Politician, poet, writer, sailor, father and Catholic, Hilaire Belloc remains as one of the most prominent voices of the early 20th century Catholic revival and for good reason. His great works and writings have foreshadowed many strains and problems of modernity today, he has left behind a vast array of important writings. But most importantly Belloc’s staunch faith have led many, including myself, to a deep sense of Christian living.
Belloc was born July 27, 1870 in France, but he ultimately was from Sussex, England as he made clear in many of his writings and poems. Hilaire being alive during the early 20th Century witnessed many great struggles and prominent issues that influenced his thoughts and writings. Ultimately there were, from my interpretation, three great events that helped shape Belloc into the writer and poet he is known for today. The first, is the papacy of Pope Leo XIII, especially the great pope's writings and encyclicals. Pope Leo XII is credited with the creation and start of Catholic Social Teaching, which Belloc began to write extensively on. The second was the Bolsheviks, the Russian Revolution, and Communism, ultimately this ties into the first event and influenced Belloc’s social commentary and writings just as much as the papacy of Leo XIII. Finally, was his friendship with the great Catholic writer and thinker, Gilbert Keith Chesterton. Thanks be to God these two great men met and formed their friendship because without Hilaire Belloc, Chesterton may have never converted to the faith.
These first two points of a great papacy and a terrible revolution in Russia led to the Pope releasing many amazingly written encyclicals, but most importantly his encyclical Rerum Novarum. Now I will not get into this amazing encyclical but it was monumental for the Catholic Social Teaching philosophy. I bring this up because of what Belloc was very well known for, Distributism. (Hopefully in another article I can dive deeper into what distributism is and how it has affected the world). Hilaire and Chesterton are commonly considered the grandfathers of distributism and worked on this beautiful idea for many years and devoted many of their writings to fleshing out this philosophy.
As much as I would like to discuss and explore these ideas, ultimately I want to reflect on Hilaire Belloc’s works, writings and the effect it has had on myself and my faith. Belloc was a staunch Catholic as mentioned in the first paragraph and to emphasis this here is a quote from Mr. Belloc in 1906:
“Gentlemen, I am a Catholic. As far as possible, I go to Mass every day. This [taking a rosary out of his pocket] is a rosary. As far as possible, I kneel down and tell these beads every day. If you reject me on account of my religion, I shall thank God that He has spared me the indignity of being your representative.”
This quote was one of the first things I came across and it grabbed me by the arm and pulled into the life of Hilaire Belloc. There was something I found captivating and enticing from such a good catholic who was a father, and laymen like myself. He was a man I could relate to, I could see myself having a drink with at the local “Sussex” pub, but ultimately he was a man who brought me closer to our King, Jesus Christ. Through his hard nosed and traditional writings, something I relate to so very well I began to change the way I saw the world and how I wanted to live in it. I began to realize how much time and focus I had misplaced, put into hobbies, activities, etc that in the end ultimately rejected Christ. I began to understand the idea of living a layman's life for Christ, serving God, serving my family, serving my community, serving my fellow Catholics. Belloc took my faith, which in a very humble manner I like to think was in a very good spot, and catapulted it into a whole new understanding.
I believe if you were to ask my wife who is a person that has helped change and deepen my faith she would surely answer with “Oh that is easy, Hilaire Belloc” and she would be spot on. In one of his great books “The Path to Rome”, where he walked all the way from central France to Rome, he vowed to go to mass everyday of the pilgrimage and make it to Rome for the Feast of St Peter and Paul. Now he did in fact make it for that feast, but sadly, but very realistically he failed to make it to mass everyday. I do not bring this up to say that failing in our spiritual goals is a good thing or something we should do often, but more so that it represents how serious of man and Catholic he was, and how I truly can relate to his own shortcomings, if we can call missing daily mass while completing that walk a shortcoming. But overall it is these bold and courageous promises, these staunch pilgrimages for our Lord that I have found inspiration to live in a way that is so bold and different from our modern world.
Now I do not consider myself a Hilaire Belloc historian, there are many other great men that have written about him that I encourage you all to read, but I desired to put into writing how he has helped form my faith. His many poems, his writings on distributism such as “The Servile State”, his deeply religious books such as “The Path to Rome”, “Europe and the Faith” or “The Great Heresies” have all done what I believe God wanted them to do, bring me and many, many others closer to our Heavenly Father.
Through this introduction into distributism and Belloc I discovered many other early 20th Century writers, who helped defend and revive the Catholic faith during that time period. I surely hope to write and hopefully explore many more of these great men, but for now all you get is just the great Hilaire Belloc.
Thanks be to God for this great man and all the great Catholics of the early 20th Century.
June 30, 2024