Conversion Is Not a Four-Letter Word, by Jerome German

By Jerome German, Crisis Magazine, July 29, 2022

Jerome German is a retired manufacturing engineer, father of eleven, and grandfather of a multitude. His parochial activities have included music ministry, faith formation, and spiritual direction/talks for men’s retreats. …

For twenty years I, with my wife and our family, attended a certain small-town Midwest parish church. The pastor, Fr. George Mehok, was a devotee of the English writer G.K. Chesterton. In fact, I don’t recall a single homily of his that did not contain at least one Chesterton quote. However, I did not read or even see a book by Chesterton for many years—his works were simply hard to find.

On finding more and more of them back in print (thank you, Society of Gilbert Keith Chesterton), I quickly became a devoted reader; and now, like Fr. George, I find it difficult to express anything without quoting Chesterton simply because G.K.C. always says it better. Among devotees, he is affectionately known as “the apostle of common sense.”  …