The Fr. Leo Hetzler Conference

Conferences

Eighteen years of Chesterton in Rochester — search the timeline by theme, speaker or year.

2022 · 18th conference

Faith of Our Fathers

England and the Church

The faith that built England’s abbeys and cathedrals, and the converts — Newman, Chesterton and others — who rediscovered it.

Speakers: Joseph Pearce, Dale Ahlquist, Ted Janiszewski, Fr. Peter Mottola

2021 · 17th conference

Poetry

Fruit of Christian joy

The Ballad of the White Horse, Lepanto and the joyful verse of a poet who believed praise is the natural language of man.

Speakers: Joseph Pearce, Dale Ahlquist, Jonathan Thorndike, Ted Janiszewski

2019 · 16th conference

Whodunnit?

GK Chesterton and the origins of detective fiction

Father Brown, Flambeau and the golden age of the detective story — with a live reading of “The Blue Cross”.

Speakers: Joseph Pearce, Dale Ahlquist, Kevin O’Brien, The Flying Inn Players

2018 · 15th conference

Writing Straight with Crooked Lines

on Job, Shaw, St. Francis, Oscar Wilde

Providence at work in unlikely lives: the Book of Job, Bernard Shaw, St. Francis of Assisi and Oscar Wilde.

Speakers: Joseph Pearce, Dale Ahlquist, Kevin O’Brien, Ted Janiszewski

2017 · 14th conference

On the Shoulders of GIANTS

Chesterton, Shakespeare, Dickens and Dante

Standing on the shoulders of the giants of literature — and of Chesterton, who stood on them first.

Speakers: Dale Ahlquist, Joseph Pearce, Kevin O’Brien, Dante Alighieri

2016 · 13th conference

-ISMs

…a Chestertonian look at what surrounds us…

Materialism, relativism, scientism and the other ideologies of the age, examined with Chestertonian common sense.

Speakers: Dale Ahlquist, Joseph Pearce, Dr. Tom Martin, Dr. RJ Stansbury

2015 · 12th conference

More than Magic

A fresh look at GK Chesterton’s “The Ethics of Elfland”

Fairy tales, magic and the logic of the nursery — the chapter of Orthodoxy many readers call Chesterton’s finest.

Speakers: Dale Ahlquist, Joseph Pearce, Kevin O’Brien, James Warren

2014 · 11th conference

Tremendous Trifles

Mysticism, apologetics, thankfulness and sanctity

Small things seen rightly are enormous: a day on the everyday holiness Chesterton found in trifles.

Speakers: Fr. Robert Wild, Fr. Scott Caton, Joseph Pearce, Dale Ahlquist

2013 · 10th conference

Points of Light

Literary Voices Against the Darkness

Tolkien, Benson, Knox, Dickens and Solzhenitsyn: writers who kept a lamp burning in dark times.

Speakers: Joseph Pearce, Rev. Nathan Allen, Dale Ahlquist, Dr. Tom Martin

2012 · 9th conference

History Matters

…a look at some of the history we don’t know

The forgotten chapters of the past, told with Chesterton’s conviction that history is a story and not a sum.

Speakers: Joseph Pearce, Chris Check, Dale Ahlquist, David Higbee

2011 · 8th conference

Transforming The Culture

Art, drama and the renewal of the imagination

How beauty, story and drama can reshape a culture — and why the artist carries a particular responsibility.

Speakers: Joseph Pearce, Kevin O’Brien, Dale Ahlquist, Dr. Tom Martin

2010 · 7th conference

What Ought To Be

Themes from Chesterton’s What’s Wrong with the World

Home, family, property and the common man: Chesterton’s 1910 social manifesto revisited a century on.

Speakers: Dale Ahlquist, Joseph Pearce, Dr. Chuck Chalberg, Dr. Gary Hafer

2009 · 6th conference

Re-awakening Wonder

Gratitude, astonishment and the ordinary world

Recovering the child’s astonishment at existence — the theme at the very heart of Chesterton’s Orthodoxy.

Speakers: Joseph Pearce, Dale Ahlquist, Tom Howard, David Higbee

2008 · 5th conference

Paradox and the Pursuit of Truth

Chesterton’s favourite tool for waking up the mind

Why Chesterton stood truth on its head to make it walk: paradox as a path to clarity rather than a parlour trick.

Speakers: Joseph Pearce, Dale Ahlquist, Hon. Judge David Fuhry, Dr. John Edelman

2007 · 4th conference

Conversion of Heart

St. Paul, St. Augustine, John Henry Newman, GK Chesterton

Four great converts — St. Paul, St. Augustine, Bl. John Henry Newman and Chesterton himself — and the turning of the heart that changed each of their lives.

Speakers: Joseph Pearce, Dale Ahlquist, Fr. Derek Cross, Dr. RJ Stansbury, David Higbee

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Our first three conferences (2004–2006) took place before this website began keeping records.

“The world will never starve for want of wonders…”

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