It is the best forum on campus for developing one's ability to articulate, or fail to articulate one's beliefs and opinions. The Society helps prepare students fulfill their duty to live out the Christendom motto by teaching its members to accept any challenge in the intellectual arena. If you want that in one sentence, it's the best club on campus.

It is my sincerest hope that the Chester-Belloc Debate Society will give Christendom students a much-needed portal for honing the essential skills of rhetoric and public speaking. After all, rhetoric is supposed to be one of the pillars of a liberal arts education and there is no point in learning what is taught at Christendom if one cannot articulate such ideas in a public forum of debate. Who knows what great deeds may come about from Christendom students who learned how to unleash the power of the Truth while attending debates put on by this noble Society.

From the beginning, the CBDS has been delightfully treasonous and wonderfully seditious. Everything that makes up Christendom College is good. But everything that is good must be questioned. That is the point of the CBDS. Those things that are truly good have nothing to fear from stern questioning. The society provides the medium for these discussions, and we approach with the open mind and love of the truth that should be the distinctive mark of a Christendom education.

The Society is a great way for Christendom students to practice public speaking in defense of the truth, learn more about controversial issues, and build friendships with intelligent and enthusiastic young men and women.

The Society has served as gathering place for those who enjoy discussing the higher things. It is composed of the intellectual elite at Christendom College, and it is my hope that the Duma will act on this reality and take on the mantle of leadership within the student body. The Society has the potential to add a new dimension to the intellectual life on campus.

I was fortunate enough to be involved in the gestation of the current incarnation of the Chester-Belloc debate society in the fall of 2007. Unfortunately that semester also happened to be my final semester at Christendom. My brief involvement with the society brought home the immense value of public debate for the student of the liberal arts and made me regret that it had not existed and been active during the majority of my career at Christendom. Nevertheless, I am deeply grateful to see that future generations of Christendom students have recognized the value of the society and are ensuring its continued existence. I sincerely believe that the society will aid greatly Christendoms mission to produce first-rate intellectuals who are capable of defending the first things with lucidity and persuasiveness.

The reawakening of Christendom will occur when smart Catholic men pursue the truth in a fraternal atmosphere of eloquent rhetoric and vigorous dialectic. As a co-founder and the faculty advisor of CBDS, I am very happy with the rapid growth of the Society and how eagerly it has been received on campus. CBDS rekindles the amazing experiences that were once a part of classical education in ancient Greece and Medieval disputations, the centerpiece of university life. The brotherhood of the Society is a great way to pursue excellence as an undergraduate. I look forward to its continued growth in future years.

The Chester-Belloc Debate Society provides a unique opportunity for intellectual and professional growth for driven students at Christendom College. Public debates force members to articulate and defend their views with clarity and rigor under the eye of peer scrutiny. Members actively work to achieve excellence in their rhetorical ability, professional presentation, and mental acumen; they are measured against a high standard excellence.

Jealousy is the tribute mediocrity pays to genius. --Archbishop Fulton Sheen

Before the Society, our College had nothing but written tests to gauge the strength of a student’s grasp on Truth. While excellent for placing students among each other, the embrace of pen and paper did little to prepare the student for encountering The World. The Society provides a forum to the student, one for public discourse. Public debate! It awards the student a 'realization of a strength of soul of which otherwise [they] should have had no knowledge,' a strength of soul so necessary to carry the banner of Truth within The World.

It has been my honor and privilege to serve such a society as this; one with very lofty but realistic goals. The CBDS contributed greatly to my formation and education as well as those of my participating colleagues. It lent an opportunity to engage in public forum and utilize that which we had gleaned in the classroom. Christendom College continues to benefit greatly from the existence of this Society and I hope that it will continue to raise the student body to a higher intellectual level, preparing her members for a greater future.

Give an honest man the truth, and you have at least one voice crying out in the wilderness. But teach an honest man the art of persuasion, and you will give the truth a voice so powerful that even the wilderness can not ignore it. Born from the rich intellectual tradition of Christendom College and in fidelity to the motto "Restore All Things in Christ," the Society strives to provide students with a forum for vigorous and open public debate. The founders aimed for nothing less than to form students into new leaders for the world, armed with a practical education in the art of rhetoric gained through experience. Truth and justice have no better ally in the arena of ideas than a man or a woman, who has developed the skill to persuade others effectively and rally them to the rightness of their cause.

Before the Society existed, there was not much of a forum for students to practice presentation and rhetorical skills. Aside from late-night debates in the dorms, there was not much room to practice persuasive skills either. I think that the Society has released a valve and provided a much needed outlet for argumentative, opinionated, and independently minded students.

To pursue the Truth in common - that above all else is the reason the Society exists.