 1970s, corresponded with and then met Abp. Fulton Sheen. The famous cleric, author, and preacher, who was nearing the end of his remarkable life, told the seminarian: "Yes, Chesterton's the man. I could not have done anything without Chesterton."

Those who have read a bit of both Chesterton and Sheen will not be surprised, as the influence is quite readily evident in many places. To take just one example, pulled at random from The Quotable Fulton Sheen (Image, 1989), about those people who consider themselves "open-minded":

... they are willing to hear all sides, but refuse to accept any. Their minds are so "open" that ideas pass right through. It is to be remembered that the "open mind" is no more important than the open mouth. Unless the mouth shuts on something, the body is never nourished. Unless the mind shuts on truth, it is never at peace.

That appeared originally in Thinking Life Through, published in 1955. Consider, then, this statement by Chesterton, from his Autobiography, about H. G. Wells:

But I think he thought that the object of opening the mind is simply opening the mind. Whereas I am incurably convinced that the object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.

(A somewhat similar influence can seen in some of the writings of C. S. Lewis, who also gave much credit to Chesterton.) Sheen, in his autobiography, Treasure In Clay (first published in 1980), wrote:

Since my life covered such a long span, it has undergone several influences in style. The greatest influence in writing was G.K. Chesterton, who never used a useless word, who saw the value of a paradox and avoided what was trite. At a later date came the writings of C.S. Lewis, who, with Chesterton and Belloc, became one of the leading apologists of Christianity in the contemporary world ... Malcolm Muggeridge, too, has become another inspiration to me. He is always sparkling, brilliant, explosive, humorous. (p. 83)

On one hand, the influence of Chesterton on Sheen might appear somewhat unexpected, especially since the young Sheen, prior to his more popular work (both as an author and preacher) was focused on more academic endeavors, having won the Cardinal Mercier Prize for International Philosophy in 1923 after having earned a doctorate in philosophy at the Catholic University of Leuven in the same year.

But just two years later, Chesterton wrote the Introduction to Sheen's first book, God And Intelligence in Modern Philosophy: A Critical Study In The Light Of The Philosophy Of Saint Thomas, a fairly dense work of philosophy that is, as the subtitle indicates, rooted in the thought Aquinas. Chesterton wrote:

The question to which Dr. Sheen here applies the rational as opposed to the irrational method is the most tremendous question in the world ; perhaps the only question in the world, For that reason I prefer to leave its intrinsic consideration to him; and in these few words of introduction to deal with the method rather than the subject matter. The subject matter is the nature of God in so far as it can be apprehended at all by the nature of man. As Dr. Sheen points out, the intellectual purity of the problem itself is much confused nowadays by a sort of sentimental version of the divine dignity of man. As in every other modern matter, the people in question seize on the sentiment without the reason for it. There is nothing particular about the objective anthropoid in a hat that anybody could be actually forced to regard him as a sacred animal; like a sacred cat or a sacred crocodile. This sentiment is a sediment; it is the dregs of our dogma about a divine origin. They begin by bowing down to man as the image of God; and then forget the God and bow down to the graven image. Similarly, as he also points out, the question of yes and no is weakened with all that wearisome discussion about less and more, which has been made fashionable ever since the old fuss about Evolution. It is the view that Being is Becoming; or that God does not exist yet, but may be said to be living in hopes. The blasphemy is not ours. It is enough for us that our enemies have retreated from the territory of reason, on which they once claimed so many victories; and have fallen back upon the borderlands of myth and mysticism, like so many other barbarians with whom civilization is at war.

The two men, of course, shared many loves and interests: first, a great love and devotion to Christ and his Church, as well as an enjoyment of paradox, a desire to defend and convey Church teaching to both the baptized and the pagans, and a great gift for expression and explanation that appealed to ordinary readers without being the least bit shallow or condescending. And, as the quote above indicates, they also shared an abiding adherence to metaphysical realism, philosophical rigor grounded in the Thomistic tradition, authentic reason, orthodox dogma, and traditional civilization.

• Books and Films by or about Abp. Fulton Sheen availble from Ignatius Press
• Ignatius Insight Author Page for G. K. Chesterton

Comments

[Peter l]

... they are willing to hear all sides, but refuse to accept any. Their minds are so "open" that ideas pass right through. It is to be remembered that the "open mind" is no more important than the open mouth. Unless the mouth shuts on something, the body is never nourished. Unless the mind shuts on truth, it is never at peace.

This is great stuff,i must seek out Chesterton,he seems very wise.