The current effort to canonise Chesterton has a background which is both curious and multi-national.   On Sunday morning November 28, 1986, Cardinal Emmet Carter, the Archbishop of Toronto, preached a sermon in the chapel of St Basil’s College at the conclusion of a Chesterton Institute conference marking the fiftieth anniversary of Chesterton’s death. In the sermon, the Cardinal expressed his regret that there were not more canonised lay people. Although he drew attention to Chesterton’s prophetic role within the Church, he said that he had no intention of promoting the cause for his canonisation. And yet the effect of his sermon was an important factor in doing exactly that. Here is how it happened. When Professor J.J. Scarisbrick, the well-known Tudor historian, read the sermon, which was published in The Chesterton Review, he wrote a letter to the Review, challenging the Cardinal’s view: