A last quotation from GKC:
"Modern prayers, and theirs [the Anglicans'] perhaps more than any, seem to be perfectly incapable of avoiding journalese. And the Prayer-Book prose seems to follow them like a derisive echo. Lambeth or Convocation will publish a prayer saying something like "Guide us, O Lord, to the solution of our social problems"; and the great organ of old will groan in the background .... "All who are desolate and oppressed." The first Anglicans asked for peace and happiness, truth and Justice; but nothing can stop the latest Anglicans, and many others, from the horrid habit of asking for improvement in international relations."
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4 comments:
And which essay is this from?
Hard to believe GK died in the '30s. Otherwise, this third excerpt would be proof he'd been reading the Intercessions in the LotH.
US Catholics have become Anglicans, it appears! So so tired of the Prayers of the Faithful being for whatever political sentiments occupy the USCCB and those to the left of it, and never for local intentions.
Wonderful stuff, and I love that description of the BCP as 'the last Catholic book'.
For the sake of balance, may I point out that Chesterton's time really stood in great need of 'improvement in international relations', and it seems to me that appreciation of that reality was not his strong suit. You don't find anything very prophetic in his writings pre-1914, and post-1918 his processing of what had happened didn't get much beyond blaming it all on the beastly Prussians. Developing an unhealthy preoccupation with perfidious Jews didn't help matters.
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