Why Catholic? G. K. Chesterton replied, "To get rid of my sins."

"The Catholic Church is the only thing which saves a man
from the degrading slavery of being a child of his age."
G. K. Chesterton

G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936) was an English author. He was one of the most well-known and beloved writers of his time. He was also a convert to the Catholic faith. When asked why he became a Catholic, he replied (in Autobiography), "To get rid of my sins."

Chesterton also wrote a longer answer in his book, The Catholic Church and Conversion. Converts and cradle Catholics will find this book both enlightening and entertaining. Chesterton wrote with great insight and marvelous wit. Many converts will smile knowingly when reading his statement, "I had no more idea of becoming a Catholic than of becoming a cannibal."

In describing the conversion process in The Catholic Church and Conversion, Chesterton said that there are three stages that a convert goes through. In the first stage, the convert imagines himself to be entirely detached or even indifferent but feels that he ought to be fair to the Church of Rome. The convert wishes to do it justice, chiefly because he sees that the Church suffers injustice.

The third stage, according to Chesterton, is perhaps the truest and most terrible because the person is trying not to be converted but has come too near to the truth, which is like a magnet with the powers of attraction and repulsion. Describing this stage, Chesterton says that it is impossible to be just to the Catholic Church because once men cease to pull against it, they feel the tug towards it.

The moment they cease to shout it down they begin to listen to it with pleasure. The moment they try to be fair to it they begin to be fond of it. But when that affection has passed a certain point it begins to take on the tragic and menacing grandeur of a great love affair. The man has exactly the same sense of having committed or compromised himself; of having been in a sense entrapped, even if he is glad to be entrapped. But for a considerable time he is not so much glad as simply terrified.

Converts may also remember the same discovery Chesterton describes with this statement: "Only, when he has entered the Church, he finds that the Church is much larger inside than it is outside."

Chesterton was received into the Catholic Church in 1922. After receiving his first Communion, he wrote a poem called "The Convert," presented below.

Following the poem are several links to other Websites. We pray that these links provide more answers for those in search of the truth about the Catholic Church.

THE CONVERT

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Source for quotations from The Catholic Church and Conversion and for the poem, "The Convert": G. K. Chesterton's Works on the Web

Song of the Mystic

I walk down the Valley of Silence --
Down the dim, voiceless valley -- alone!
And I hear not the fall of a footstep
Around me, save God's and my own;
And the hush of my heart is as holy
As hovers where angels have flown!

Long ago was I weary of voices
Whose music my heart could not win;
Long ago was I weary of noises
That fretted my soul with their din;
Long ago was I weary of places
Where I met but the human -- and sin.

I walked in the world with the worldly;
I craved what the world never gave;
And I said: "In the world each Ideal,
That shines like a star on life's wave,
Is wrecked on the shores of the Real.
And sleeps like a dream in a grave."

And still did I pine for the Perfect,
And still found the False with the True.
I sought 'mid the Human for Heaven,
But caught a mere glimpse of its Blue:
And I wept when the clouds of the Mortal
Veiled even that glimpse from my view.

And I toiled on, heart-tired, of the Human,
And I moaned 'mid the mazes of men,
Till I knelt, long ago, at an altar
And I heard a voice call me. Since then
I walk down the Valley of Silence
That lies far beyond mortal ken.

Do you ask what I found in the Valley?
'Tis my Trysting Place with the Divine.
And I fell at the feet of the Holy,
And above me a voice said: "Be mine."
And there arose from the depths of my spirit.
An echo -- "My heart shall be Thine."

Do you ask how I live in the Valley?
I weep -- and I dream -- and I pray.
But my tears are as sweet as the dewdrops
That fall on the roses in May;
And my prayer, like a perfume from censers,
Ascendeth to God night and day.

In the hush of the Valley of Silence
I dream all the songs that I sing;
And the music floats down the dim Valley,
Till each finds a word for a wing,
That to hearts, like the Dove of the Deluge,
A message of Peace they may bring.

But far on the deep there are billows
That never shall break on the beach;
And I have heard songs in the Silence
That never shall float into speech;
And I have had dreams in the Valley
Too lofty for language to reach.

And I have seen Thoughts in the Valley --
Ah! me, how my spirit was stirred!
And they wear holy veils on their faces,
Their footsteps can scarcely be heard;
They pass through the Valley like virgins,
Too pure for the touch of a word!

Do you ask me the place of the Valley,
Ye hearts that are harrowed by Care?
It lieth afar between mountains,
And God and His angels are there:
And one is the dark mount of Sorrow,
And one the bright mountain of Prayer.

(Father Abram Ryan, "Priest-Poet of the South,
born 15 August, 1839; died 22 April, 1886)

The True Account of Prisoner Claude Newman (1944) by John Vennari, from the March 2001 issue of "Catholic Family News."

The true story of Prisoner Claude Newman took place in Mississippi in 1944. The account was told by Father O'Leary, a priest from Mississippi, who was directly involved with the events. CLICK HERE.

MY JOURNEY HOME
The story of one individual
(with Concordia Ministries, Inc.)
who converted to the Catholic Church!

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THE CONVERT

Song of the Mystic

The Miraculous Conversion Story of Prisoner Claude Newman (1944)