God bless Gilbert Magazine

for this editorial. GKC would be proud!

I especially like this closing passage:

G.K. Chesterton wrote in 1916 that people who purport to defend civilization against barbarians undermine their cause when they resort to barbaric tactics. “The more we insist that the terms must be our terms, the more do we weaken ourselves if the methods are their methods.”

During World War I, when some in England demanded that German soldiers captured on English soil be denied humane treatment, Chesterton countered, “Such small revenges are unworthy of the dignity of indignation. They are also futile and inconsequent.”
Our whole hope of getting a monster killed and not scotched depends upon our keeping fresh the original human horror at its monstrosity. It may be illogical, but it will certainly be natural, if that horror is somewhat dulled if, by the end of the war, everybody seems to be fighting with pretty much the same weapons.

When you torture, you turn the victim into a hero, for there is more honor in defying a torturer than in being a torturer.

“A kind of courage can exist in a merciless and unmagnaminous soldier, as it can exist in a merciless and unmagnaminous wild pig,” Chesterton wrote. “But it does not happen to be the kind of courage that our brethren have died to keep alive.”

If you admire real Catholic courage in the public square (as well as writing that is thought-provoking and loads of fun), then subscribe to Gilbert Magazine.