Dale Ahlquist Replies…

… to the silly Puritan attempt to deny the sanctity of Chesterton based on his enjoyment of food and drink.

Shouting “Fatso!” is a curiously favored tactic of two classes of people in my experience: Reactionaries and schoolyard children.  I don’t know why somebody would use it to try to stop the no-brainer belief that Chesterton was saintly.  Even the far more well-grounded evidence that Chesterton struggled with a typical Victorian and Edwardian hostility to Jews (hoo boy does saying this get me in trouble with some Chestertonians!) is not sufficient evidence to deny his obvious goodness and sanctity in my view.  It’s not the raw material we are given, but what we do with it, that makes or breaks us as saints.  Chesterton, under grace, made a great and good saint of himself, despite his flaws.  Santo subito!