Essays of a Catholic (eBook)

Hilaire Belloc stands as one of the most important Catholic writers in English of the twentieth century. Going toe-to-toe against purveyors of modernist, irreligious, scientistic, and secularist views of the worlds in the early part of the twentieth century, he brought his immense dedication and personal willpower to his unabashedly Catholic and intensely passionate work. Running through all his thought is a dedication to the Christianized society that developed in Europe throughout the Middle Ages and that, since the Reformation and especially the Enlightenment, was in swift and grotesque decline. In this collection, entitled Essays of a Catholic, the storied Catholic writer turns his powerful mind, wide-ranging erudition, robust common sense, and supreme confidence in the Catholic Faith to a host of topics, in such essays as:

• "The New Paganism,"
• "Legend,"
• "Usury,"
• "The Schools,"
• "The Two Cultures of the West,"
• "The Catholic Church and the Modern State,"
• And much more!

Belloc's work predicted and explains much of the chaos we now witness. Although he was unable to prevent the onslaught in his own time, his wisdom as to the present crisis of decadent Western civilization provides the balm to soothe our ills—or at least the diagnosis to properly understand the horror of what has been wrought in our formerly Christian society. This brilliant work is a tonic sorely needed by Catholics today.

Hilaire Belloc was born in 1870 in France to a French father and an English mother. After his Father's death, his mother took him and his sister to England to grow up. After pursuing a degree at Oxford, Hilaire became a writer and served a stint in the French military necessary to retain citizenship. He fell deeply in love with an American woman named Elodie, and after six years of suffering-laden courtship, they were finally married. Belloc continued to write for a living, serving for a time also as one of the few Catholic members of the British parliament. He became a notorious debater and essayist, and was good friends with fellow English Catholic writer G. K. Chesterton. Throughout all his work, he proclaimed one particular idea, emblematized in one of his most famous quotes: "Europe is the Faith, and the Faith is Europe." To modern observers, Belloc as staunch defender of Christ and Christendom appears eerily prescient and convincingly truthful. Essays of a Catholic will show you why.