The Twin Cities hosted the Society of G.K. Chesterton’s annual conference July 27-29 — a celebration of Chesterton’s “wit, wisdom, and joy,” in the words of the society’s president, Dale Ahlquist.

The gathering featured nationally known speakers — like Bishop Robert Barron of the Winona-Rochester diocese, founder of the “Word on Fire” Catholic media network — and drew more than 450 people from as far away as New Zealand, Chile, Ireland, Mexico and Norway.

Gilbert Keith Chesterton, who died in 1936, was an English writer and Catholic convert, and one of the world’s best-known apologists for the Catholic faith. Chesterton stood 6 feet 4 inches tall and weighed 300 pounds. Ahlquist described him as sporting a cape and a crumpled hat with a cigar clenched in his teeth. He had “tiny glasses clipped to the end of his nose and laughter blowing through his mustache,” Ahlquist added. Chesterton’s hundreds of books, poems, plays and short stories made him one of the most prolific writers of all time. His best-known books, “Orthodoxy” (1928) and “The Everlasting Man” (1925), are classics of Christian apologetics that continue to draw people to the faith.

The theme of the Twin Cities conference, the society’s 42nd annual gathering, was “Chesterton and St. Francis: Jugglers of God.” It commemorated the 100th anniversary of the publication of Chesterton’s biography of St. Francis. The idea of the “Juggler of God” refers to the saint’s whimsical, break-the-mold life of faith.

Bishop Barron, the conference’s keynote speaker, became an ardent Chesterton fan when, at age 20, he took a class on Chesterton’s works at Mundelein Seminary in Chicago.

Chesterton’s biography describes the “picturesque and popular” aspects of St. Francis’ life as a bridge to features that modern readers find discomforting, Bishop Barron said. For example, while many of the faithful celebrate Francis’ happy communion with nature — his brother sun and sister moon —Chesterton reminds readers that he coupled this with a fierce, sometimes frightening asceticism.

Bishop Barron recalled an image of St. Francis in a monastery, in which he appears as a gaunt, austere figure with a skull at his feet. The saint’s combination of “gaiety and austerity” can be hard to reconcile, Bishop Barron said, “unless we understand that for Francis, Christianity was a ‘love affair,’ rather than a theory.” He added this example. “Think of a husband who writes beautiful poetry to his wife, and yet exhausts himself staying up all night to care for her when she’s seriously ill.”

Bishop Barron also noted that St. Francis viewed nature not as our mother, as some might claim, but instead as a sister. “In the great liturgical procession of Genesis,” observed Bishop Barron, “the beauty of all created nature is recounted, but man is reserved for creation’s final day, which confirms that he leads nature’s procession in praise of God. This understanding in turn leads us away from a false worship of the natural world.”

The conference, held at a hotel in Minnetonka, is the society’s most important annual event. Along with Bishop Barron, the conference featured a diverse array of speakers, including English-born, American writer Joseph Pearce; Daniel Kerr, the president and co-founder of a Catholic boarding school for boys in Kansas; and a panel of men in their 30s who said they are revitalizing the Rust Belt town of Steubenville, Ohio, using Catholic social teaching and the inspiration of Chestertonian “localism.”

The conference reflected the society’s signature combination of deep faith and whimsical fun — daily Mass, rosary and evening prayer, followed by a traditional favorite: the “Afterglow,” a freewheeling, outdoor discussion late into the night, flavored with cigars and spirits.

In addition to the conference, the society spreads its mission through publications, podcasts and local chapters — including two in the Twin Cities — whose members read and discuss Chesterton’s books and poetry.

In recent years, the society’s central project has become the Chesterton Schools Network, which provides support for Chesterton schools around the country and the world. These classical high schools combine a broad, liberal arts education with a strong emphasis on the cultivation of Christian virtues and an appreciation of beauty. The network began in 2008 with an academy in the Twin Cities, now in Hopkins, and will include 58 schools this fall, with another 14 in the pipeline.

Ahlquist said the Chesterton Society’s mission is to “evangelize through education, inspiring people to live joyful, holy lives, with G.K. Chesterton as a model of lay spirituality.”