And yet Belloc himself was born in France of a French father and English mother, and all his life championed the role of France in the formation of Christian civilization.

He is not as well known as he should be, although his contemporaries recognized his literary and historical abilities as well as his value as a Catholic apologist. Chesterton summed up a general feeling in describing him as "the man who has made the greatest fight for good things of all the men of my time."

Hilaire Belloc was born in 1870 near Paris, but his Father died when he was only two and the family moved to England. He was educated at the Oratory school, being taught by Cardinal Newman, and he was also influenced by Cardinal Manning, as is evident in his later writings on social and economic matters.

In 1890 he met a young American lady who was visiting Europe, Elodie Hogan, and the following year went to California to propose to her. They were married in 1896, after Belloc had graduated from Oxford University with honors in History. Unfortunately, he was unable to obtain a teaching post due to the prevailing anti-Catholic prejudice.

He began to produce books, with one his most famous from this period being The Path to Rome, an account of a walking pilgrimage he made in 1902 from northern France to the Eternal City. He was elected to Parliament as a Liberal from 1906 to 1910, but came to believe that the parliamentary system was largely a sham. His famous election campaign speech, made to a mainly Protestant audience, gives us an idea of his combative nature:

"I am a Catholic. As far as possible I go to Mass every day. This (taking a rosary out of his pocket) is a rosary. As far as possible, I kneel down and tell these beads every day. If you reject me on account of my religion, I shall thank God that He has spared me the indignity of being your representative!"

There was a moment of stunned silence followed by thunderous applause, and Belloc was duly elected.

His life was not without personal tragedy: his wife died in 1914 and his eldest son in the Great War; he also lost another son in the Second World War. Seemingly to compensate for these losses he threw himself wholeheartedly into promoting a vigorous defence of the Church in his books and articles, although he was also an accomplished poet and prose writer.

He is mainly remembered by Catholics though as an historian, and particularly for his opposition to the prevailing "Whig" interpretation of history which saw the Reformation as a great step forward for England and the world. He correctly pointed out its negative effects, and how it was largely driven by a desire for money. He has been criticized as an historian for being wrong on detail, but this is to misunderstand his role as a trail blazer, an iconoclast, someone with the task of attacking the prevailing deeply held anti-Catholic prejudice of his day.

In any case his main themes, including his view that the destruction of the medieval Church was a great tragedy, have been largely vindicated by later research. His most famous historical books include Europe and the Faith (1920), How the Reformation happened (1928), and Characters of the Reformation (1936).

He worked with Chesterton to promote the idea of "Distributism" as an alternative to both laissez-faire capitalism and socialism. This was a true "middle way" which argued for a greater spread of wealth in society as a bulwark against oppressive government, be it of the left or right. He best expressed himself on this topic in The Servile State (1912), which developed the idea that the "welfare state" was really a trap for the poor, one which would facilitate their manipulation, an idea which seems to have been quite prophetic.

His vitality is apparent from his output of more than one hundred and fifty works in a period of forty-six years, but he was also a great traveler, sailor and indeed talker. Although he did not write any major works on Mary, he did produce some poems poetry extolling her virtues, including his "Ballad to Our Lady of Czestochowa." His deep Marian piety is evident in the letter he sent to Chesterton in 1907, following an earlier discussion, in which he offers the following advice:

"I recommend to you this, that you suggest to her a comprehension for yourself, of what indeed is the home of the soul. If it is here you will see it, if it is there you will see it. She never fails us. She has never failed me in any demand. I have never written thus - as I say - and I beg you to see nothing in it but what I say. There is no connection the reason can seize - but so it is. If you say 'I want this' as in your case to know one way or the other - She will give it to you: as She will give health or necessary money or success in pure love. She is our Blessed Mother.

"I have not used my judgement in this letter. I am inclined to destroy it, but I shall send it. Don't answer it.

Yours ever, H. Belloc."

He was made a Knight Commander of St Gregory in 1934 by Pope Pius XI in recognition of his work for the Church. In 1942 he suffered a stroke which prevented him from working for the last eleven years of his life, a life which ended in July 1953.

The Catholic publisher Frank Sheed summed up Hilaire Belloc thus, describing him as,

"A wonderful personality ...so rich and various that his opponents could not cope with him: but you felt he could not always cope with himself. ... All this went into his battle for the Faith. The devotion, the learning, the gaiety, the grandeur, the courage, but something of the wilfulness too. The total effect was magnificent, and we are all so deeply in his debt that our best thanks are feeble in comparison."

This article originally appeared in Soul Magazine: http://www.bluearmy.com/

Sources: Kevin L. Morris, Hilaire Belloc: A Catholic Prophet, CTS, London, 1995; F. Sheed, ed., The Mary Book, New York, 1950; Hilaire Belloc, The Path to Rome, Middlesex, 1985; R. Freeman, Biographical sketch from Belloc web site.