diff --git a/Lib/xml/sax/saxutils.py b/Lib/xml/sax/saxutils.py
index 11dd25bbe216..582b0089c4bf 100644
--- a/Lib/xml/sax/saxutils.py
+++ b/Lib/xml/sax/saxutils.py
@@ -232,7 +232,7 @@ class XMLFilterBase(xmlreader.XMLReader):
     # EntityResolver methods
 
     def resolveEntity(self, publicId, systemId):
-        self._ent_handler.resolveEntity(publicId, systemId)
+        return self._ent_handler.resolveEntity(publicId, systemId)
 
     # XMLReader methods