What G.K. Chesterton Said about St. John Vianney

What G.K. Chesterton Said about St. John Vianney

Author: Society of G.K. Chesterton August 4, 2026 Duration: 18:43

For the memorial of St. John Vianney, Joe Grabowski reads a rarely reprinted G.K. Chesterton essay—The Challenge of the Curé d'Ars—written as an afterword to F.J. Sheed's 1929 translation of Henri Ghéon's The Secret of the Curé d'Ars. Chesterton's portrait is not the gentle village priest most readers expect but a militant one, a walking contradiction who denied everything his century most confidently affirmed. You'll hear why Chesterton thought the critics who file the Church under the medieval past have misread her entirely, and why the Curé's holiness shone brightest in the full daylight of the age of reason.

In This Episode:

  • Where to find G.K. Chesterton's rarely reprinted essay on St. John Vianney—and why it sits at the back of Ghéon's book rather than the front
  • Chesterton's argument that the Church predates every nation, and why that makes "international" the wrong word for her
  • The sharp line Chesterton drew between an apologia and an apology, and what Catholic argument lost when the two words collapsed into one
  • Chesterton's reading of the Curé d'Ars as provocative rather than merely pious—a priest whose entire life functioned as a denial of his age
  • How Chesterton used Lourdes and Ars to answer critics who treat the Church as a relic of a particular past

Resources Mentioned:

Chapters:

  • 00:00: Cold Open
  • 00:26: Welcome and the Memorial of the Curé d'Ars
  • 02:50: Making Reparation in the Aftermath of the Revolution
  • 05:08: Introducing G.K. Chesterton's Essay on the Curé d'Ars
  • 07:26: The Church, the Nations, and the Word Apologetics
  • 09:43: A Militant Faith and the French Religious Quarrel
  • 12:06: A Denial at the Height of the Revolution
  • 14:26: Neither Medieval Nor Modern
  • 16:44: St. John Vianney's Act of Love

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Produced by Saint Kolbe Studios


Hosted by Grettelyn Darkey and Joe Grabowski, Uncommon Sense-The Official Podcast of the Society of Gilbert Keith Chesterton applies a timeless, joyful, and profoundly insightful worldview to modern life. This isn't a dry historical review, but a lively conversation that uses G.K. Chesterton's own writings and sprawling legacy as a starting point to examine just about anything. We might delve into the paradoxes of faith, the wonder of ordinary things, or the humor in politics, all through that distinctive Chestertonian lens which finds truth in paradox and gratitude in contradiction. You'll hear discussions that feel both refreshingly old-fashioned and urgently relevant, exploring topics in education, spirituality, and daily life with a sense of intellectual adventure. The aim is to recapture a sense of awe and common sense, which Chesterton argued is anything but common. Each episode invites you to step into a broader, more colorful world, one where logic and wonder comfortably coexist. This podcast, brought to you by the Society of G.K. Chesterton, is for anyone curious about seeing familiar things in a startling new light, finding depth in laughter, and discovering the radical nature of gratitude. For feedback, the hosts can be reached at podcast@chesterton.org.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 50

Uncommon Sense - The Official Podcast of the Society of Gilbert Keith Chesterton
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