Chesterton wrote an article The Catholic Church and Conversion in 1926. It was not primarily about his own conversion though he acknowledged that if he was to understand the conversion of others he must try to understand his own.

The Church is a house with a hundred gates; and no two men enter at exactly the same angle. Mine was at least as much Agnostic as Anglican, though I accepted for a time the borderland of Anglicanism; but only on the assumption that it could really be Anglo-Catholicism. There is a distinction of ultimate intention there which in the vague English atmosphere is often missed. It is not a difference of degree but of definite aim. There are High Churchmen as much as Low Churchmen who are concerned first and last to save the Church of England. Some of them think it can be saved by calling it Catholic, or making it Catholic, or believing that it is Catholic; but that is what they want to save. But I did not start out with the idea of saving the English Church, but of finding the Catholic Church. If the two were one, so much the better; but I had never conceived of Catholicism as a sort of showy attribute or attraction to be tacked on to my own national body, but as the inmost soul of the true body, wherever it might be. It might be said that Anglo-Catholicism was simply my own uncompleted conversion to Catholicism.

Ian Ker wrote a biography of Chesterton. He records that Chesterton gave an interview to the Toronto Daily Star in which he acknowledged that "the chief Protestant leaders in the Church of England" (meaning I think those most opposed to Anglo-Catholicism) who helped him to realise that the Church of England was not a branch of the Catholic Church. Chesterton had believed in "Catholic Christianity" for 20 years but struggled to work out whether or not Anglo-Catholicism was a true expression of Catholicity. Ultimately he felt that it was not, partly at least because it did not speak authoritively.

The Jesuits in particukar were seen as devious and dishonest for their views on equivocation. Yet every gentleman expressed himself delighted to be asked to dine with a bore, and every lady admired every baby, no matter how ugly she might think it. The Jesuits were, Chesterton felt, to be admired for codifying and placing limits on a practice, equivocation, which was universal.

Chesterton wrote a book The Catholic Church and Conversion in 1926. It was not primarily about his own conversion though he acknowledged that if he was to understand the conversion of others he must try to understand his own.

The Church is a house with a hundred gates; and no two men enter at exactly the same angle. Mine was at least as much Agnostic as Anglican, though I accepted for a time the borderland of Anglicanism; but only on the assumption that it could really be Anglo-Catholicism. There is a distinction of ultimate intention there which in the vague English atmosphere is often missed. It is not a difference of degree but of definite aim. There are High Churchmen as much as Low Churchmen who are concerned first and last to save the Church of England. Some of them think it can be saved by calling it Catholic, or making it Catholic, or believing that it is Catholic; but that is what they want to save. But I did not start out with the idea of saving the English Church, but of finding the Catholic Church. If the two were one, so much the better; but I had never conceived of Catholicism as a sort of showy attribute or attraction to be tacked on to my own national body, but as the inmost soul of the true body, wherever it might be. It might be said that Anglo-Catholicism was simply my own uncompleted conversion to Catholicism.

Ian Ker wrote a biography of Chesterton. He records that Chesterton gave an interview to the Toronto Daily Star in which he acknowledged that "the chief Protestant leaders in the Church of England" (meaning I think those most opposed to Anglo-Catholicism) who helped him to realise that the Church of England was not a branch of the Catholic Church. Chesterton had believed in "Catholic Christianity" for 20 years but struggled to work out whether or not Anglo-Catholicism was a true expression of Catholicity. Ultimately he felt that it was not, partly at least because it did not speak authoritatively.

The Jesuits in particular were seen as devious and dishonest for their views on equivocation. Yet every gentleman expressed himself delighted to be asked to dine with a bore, and every lady admired every baby, no matter how ugly she might think it. The Jesuits were, Chesterton felt, to be admired for codifying and placing limits on a practice, equivocation, which was universal.

He had come to believe in Catholicism and felt it would be "so much the better" if what he called "the Catholic Church" (meaning I think the true church) and "the English Church" (meaning I think the Church of England) were one and the same. Or at lest that his national Church, at least the Anglo-Catholic section, was truly a part of the Catholic Church.

Nevertheless Chesterton was a journalist and sought to make sense of the world he saw. Iit was through his wife that he became a practicing Christian and a firm believer in (not necessarily Roman) Catholicism a great many years before deciding this meant leaving the Church of England. His wife eventaully did the same four years later.

He had come to believe in Catholicism and felt it would be "so much the better" if what he called "the Catholic Church" (meaning I think the true church) and "the English Church" (meaning I think the Church of England) were one and the same. Or at least that his national Church, at least the Anglo-Catholic section, was truly a part of the Catholic Church.

Nevertheless Chesterton was a journalist and sought to make sense of the world he saw. It was through his wife that he became a practicing Christian and a firm believer in (not necessarily Roman) Catholicism a great many years before deciding this meant leaving the Church of England. His wife eventually did the same four years later.