Stuart McCullough is the founder of England’s Catholic GK Chesterton Society, which seeks to promote knowledge of GKC and the cause for his canonisation. He contributed a chapter to the book edited by Dale Ahlquist, My Name Is Lazarus: 34 Stories of Converts Whose Path to Rome Was Paved by G. K. Chesterton. He has long served as the Director of Fundraising for The Good Counsel Network, a Catholic Pregnancy Centre in London.
In this article for The Defendant, Stuart McCullough reports on the annual Chesterton Walking Pilgrimage in England, which he has organised for some years. He reveals some intriguing Australian connections.
On Saturday, July 27, 2019, twelve-year-old William and his father from Australia arrived outside Saint George’s Church in Notting Hill, London, at 7:15 am. Having said the prayer for the Beatification of Gilbert Keith Chesterton, and listened to somebody read the first paragraph of Chesterton’s autobiography, they set off walking west along the Uxbridge Road.
They then spent the rest of the day walking, more or less in a westerly direction, passing Pinewood Studios where the Marvel films and James Bond are produced. They stopped at a local convent for Mass and headed onto the small
market town of Beaconsfield before popping into the pub for a drink.
But why did they do this? Well, fast forward back(!) to June 14, 2011, and you’ll find that my wife Clare, our son Nathanael, my mother-in-law Rita and myself hopped in a car, drove to the grave of Gilbert Keith Chesterton in Beaconsfield where we said the Chesterton prayer, went into St Teresa’s Parish Church, and promptly called this the first Annual GK Chesterton Pilgrimage.
A short report was written and published on the internet. A slightly tongue-in-cheek comment at the end of the report suggested that next year we would all walk from Campden Hill, where GKC was born and baptized.
A young Englishman, Paul Smeaton, having seen this, came forward and said he would be joining the walking pilgrimage. It turned out that he was a graduate of Campion College in Sydney. My wife then pointed out that, having announced
the pilgrimage, I should organize it – and so we did.
A number of strange things intervened, toothache, antibiotics – and GK Chesterton himself – to move the date of the second pilgrimage from the anniversary of GKC’s death (14th June) to the nearest Saturday to the date of his Conversion to Catholicism (30th July). This continues to be when we walk.
So now, many years later, I can say that hundreds of people of many different races and nationalities and age groups have walked from Saint George’s Church in Notting Hill, 27 miles to Chesterton’s grave in Shepherd’s Lane, Beaconsfield.
It is not just for Catholics. We have had a small number of other Christians join us.
One of the most common reasons for people attending the pilgrimage, is that they have prayed to GKC for the conversion of family members or friends, and they have come on the Pilgrimage in thanksgiving when they have received answers to these prayers.
The decision to open or not to open the Cause for the Beatification of Gilbert Keith Chesterton rests with the Bishop of Northampton, as Beaconsfield is in that Diocese. The previous Bishop of Northampton said that he would not
be opening the Cause. His lordship gave a number of reasons for this. I did not agree with those reasons, but that was his prerogative.
Of his three reasons for not opening the Cause at that time, the one that he said was of the most importance to him was that there was “no local cult of GK Chesterton”. Considering the number of people who have now joined the Annual GK Chesterton Walking Pilgrimage over the last 14 years, and considering the 50 to 60 thousand prayer cards distributed in the UK calling for the Beatification and Canonization of GK Chesterton, I think we now find this hard to believe. The fact that you will find the GKC prayer on our website in over twenty languages is also an indication of the worldwide interest in GKC.
I’m pleased to say that we now have a new Bishop in Northampton, the right Reverend David Oakley, who came to the 13th Annual GK Chesterton Pilgrimage on the last Saturday of July in 2023, to deliver the Homily at the
Mass which was offered by Father Neil Brett, in thanksgiving for the Conversion of GK Chesterton.