Welcome back to The Word on Fire Show. I'm Brandon Vaat, the host and the senior publishing

director at Word on Fire. Today we share with you a keynote talk that Bishop Baron recently

gave at the 2023 Chesterton Conference. This is an annual conference celebrating the life

and writings of G.K. Chesterton. And the 2023 event was held right in Bishop Baron's

Backyard in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The theme of this year's conference was Chesterton

and St. Francis as 2023 marks the 100th anniversary of the publication of Chesterton's biography

of St. Francis. And with St. Francis' feast day coming up in just a couple days on October

4th, we thought this would be a great time to share Bishop Baron's talk with you.

So sit back and enjoy Bishop Baron's keynote talk on G.K. Chesterton's book, St. Francis.

Enjoy.

Well, thank you everybody. Our special thank you for that beautiful introduction. I appreciate

that very much. I really think one of the great churchmen in America is right here tonight.

So thank you for your presence.

And I'm really delighted. I said this at the Hamlet Day, but really delighted to be with

all of you. My first at Chesterton Conference, though, I've been with you in spirit and have

been a long time supporter of Chesterton. Any Chicagoans here? You got to be some Chicago

ans, huh? Can I, as I begin, just, I want to pay tribute to three Chicago priests who had

a big role in my coming to know G.K. Chesterton. The first one is not a household name, anybody

means Father Stanley Rudky. What if anyone remembers Father Rudky? Dale does, of course.

And well, tell you the story. I was a freshman at Notre Dame University. And then the summer

after my first year, I really got the priesthood bug. And I went out to the college seminary

and decided I would enter the college seminary in Chicago. So I went to the academic dean

...