Our Vision and Mission
Renewing Society Through Christian Joy & Common Sense
The Society of Gilbert Keith Chesterton is a Catholic lay apostolate, recognized formally as a canonical private association of the Christian faithful. Our organization exists to draw people to the Catholic faith — or back to their Catholic faith — and to help them live joyful and holy lives.
Our mission is to promote Catholic education, evangelization, and the social teaching of the Church. We carry out our mission through our sponsored organizations, including member schools in the Chesterton Schools Network.
We look to G.K. Chesterton as the preeminent model for the New Evangelization: an articulate defender of the faith with charity for all (even with whom he disagreed); and a life permeated by an enduring sense of joy, wonder, and gratitude.
Our organization views education as an effective and essential tool for evangelization, one that has the potential to transform lives and sanctify entire families across generations.
We are committed to helping build up vibrant, joyful communities – local or virtual societies, schools, lay households, parishes – where people can experience the joy of learning and grow in holiness together. These communities will attract others so they, too, can experience Christ’s saving love.
G.K. Chesterton: A Model for the New Evangelization
- To engage actively in spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
- To provide encouragement to lay people to be living witnesses of the Catholic faith especially in the secular workplace and secular settings, and to defend the faith when it is attacked.
- To adhere faithfully to Church teaching on marriage and family.
- To have a special reverence for the Holy Mass.
- To hold to the centrality of the Incarnation in education for a true understanding not only of theology, but of history, philosophy, art, and science.
- To acknowledge of the value of studying and contemplating the classical principles of truth, beauty, and goodness.
- To promote widespread ownership as articulated in the papal encyclicals on Catholic Social Teaching and the writings of G.K. Chesterton.
- To reveal joy as “the gigantic secret of the Christian.”