Thomas Merton on Teilhard de Chardin's romanticization of evolution and the atom bomb

Inasmuch as I myself appreciate the thought of Thomas Merton and his role in my own spiritual evolution, I was compelled to research further Merton's own thoughts on Teilhard, who seems to be "of two minds" about Teilhard de Chardin -- commenting positively on some aspects of Teilhard's thought but also critical as well. Richard W. Kropf explores Merton's thought on Teilhard in his paper, Crying with a Live Grief: The Mysticism of Thomas Merton and Teilhard Compared.

In Merton's review of De Lubac's The Religion of Teilhard de Chardin, Teilhard's Gamble (Commonweal 10/27/67), Merton reproaches Teilhard for what he perceives as his naive and overly grandiose faith in human evolution and technological progress:

Teilhard gambles on God’s need for man, since without man God’s creative plan cannot be fulfilled. Without man, God’s face cannot be fully manifest in his evolving creation. Man has an inescapable inner need to be the locus of the divine epiphany, because in him the universe has at last become conscious of itself. And "the universe by structural necessity cannot disappoint the consciousness it produces." [...]

[The Teilhardian man] is a " pilgrim of the future," and he refuses to be diverted from his pilgrimage even by the H-bomb which Teilhard found very inspiring: it was only a manifestation of the spirit and the " dawn of a Christic neo-energy."

Clearly, the Teilhardian wager is as much a gamble as Pascal’s. Perhaps it is more of a gamble. Pascal’s existential thinking confines itself to the area of individual freedom, and the individual can decide his own spiritual destiny! Teilhard has hocked everything and bet it on the whole human species. He has done so at a moment when the odds seem somewhat long against the kind of runaway win he anticipates. Teilhard does not seem to notice the wounds of mendacity and hatred which have been inexorably deepened in man by his practice of technological warfare, totalitarianism and genocide. Certainly we can sympathize with the admirable innocence of his hope. But is it as he believes, and as de Lubac concurs, a completely valid extrapolation of Bible eschatology? Is Teilhard so convinced that he be right, that he obstinately refuses to see any possibility of losing? At times, the Teilhardian synthesis seems to demand nothing short of blind faith in predetermined evolutionary success: the Noosphere is here, the super-consciousness is dawning and—this de Lubac neglected to add—the armies of Mao marching on Peking in 1951 were seen by Teilhard as the vanguard of a new humanity. Everything is already in the bag. You can’t lose: " It would be easier to halt the turning of the earth than it would be to prevent the totalization of mankind."

In "The Plague of Camus: A Commentary and Introduction", Merton indulges the question of whether the existentialist Albert Camus would not have turned away from Christianity had he read the works of Teilhard:

Camus would have heartily agreed with Teilhard’s love of man and with his aspiration toward human unity. But it is rather doubtful whether he would have been able to accept the evolutionary and historical scheme of Teilhardian soteriology. To be precise, it is likely that Camus would have had a certain amount of trouble with the systematic progress of the world toward " hominization" and " christification" by virtue of laws im­manent in matter and in history.

The point cannot be adequately discussed here, but anyone who wants to investigate it further had better read Camus’ book on Revolt (L’Homme révolté), which he wrote after The Plague and which he thought out at the same time as The Plague. This study of revolt, which precipitated the break between Camus and the Marxists (especially with Sartre), is a severe critique of Hegelian and post-Hegelian doctrines which seek the salvation and progress of man in the "laws of history."

Camus was suspicious of the way in which totalitarians of both the left and the right consistently appealed to evolution to justify their hope of inevitable progress toward a new era of the superman. In particular, he protested vigorously against their tendency to sacrifice man as he is now, in the present, for man as he is supposed to be, according to the doctrine of race or party, at some indefinite time in the future. In Camus’ eyes, this too easily justified the sadism and opportunism of people who are always prepared to align themselves on the side of the executioners against the victims. In other words, a certain superficial type of eschatological hopefulness, based on evolution, made it easy to ignore the extermination camps, the pogroms, the genocide, the napalm, the H-bombs that so conveniently favored the survival of the fittest, got rid of those who no longer had a right to exist, and prepared the way for the epiphany of superman.

At this point, it must be admitted that one of the most serious criticisms of Teilhard bears precisely on this point: an optimism which tends to look at existential evil and suffering through the small end of the telescope. It is unfortunately true that Teilhard, like many other Christians, regarded the dead and wounded of Hiroshima with a certain equanimity as inevitable by-products of scientific and evolutionary progress. He was much more impressed with the magnificent scientific achievement of the atomic physicists than he was with the consequences of dropping the bomb. It must be added immediately that the physicists themselves did not all see things exactly as he did. The concern of a Niels Bohr and his dogged struggle to prevent the atomic arms race put Bohr with Rieux and Tarrou in the category of "Sisyphean" heroes that are entirely congenial to Camus. After the Bikini test, Teilhard exclaimed that the new bombs "show a humanity which is at peace both internally and externally." And he added beatifically, "they announce the coming of the spirit on earth." (L'Avenir de l'homme) [...]

No matter how much we may respect the integrity and the nobility of this dedicated Jesuit, we have to admit here that at least in one respect he resembles his confrere Paneloux. True, they are at opposite extremes of optimism and pessimism; but they do concur in attaching more importance to an abstract idea, a mystique, a system, than to man in his existential and fallible reality here and now. This is precisely what Camus considers to be the great temptation. Lured by an ideology or a mystique, one goes over to the side of the executioners, while arguing that in so doing one is promoting the cause of life.

There is no question whatever that Teilhard believes in the "new man", the homo progressivus, the new evolutionary leap that is now being taken (he thinks) beyond homo sapiens. Science certainly gives us a basis for hope in this development, and perhaps Camus needed to have more hope in the future of man than he actually seems to have had. Perhaps Camus was too inclined to doubt and hesitate. Perhaps his "modesty" tended too much to desperation. Perhaps there was much he could have learned from Teilhard. But it is not likely that he would purely and simply have agreed with Teilhard’s statement in Peking, in 1945, that the victorious armies of Mao Tse-tung represented "the humanity of tomorrow" and "the generating forces and the elements of planetization," while the bourgeois European world represented nothing but the garbage (le déchet) of history. No doubt there may be good reason to think that a "new humanity" will arise out of the emerging Third World. Let us hope that it will. But Camus would not be so naïve as to identify this "new humanity" with a particular brand of Marxism, or to pin his hopes on a party which announced its own glorious future as a dogma of faith.

Source: The Literary Essays of Thomas Merton, ed. Patrick Hart (New Directions Publishing, 1985), 214-217. Tip of the hat due to the blog Real Physics for reposting Merton's insightful essay in full).

• Regarding Teilhard's romanticized view of nuclear testing, see: A Symbolic Meditation on Hiroshima at 75: Divine-Human Transfiguration and Transhuman Disfiguration, by Christian Roy (The Symbolic World 08/06/20);

  What truly troubled [Bernard] Charbonneau however was the willingness of many supposedly high-minded humanitarians to celebrate — as immanent spiritual epiphany and ultimate eschatological fulfillment — globalized modern technology’s Activation of Energy. This was the title of a book about the spiritual life inherent in atomic particles by the worst culprit, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955). This Jesuit evolutionary thinker posthumously became fashionable well beyond an initial coterie of progressive Catholics. He remains a kind of patron saint of transhumanism as its pre-war initiator. But at the height of his fame, Charbonneau’s first published book was devoted to debunking Teilhard de Chardin, Prophet of a Totalitarian Era (1963).

  The inherent inhumanity of Teilhard’s technophile theodicy was evident in “A Few Reflections on the Spiritual Impact of the Atomic Bomb” (1946) for the journal of French Jesuits, that failed to even directly mention Hiroshima and Nagasaki or their human toll. They focussed instead on the Trinity and Bikini research and testing facilities as harbingers of world peace, through global unanimity in the concerted effort to consolidate mastery of the energy at the heart of matter, portraying this as the divine fulfillment of man’s destiny and the goal of evolution.

  Teilhard’s text is replete with inverted symbolic echoes of the Transfiguration, and especially of its defining role in the hesychastic practice of the prayer of the heart...

• Teilhard's reflections on the Bikini Atoll tests are reproduced in full here: Quelques réflexions sur le retentissement spirituel de la bombe atomique" ["Teilhard de Chardin, Some reflections on the spiritual impact of the atomic bomb, 1946"], in Etudes, 79th Year, Vol. 250, July-August 1946.

The Christian must not only accept suffering: he must make it holy. Nothing so easily becomes unholy as suffering.

Merely accepted, suffering does nothing for our souls except, perhaps, to harden them. Endurance alone is no consecration. True asceticism is not a mere cult of fortitude. We can deny ourselves rigorously for the wrong reason and end up by pleasing ourselves mightily with our self-denial.

Suffering is consecrated to God by faith – not by faith in suffering, but by faith in God. To accept suffering stoically, to receive the burden of fatal, unavoidable and incomprehensible necessity and bear it strongly, is no consecration. ... suffering has no power and no value of its own.

To believe in suffering is pride. But to suffer, believing in God, is humility. For pride may tell us that we are strong enough to suffer, that suffering is good for us because we are good. Humility tells us that suffering is an evil which we must always expect to find in our lives because of the evil that is in ourselves. But faith also knows that the mercy of God is given to those who seek Him in suffering, and that by His grace we can overcome evil with good. Suffering, then, becomes good by accident, by the good that it enables us to receive more abundantly from the mercy of God. It does not make us good by itself, but it enables us to make ourselves better than we are. Thus, what we consecrate to God in suffering is not our suffering but our selves.

* * *

Only the sufferings of Christ are valuable in the sight of God, who hates evil, and to him they are valuable chiefly as a sign. The death of Jesus on the cross has an infinite meaning and value not because it is a death, but because it is the death of the Son of God. The cross of Christ says nothing of the power of suffering or of death. It speaks only of the power of him who overcame both suffering and death by rising from the grave.

The wounds that evil stamped upon the flesh of Christ are to be worshiped as holy not because they are wounds, but because they are His wounds. Nor would we worship them if he had merely died of them, without rising again. For Jesus is not merely someone who once loved us enough to die for us. His love for us is the infinite love of God, which is stronger than all evil and cannot be touched by death.

Suffering, therefore, can only be consecrated to God by one who believes that Jesus is not dead. And it is of the very essence of Christianity to face suffering and death not because they are good, not because they have meaning, but because the resurrection of Jesus has robbed them of their meaning.

Thomas Merton, No Man Is An Island [pp. 78-79]

On Thomas Merton, contra Garry Wills

I came into the Church not only by the philosophical route (studying Aquinas at a Lutheran college) but also by way of discovering the writings of Thomas Merton and Dorothy Day (both of whom profoundly influenced my decision to convert). I wouldn't characterize myself as a "devotee" of Merton, but I've appreciated his work, particularly his private journals as well as his contributions to interreligious dialogue (where if anything I like him for his ability to engage Buddhism, Hinduism and Islamic Sufism with a clarity and precision that is often found wanting in the casual syncretism of contemporary dialogue today).

Which brings me to the newly published review by Garry Wills of Mary Gordon's On Thomas Merton, now making its way through Facebook and Twitter: "Shallow Calls to Shallow: On Thomas Merton 50 Years After His Death" (Harpers April 2019). True to form, Wills' take on Merton is particularly caustic, from his dismissal of the Seventh Story Mountain ("not much more than third-rate Joyce, fourth-rate Eliot, and some out-of-date Surrealism") to deriving rather great enjoyment in selectively-excerpted details of an affair, ultimately writing off of Merton as simply another phony:

[Merton's attempts to conceal the affair] are one with a pattern built into his “apostolate” as the with-it monk. He pretended to love the monastic community he thought full of “half-wits,” whom he wanted nothing more to do with, as part of the quest for a “greater solitude” he used to increase his audience of fans and the famous. He wanted the best of both worlds, as a holy preacher and a covert sinner.

On the matter of Merton's affair

Taking stock of Merton's affair, it's understandable how one might arrive at the conclusion: "Thomas Merton was a bad horrible individual. He abused the power of his office to prey sexually on an emotional vulnerable woman half his age, just because he could." The relationship certainly had aspects that were exploitative: she was a volunteer nurse, he a renowned and celebrated author. She was reportedly 25 (though some accounts place her even younger), he was 51, and in her care. Whether "M." would cast herself as helpless victim we do not know: she would go on to marry another and has opted to maintain a perpetual state of silence about the subject; Merton on the other hand chronicled every step in his journal, which was posthumously released.

Re-reading those passages from 66-67, my sense is less of Merton as predator than a celibate monk utterly blindsided by a dizzying, intoxicating plunge into eros -- though whether the relationship ever actually resulted in sexual "consumation" is questionable (Wills infers that it happened; textual evidence however is lacking). In any case, Merton should have known better, and the entire matter comes across as more confusing than Wills lets on. The content of the journal entries from this period vacillate between lovesick rationalizations, romantic celebrations, and moments of genuine moral anguish as Merton reconciles what he perceives as his love for "M." (and "M.'s" professed love for him) with his religious vocation and priesthood.

As to the question of whether he eventually repented, Merton seems to have achieved a state of regret with time, distance and perhaps -- though not absolving him of his moral responsibility -- attaining some measure of sobriety as well. I can't say I particularly cared for Mark Shaw's book on the affair (Beneath the Mask of Holiness), but he did make an interesting observation:

... a valid interpretation based on his journal entries leaves little doubt alcohol was, at the least, a contributing factor in the romance with Margie. Certainly his words indicate alcohol was a constant companion as the relationship intensified, perhaps a fortifier of the courage he needed to keep the love flame alive, despite a reality check now and then. His passion for Margie was intense, and the alcohol may have bolstered his feelings of manhood. Few Merton scholars have approached this subject, perhaps out of respect for him, or because no one has heretofore connected the dots between his pre-monastic conduct and Merton’s intermittent drinking during the Margie affair. It does appear that after he had finally decided to choose God over Margie, the drinking was curtailed, evidence that alcohol was less of a crutch than before.

Nonetheless, two years later he would write:

"It was a humbling experience: What I see is this: that while I imagine I was functioning fairly successfully, I was living a sort of patched up, crazy existence, a series of rather hopeless improvisations, a life of unreality in many ways. Always underlain by a certain solid silence and presence, a faith, a clinging to the invisible God – and this clinging (perhaps rather His holding on to me) has been in the end the only thing that made sense. The rest has been absurdity …. I will probably go on like this for the rest of my life. There is "I" – this patchwork, this bundle of questions and doubts and obsessions, this gravitation to silence and to the woods and to love. This incoherence!"

And a year after that, in 1967:

"I was literally shaken and disturbed, knowing clearly that I was all wrong, that I was going against everything that made sense in my life, going against everything that was true and authentic in my vocation, going against the grace and love of God." (4/10/67).

Merton's life is complex, flawed, psychologically troubled, subject to human vice and sin. The vows of a priest and the solitary life of a Trappist monk do not render one immune from temptation, and that Merton stumbled (greatly) along the way comes as no surprise. But I'd venture that we can yet learn from him, and he will likely persist in leading many into the Church. Reading his journals, I still find myself profoundly awed by the rigorous, unrelenting scrutinizing to which he subjected himself; the perpetual assessment of motives and the open acknowledgement of his failure and duplicity.

Commenting to Wills' article on Twitter, Greg Hillis (Associate Professor of Theology, Bellarmine U.) observes:

"... it would have been very easy for Merton to burn his private journals or at least to tear out the pages in which he talks about his relationship with Margie (he knew the journals would be published 25 years after his death). He he knew the potential damage this might have to his reputation. To me, this manifests a remarkable humility, a willingness to allow himself to be known, warts and all."

On Merton's Turn toward the East

Somebody else alludes to having burned Merton's later books, another claiming "his mysticism is closer to Buddhism than authentic Catholic mysticism". I notice in those unfamiliar with Merton a tendency to place his interest in other religions as something of a lark, a "post-Vatican II" infatuation. It might come as a surprise, but Merton's interest in other religions came much earlier, even in college and predating his entrance into the monastery; his later exploration of Buddhism was hardly the resigned capitulation of a disinterested and "lapsed" Catholic. Jim Forrest, a longtime friend of Merton:

"It is not unusual to meet people who think that, had he only lived longer, he would have become a Buddhist. But as you get to know Merton's life and writing more intimately, you come to understand that his particular door to communion with others was Christ Himself. Apart from times of illness, he celebrated Mass nearly every day of his life from the time of his ordination in 1949 until he died in Thailand 19 years later. Even while visiting the Dalai Lama in the Himalayas, he found time to recite the usual Trappist monastic offices. One of the great joys in the last years of his life was his abbot permitting the construction of a chapel adjacent to the cider block house that became Merton's hermitage -- he was blessed to celebrate the Liturgy where he lived. If there were any items of personal property to which he had a special attachment, they were the several hand-written icons that had been given to him, one of which traveled with him on his final journey. Few people lived so Christ-centered a life. But his Christianity was spacious."

For another fair-minded, rather more charitable (and yet still critical, from an orthodox perspective) assessment of Thomas Merton one might turn to "A Many-Storied Monastic: A Critical Memoir of Thomas Merton at Gethsemani Abbey" by Patrick Henry Reardon (Touchstone Sept/Oct 2011), who also dispels spurious rumors that Merton lost his faith:

a couple of decades ago a well-known Orthodox writer, learning that I had been a novice under Merton’s tutelage, expressed misgivings about him: “It seems to me,” he confessed, “that Merton was a writer first, a monk second, and a Christian last.”

I was happy to dispel that impression. From my earliest meeting with Merton (at 4 p.m. on December 28, 1955) I was moved by the sense of his deep conversion, metanoia, and the humility that exuded from his person. He said to me, “I have reached the point in my spiritual life at which I am certain that I know nothing about the spiritual life.”

In addition, it is a documented fact that Merton, unto the day he died, cultivated standard and traditional disciplines of Christian piety: the observance of the Canonical Hours, the daily recitation of the rosary, the habit of regular Eucharistic adoration, the constant recitation of the Jesus Prayer, and so forth. These were not the practices of a Buddhist.

I suppose what I find most disappointing about Will's cherry-picked tabloidesque expose is the manner in which it will (predictably) provide a vehicle for a sanctimonious pile-on in the comboxes and an altogether convenient excuse never to engage the breadth and diversity of his works. I can take heart, however, as I've learned that Greg Hillis is in the process of writing a book that looks at "how seriously Merton took his identity as a Catholic, as a priest, as a monk, and also examines his Eucharistic theology." Perhaps Wills won't get the last word on Merton after all.

Related

• Doubting Thomas, by Amy Welborn. 04/27/19

"the servitude of doing things for your own satisfaction"

In On Thomas Merton, Mary Gordon takes note of a period in Merton's life where he served as a spiritual counselor of sorts to the English writer Evelyn Waugh (and Merton in turn would petition Waugh for tips on how to be a better writer). From their exchanges comes this recommendation which struck me as particularly appropriate for Lent [Merton to Waugh, September 22, 1948]:

The virtue of hope is the one talented people most need. They tend to trust in themselves -- and when their own resources fail then they will prefer despair to the reliance on anyone else, even on God. It gives them a kind of feeling of distinction.

Really I think it might do you a lot of good and give you a certain happiness to say the Rosary every day. If you don't like it, so much the better, because then you would deliver yourself from the servitude of doing things for your own satisfaction: and that slavery to our own desires is a terrific burden. I mean if you could do it as a more or less blind act of love and homage to Our Lady, not bothering to try and find out where the attraction of the thing could possibly be hidden and why other people see to like it. The real motive for this devotion at the moment is that the Church is very explicit: a tremendous amount depends on the Rosary and everything depends on our Lady.

Not to dismiss entirely the subjective element within one's religious life (the Church recommends a wide variety of spiritual devotions and practices which the layman can avail himself of), but I couldn't help but observe Merton's remark on the "servitude of doing things for your own satisfaction" as a wry comment alluding to a consumerist mindset that we can sometimes fall into, "spirituality-shopping" as it were, in the form of seeking out those practices that are most appealing, emotionally comfortable or psychologically "satisfying". Sometimes this takes the form of parish-hopping (don't like the hymns? the homily? the mass?); at other times it might be a particular way of meditating, praying, a regimen of fasting, et al. But I think Merton is on to something in his criticism of referring to our own self-satisfaction as the ultimate criterion for value in spiritual life, especially where we might be inclined to forsake a practice because we find too "hard", too "boring", too "uncomfortable" or that we simply (in the contemporary language of our age) "didn't get anything out of it."

Likewise regarding Merton's reference to the "slavery of our own desires", I find I am too entirely susceptible to misinterpret my wants as "needs", not just on a physical level (indulgence of the senses and appetite, especially in the way of food and drink) but mentally and psychologically as well, perpetually grasping after this or that fleeting desire which even when satisfied is found to be wanting.

Gordon observes in closing:

Merton here is urging upon Waugh, the amateur contemplative, the same self-forgetting discipline that Waugh urges upon Merton, the fledgling writer: embrace what is difficult, what is least comfortable and natural, and get on with the job at hand.

May these forty days of Lent -- with its small and large sacrifices -- provide opportunities for us to take notice of the relentless, distracting and demanding tug of of our own desires, but in those moments to seek more fervently God's grace to overcome, to "get on with the job at hand."

Here and There

• Young Hemingway's Wound and Conversion, by Matthew Nickel. PILGRIM: A Journal of Catholic Experience:

  "If I am anything I am a Catholic. Had extreme unction administered to me as such in July 1918 and recovered. So guess I am a super-catholic.... Am not what is called a ‘good’ catholic.... But cannot imagine taking any other religion seriously." - Hemingway, 1927

• Chris Cornell - 1964-2017 Unam Sanctam Catholicism reflects on the passing of the frontman for Soundgarden. 05/28/17.
• The Sufis: Islam’s Anti-Terrorists, by Robert Carle. The Public Discourse 07/13/17. "Growing numbers of Muslims are adopting Sufi practices that promote peace, hope, and harmony among religions."
• Stop Donald Trump From Colonizing Your Brain, by Anne Marlowe. The Tablet 05/21/17. "Like a Libyan dictator of old, the leader is everywhere, including inside your head."
• The Saint You Hate, by Chase Padusniak. Jappers and Janglers 11/29/16:

  In fact, Merton came to love her, to be truly devoted to her: how? Well, he recognized that she took what she was given, took the world she knew, and sanctified it. Even if she "kept everything that was bourgeois about her […] her nostalgic affection for a funny villa called 'Les Buissonnets', her taste for utterly oversweet art, and for little candy angels and pastel saints playing with lambs so soft and fuzzy that they literally give people like me the creeps," she transcended these things. Merton struck up a spiritual friendship in appreciation precisely of his differences with the Little Flower, and this blossomed into fruit in his own life; he entrusted his brother to her and came to see her as “the greatest saint there has been in the Church for three hundred years.”

• Catholicism in an Age of Discontent, by Thomas Joseph White. First Things November 2016.

  We need both Balthasar and de Lubac rather than the one or the other. Balthasar helps us recognize that only the fullness of Catholic wisdom that arises from a Christocentric focus can heal our fallen, God-forgetful human culture. With de Lubac, and against postmodernity, the Church must restore to the human person a sense of the natural human capacity for the universal, and with it the possibility of an ennobling unity based on shared metaphysical truth rather than the negative peace of nonjudgmental tolerance. Our postmodern age needs both the radiant light of Christ’s theological wisdom and encouragement to venture out in search of decisive philosophical understanding.

  Along with these two imperatives we must adopt a third, one brought to the fore in the current pontificate. Our theological and philosophical efforts to overcome postmodern fear of—and despair about—truth must be accompanied by spiritual charity toward those who live disoriented and loveless lives in today’s secular culture. ...

• Caleb Bernacchio offers an interesting take on Macintyre and Dreher: MacIntyre, Dreher, and American Politics. Ethika Politika 05/23/17:

  ... American conservatives were never really interested in MacIntyre’s politics. There was no discussion of MacIntyre’s extended account of the social relationships and political institutions of local communities in Dependent Rational Animals (published in 1999) nor was their any consideration of his earlier text Marxism and Christianity. Instead, conservatives Catholics were reinterpreting MacIntyre’s brief discussion of St. Benedict in the closing pages of After Virtue — a passage intended to highlight the importance of a local politics of community building — as a call for fidelity to the Magisterium after Vatican II. In other words, they were equating MacIntyre’s brief sketch of a renewed politics of community building with his later defense of the Catholic intellectual tradition (primarily outlined in Whose Justice? Which Rationality? and Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry). [...]

  [Rod Dreher's] The Benedict Option must be seen as another episode in the political reception of MacIntyre’s work among American conservatives. Ironically, as I have noted, this reception has involved the least political portion of MacIntyre’s work, his defense of the Thomist tradition, rather than his explicit discussions of local politics (which seems to be largely irrelevant to the American conservative political project). This is why academic critics of Dreher are mistaken to think that it is sufficient to argue that Dreher has misunderstood MacIntyre. [...]

  If MacIntyre is correct, American conservatives will not be able to develop a coherent and plausible identity without rediscovering a local politics of associations, municipalities, and activism within social movements. (See MacIntyre’s recent defense of municipal government as an important locus of political activity.) Dreher’s vision in The Benedict Option is too narrow because it fails to recognize the relationship between local politics, issues-based activism (fighting for labor rights or health care), and national party politics [as expressed in his latest, Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity].

• Breaking Free of Identity Politics, by Stephen Adubato. Ethika Politika 05/11/17:

  The inconvenient truth about us humans is that we are complex, we are mysterious, and there is always more to the story. You can slap an easily comprehensible label onto a person that may only tell you very little or even nothing at all about that person’s unique experience. We need to be able to open a space for a way to make sense of that “something more” that defines us as humans. Perhaps we can begin by ceasing to reduce religion to a mere identity category that is equated with others like race and gender, and affirming it as the complex phenomenon that it really is.

• Francisco Romero Carrasquillo (Ite ad Thomam):

  As of late, I have been searching the internet for downloadable PDFs of works relevant to Thomism and to pretty much anything else related to traditional Catholic thought. Highlights include much of St. Thomas' Leonine Edition and lots and lots of works by Fr. Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P. and Santiago Ramírez, O.P. in various languages. And I'm just getting started; there's lots more out there. ....

Who Was Thomas Merton?

Who Cares about the Saints? (Thomas Merton) from Loyola Productions on Vimeo.

A segment from James Martin, SJ and Loyola Productions from the video “Who Cares About the Saints?” -- HT: Deacon Greg Kandra.

Fr. Martin credits his conversion to "The Father, The Son, The Holy Spirit -- and Thomas Merton" -- I can relate. Although I'd also have to add the influence of Dorothy Day, Joseph Ratzinger and St. Thomas Aquinas, the figure of Merton figures heavily in my journey towards Rome.

To better understand my appreciation, I'll simply refer to some additional posts from the past:

• Towards a Critical Appreciation of Thomas Merton January 2, 2005.
• Thomas Merton Revisited January 9, 2005.
• Thomas Merton: American Catholic November 13, 2008.

Food for Thought: Thomas Merton

"The notion of dogma terrifies men who do not understand the Church. They cannot conceive that a religious doctrine may be clothed in a clear, definite and authoritative statement without at once becoming static, rigid and inert and losing all its vitality. In their frantic anxiety to escape from any such conception they take refuge in a system of beliefs that is vague and fluid, a system in which truths pass like mists and waver and vary like shadows. They make their own personal selection of ghosts, in this pale, indefinite twilight of the mind. They take good care never to bring these abstractions out into the full brightness of the sun for fear of a full view of their insubstantiality.

They favor the Catholic mystics with a sort of sympathetic regard, for they believe that these rare men somehow reached the summit of contemplation in defiance of Catholic dogma. Their deep union with God is supposed to have been an escape from the teaching authority of the Church, and an implicit protest against it.

But the truth is that the saints arrived at the deepest and most vital and also the most individual and personal knowledge of God precisely because of the Church's teaching authority, precisely through the tradition that is guarded and fostered by that authority.

Thomas Merton - New Seeds of Contemplation , page 146)

[HT: ReadMerton YahooGroup of the Thomas Merton Society of the Capital Region (NY).]

Related

• Thomas Merton, American Catholic 11/13/08
• Towards a Critical Appreciation of Thomas Merton 01/02/05

Thomas Merton, American Catholic

By way of Carl Olson comes Can You Trust Thomas Merton? - an evaluation of the Trappist monk and contemplative Thomas Merton which appears in This Rock, by Dr. Anthony E. Clark.

As with most critical evaluations of Merton, Clark mentions some by-now-familiar pieces of controversy in Merton's life -- His fathering a child during his hedonistic and womanizing years in Cambridge, where to quote him directly, he "labored to enslave myself in the bonds of my own intolerable disgust" and his on-again, off-again relationship with his superior, abbot Dom James Fox.

But it is not so much Merton's "sins of the flesh" which are perceived as a danger (something which even the greatest saints were certainly not immune -- is it more than coincidence that Merton's Hindu friend Brahmachari would recommend Augustine's Confessions?) as his exploration of the world's religions, particularly Buddhism, the character of which, according to Dr. Clark, "often appears more like replacement than rapprochement."

Merton's life was tragically cut short during his Asian journey, but he died insisting that "Zen and Christianity are the future," and that "if Catholics had a little more Zen they’d be a lot less ridiculous than they are."

According to Dr. Clark, while it be "would be unfair to call Merton an unfaithful Catholic, or to insist that he became a Buddhist before his death," his ideas, particularly those expressed in later writings should be read with caution as they are likely to be "more confusing than helpful, for they conflate and confuse Buddhist and Christian teachings."

* * *

The writings of Thomas Merton and Dorothy Day were both very influential in my own early college years as a budding Catholic (I was received into the Church my junior year). Like Dr. Clark I have little reservations about recommending his earlier, "orthodox" works, and adding a caution to his later ones. This is not to say that one may not benefit from the latter, but rather -- to concur with Justin Nickelson's comment on Olson's post, "not everybody is in a position to, perhaps, separate the 'wheat from the chaff' in theological, spiritual, philosophical writings. Thus, perhaps being safe than sorry is a good thing."

That said, some additional thoughts:

I do not think a Catholic interest in, and personal investigation of, Buddhism (or any other religion) is in itself something that we should regard as inherently suspect. Not to infer this of the author of the present article (Dr. Clark reveals that he is presently "living in China doing, among other things, research on authentic Buddhist teaching" and has just recently returned from a residence in a Tibetan Buddhist village in the Himilayas) -- but that this is the unfortunate impression received from certain commentators on Carl Olson's post, suggesting that Merton's investigation of Buddhism was an indication that he had "gone wobbly":

He seems not to have placed full trust in Christ but instead to have gone off and looked for the truth elsewhere. How else can one explain his dalliance with Eastern religion?

I think this is a great injustice to Merton and again, concur with Justin: "if one hasn't read any of Merton or other authors, or, worse, hasn't read anything at all, they must be careful: Slander is applicable to 'dead theologians' as well."

Those familiar with Merton's writings will uncover passages even in his later works which call into question the assumption that he "strayed from the faith". Let us consider but two passages -- the first by way of Teófilo (Vivificat!), from 1965, which reveals Merton's "Theo-centric and Christo-centric" approach in the midst of his Eastern investigations:

The Feast of the Sacred Heart was for me a day of grace and seriousness. Twenty years ago I was uncomfortable with this concept. Now I see the real meaning of it (quite apart from the externals). It is the center, the "heart" of the whole Christian mystery.

There is one thing more - I may be interested in Oriental religions, etc., but there can be no obscuring the essential difference - this personal communion with Christ at the center and heart of all reality, as a source of grace and life. "God is love" may perhaps be clarified if one says that "God is void" and if the void one finds absolute indetermination and hence absolute freedom. (With freedom, the void becomes fulness and 0 = infinity). All that is "interesting" but none of it touches on the mystery of personality in God, and His personal love for me. Again, I am void too - and I have freedom, or am a kind of freedom, meaningless unless oriented to Him.

(Source: Dancing in the Water of Life: The Journals of Thomas Merton (1953-1965).

Secondly, consider a passage from one of Merton's books which bear This Rock's admonition to "read with caution" -- one of my favorites, in fact: Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander (1968). Here, in the (what could be called feverish) climate of the Second Vatican Council, of ecumenism and openness, Thomas Merton offers a reflection on what his contemporaries were writing off as the defunct notion of "heresy":

But has the concept of heresy become completely irrelevant? Has our awareness of the duty of tolerance and charity toward the sincere conscience of others absolved us from the danger of the error ourselves? Or is error something we no longer consider dangerous? I think a Catholic is bound to remember that his faith is directed to the grasp of truths revealed by God, which are not mere opinions or "manners of speaking," mere viewpoints which can be adopted and rejected at will -- for otherwise the commitment of faith would lack not only totality but even seriousness. The Catholic is one who stakes his life on certain truths revealed by God. If these truths cease to apply, his life ceases to have meaning.

A heretic is first of all a believer. Today the ideas of "heretic" and "unbeliever" are generally confused. In point of fact the mass of "post-Christian" men in Western society can no longer be considered heretics and heresy is, for them, no problem. It is, however, a problem for the believer who is too eager to identify himself with their unbelief in order to "win them for Christ."

Where the real danger of heresy exists for the Catholic today is precisely in that "believing" zeal which, eager to open up new aspects and new dimensions of the faith, thoughtlessly or carelessly sacrifices something essential to Christian truth, on the grounds that this is no longer comprehensible to modern man. Heresy is precisely a "choice" which, for human motives . . . selects and prefers an opinion contrary to revealed truth as held and understood by the Church.

I think, then, that in our eagerness to go out to modern man and meet him on his own ground, accepting him as he is, we must also be truly what we are. If we come to him as Christians we can certainly understand and have compassion for his unbelief -- his apparent incapacity to believe. But it would seem a bit absurd for us, precisely as Christians, to pat him on the arm and say "As a matter of fact I don't find the Incarnation credible myself. Let's just consider that Christ was a nice man who devoted himself to helping others!"

This would, of course, be heresy in a Catholic whose faith is a radical and total commitment to the truth of the Incarnation and Redemption as revealed by God and taught by the Church. . . . What is the use of coming to modern man with the claim that you have a Christian mission -- that you are sent in the name of Christ -- if in the same breath you deny Him by whom you claim to be sent?

Strange that this very book -- selections culled from Merton's personal writings during the 1960's and arranged by Merton himself in 1965 -- was published in 1968, the same year that Merton embarked on his "Eastern journey" to Asia and "drifted" from Christianity.

Yes, Merton was open to new aspects and dimensions of the Catholic faith -- he was eager to reach out to others, and his writings are a treasure of engagements with nonbelievers and believers of all religions: Christian and non-Christian. (Not as well known, but no less interesting, is Merton's interest in Sufism -- by way of his correspondence with the Franciscan scholar of Islam Louis Massignon and later, with the Pakistani Abdul Aziz).

But -- at the cost of abandoning his Christian faith?

The suggestion that Merton would see fit to include a lengthy passage from his journals sharply critical of a spiritual relativism that denies the fundamental claims of Christianity . . . and then proceed a few years later to rush headlong towards the East -- away from the Incarnated and Risen Christ -- seems to me rather tenuous.

Finally, consider the testimony of Merton's friend, Jim Forest:

Because Merton was drawn to develop relationships with non-Christians -- Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists -- casual readers occasionally form the impression that Merton's bond with Christianity was wearing thin during the latter years of his life and that he was window-shopping for something else. It is not unusual to meet people who think that, had he only lived longer, he would have become a Buddhist. But as you get to know Merton's life and writing more intimately, you come to understand that his particular door to communion with others was Christ Himself. Apart from times of illness, he celebrated Mass nearly every day of his life from the time of his ordination in 1949 until he died in Thailand 19 years later. Even while visiting the Dalai Lama in the Himalayas, he found time to recite the usual Trappist monastic offices. One of the great joys in the last years of his life was his abbot permitting the construction of a chapel adjacent to the cider block house that became Merton's hermitage -- he was blessed to celebrate the Liturgy where he lived. If there were any items of personal property to which he had a special attachment, they were the several hand-written icons that had been given to him, one of which traveled with him on his final journey. Few people lived so Christ-centered a life. But his Christianity was spacious. The Dalai Lama has remarked, "When I think of the word Christian, immediately I think -- Thomas Merton!" ["Thomas Merton, His Faith and His Time" lecture given at Boston College 13 November 1995]

There is no question that Merton's years on this earth were as tumultuous as the times. He was a Trappist monk commmitted to the pursuit of solitude and contemplation, and at the same time a prolific writer (encouraged in part by his superiors) with an understandable interest in the issues occupying the world outside the monastery gates: the civil rights movement; the proliferation of nuclear arms; the Vietnam war. He was a hermit, residing in a toolshed in the Kentucky woods; and yet his life was replete with a perpetual stream of visitors (and an even greater flood of correspondence). He held these and many other facets of his life in constant tension. As Robert Royal says in The Several Storied Thomas Merton (First Things February 1997): "a kind of multiple personality disorder keeps turning up in writers—and writers with a religious bent seem particularly susceptible ... of all the great modern religious writers, no one harbored within himself a larger cast of dramatis personae than Thomas Merton."

I think this complexity -- the interplay of dueling roles -- is a significant reason for his appeal, particularly in modern-day America. When I examine my own life and the many roles which I occupy even on a daily basis (son, brother, husband, father, worker, friend ... blogger) -- and throughout, the struggle to keep my feet planted on the ground, spiritually speaking; to mirror Christ as best I can (oftentimes failing rather terribly) -- I find myself deeply sympathetic to Merton's lifelong ambition to stay the course; to pray, as he did:

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

How many of us can relate to this prayer?

In closing, again, Robert Royal:

Merton's true greatness lies in having engaged in person the whole range of challenges and trials of life in the late twentieth century and yet remaining essentially faithful to his Catholic inspiration. Many of those issues we still confront: poverty and war, the relationship of Eastern and Western thought, and especially how a deep religious life may be lived in contemporary conditions. As we near the end of the century, religion-even contemplative practices-have had a tremendous resurgence. Many of the paths religious people took during the 1960s are coming more and more to look like a dead end. But the attempt to bring a deeper spirituality to the public realm-to say nothing of recovering authentic spirituality-remains a burning necessity.

Merton is beyond doubt one of the great spiritual masters of our century. His personal turmoil and the misjudgments in his social thought notwithstanding, he is a forceful reminder that what may appear the most rarefied of contemplative speculations have powerful and concrete implications for the world. God dealt Thomas Merton a difficult hand. His greatness as a man lies not only in that he was able, more or less, to keep several different persons together in difficult times under the banner of "Thomas Merton," but that he provides an enduring witness to all of us much less gifted seekers who have to shore up our own fragmentary lives in quest for the "hidden wholeness."

* * *

Back in 2004 the USCCB decided to strike Thomas Merton from their National Adult Catechism, to the great protest of many American Catholics. I responded with Towards a Critical Appreciation of Thomas Merton (Against The Grain January 2, 2005), which served as a basis for this current post.

Thomas Merton Revisited

I came across (and posted) this excerpt from Merton's journals last year, but in light of the reception of my recent post, I think some of my (newer) readers would find it interesting:

In the climate of the Second Vatican Council, of ecumenism, of openness, the word "heretic" has become not only unpopular but unspeakable -- except, of course, among integralists, who often deconstruct their own identity on accusations of heresy directed at others.

But has the concept of heresy become completely irrelevant? Has our awareness of the duty of tolerance and charity toward the sincere conscience of others absolved us from the danger of the error ourselves? Or is error something we no longer consider dangerous?

I think a Catholic is bound to remember that his faith is directed to the grasp of truths revealed by God, which are not mere opinions or "manners of speaking," mere viewpoints which can be adopted and rejected at will -- for otherwise the commitment of faith would lack not only totality but even seriousness. The Catholic is one who stakes his life on certain truths revealed by God. If these truths cease to apply, his life ceases to have meaning.

A heretic is first of all a believer. Today the ideas of "heretic" and "unbeliever" are generally confused. In point of fact the mass of "post-Christian" men in Western society can no longer be considered heretics and heresy is, for them, no problem. It is, however, a problem for the believer who is too eager to identify himself with their unbelief in order to "win them for Christ."

Where the real danger of heresy exists for the Catholic today is precisely in that "believing" zeal which, eager to open up new aspects and new dimensions of the faith, thoughtlessly or carelessly sacrifices something essential to Christian truth, on the grounds that this is no longer comprehensible to modern man. Heresy is precisely a "choice" which, for human motives . . . selects and prefers an opinion contrary to revealed truth as held and understood by the Church.

I think, then, that in our eagerness to go out to modern man and meet him on his own ground, accepting him as he is, we must also be truly what we are. If we come to him as Christians we can certainly understand and have compassion for his unbelief -- his apparent incapacity to believe. But it would seem a bit absurd for us, precisely as Christians, to pat him on the arm and say "As a matter of fact I don't find the Incarnation credible myself. Let's just consider that Christ was a nice man who devoted himself to helping others!"

This would, of course, be heresy in a Catholic whose faith is a radical and total commitment to the truth of the Incarnation and Redemption as revealed by God and taught by the Church. . . . What is the use of coming to modern man with the claim that you have a Christian mission -- that you are sent in the name of Christ -- if in the same breath you deny Him by whom you claim to be sent?

Thomas Merton
Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, 1968.

Conjectures is a compilation of Merton's notes and spiritual reflections during the 1960's, and was first published in 1968, the same year Merton had, according to Msgr. Michael J. Wrenn and Kenneth D. Whitehead, "drifted away from the faith" and had fled to Asia to become a Buddhist.

As Teófilo (Theophilus) (Vivificat) noted in his comments on my original post, "Theologically, though, one needs to read Merton's journals to get the feel on how conservative he really was. Again, the key is found in his journals."

On the subject of "Vindicating Thomas Merton," Teófilo posts another remarkable excerpt from Merton's journals (June 6, 1965), in which he specifically comments on his "interest in the East." What Merton says in response is in itself an affirmation of the 'Christo-centric' nature of his reflections, even in the very last months of his life.

Towards a Critical Appreciation of Thomas Merton

A little more than a year ago, Msgr. Michael J. Wrenn and Kenneth D. Whitehead voice their disappointment with the inclusion of Thomas Merton in the draft of the new National Adult Catechism in an article for Catholic World News (The New National Adult Catechism Revisited CWNews, Nov. 2003). Their article contained a blatantly slanderous and damning portrayal of Thomas Merton as an unfaithful Catholic:

. . . we now turn immediately to the very first "story" in Part 1, Chapter 1, of the draft NAC, and we find that, incredibly, the supposed "exemplary Catholic" featured in this first story is none other than that lapsed monk, Thomas Merton, a one-time professed Catholic religious, who later left his monastery, and, at the end of his life, was actually off wandering in the East, seeking the consolations, apparently, of non-Christian, Eastern spirituality. Now it is true that Thomas Merton was a gifted writer, which in part explains why he continues to have votaries today; he wrote beautiful words about the needs of the human heart in its search for truth and grace. Some of these words are quoted here, and apparently were the pretext for featuring Merton in this chapter. The chapter is actually richer than that, though, and features at the end some wonderful quotations from St. Augustine.

But Thomas Merton was no St. Augustine. The latter, though he had sinned greatly, nevertheless devoted the rest of his life to the strict practice and promotion of the Christian faith. He was all the more effective in that he understood what the lack of faith entailed. Thomas Merton, on the other hand, converted when he was fairly young and only later, after he had incurred the solemn responsibilities that accompany religious vows, did he apparently give in to "itching ears" and went off "searching" in the manner of those modern seekers who will not be tied down by concrete demands of genuine religious faith -- especially the moral demands.

This chapter actually speaks about "those who have drifted away from the faith," yet does not see the irony inherent in the fact that Thomas Merton was himself apparently one of these. We do not take notice of this in order to judge him, but only in order to indicate that he can scarcely be considered an "exemplary Catholic." The very fact that the editors of the this text could have included him as such in their very first chapter immediately casts doubt on their understanding of Catholic teaching and practice and the needs of contemporary Catholics, especially in the wake of the scandals of other priests unfaithful to their vows. The choice of Merton here surely resembles the recent choice of the pro-abortion Leon Panetta as a member of the bishops' National Review Board on clerical sex abuse -- one of those mistakes that ought not to have been made. And this will undoubtedly be the reaction of many Catholics if this particular story is retained in the final NAC draft; it will likely be taken as one more piece of evidence that the American bishops still don't "get it."

Blogger and fellow member of St. Blog's Parish Bill Cork has recently defended Merton against the slander that he had "left the Church", pointing out that:

Merton was not a "lapsed monk," nor a "one-time professed Catholic religious," nor did he ever leave his monastery. He remained a faithful Catholic and a faithful member of the Trappists until he died; he is buried at Gethsemane as "Fr. Louis." He was not "actually off wandering in the East," but went to Thailand for a conference of Christian and Eastern monks, and had other dialogues with leaders of Eastern religions along the way; he died at the Thailand conference when he accidentally pulled an electric fan onto himself. This is simple history known to anyone who knows anything about Merton.

Unfortunately, Wrenn & Whitehead's critical article is now suspected as having contributed to the decision of the U.S. Bishops to replace the profile of Merton with American Catholic Elizabeth Ann Seton (the rationale being: "to provide more gender balance, because most of the other profiles [included in the catechism] are of men"). Merton's rejection has sparked protest of hundreds of Catholics, as reported by the Louisville Courier ("Hundreds want Merton back in Catholic guide" January 1, 2005) and monitered by Dan Phillips, who runs a popular website on all things Merton).

The International Merton Society has released open letter to Bishop Donald Wuerl, chair of the committee charged with writing the catechism, and USCCB president Bishop William Skylstad, questioning Donald Wuerl's claim that "we don't know all the details of the searching at the end of his life":

As for the "secondary" consideration ". . . we are aware of no reputable Merton scholars or even of careful readers of Merton who think that his interest in Eastern religions toward the end of his life, which led to his Asian journey and his untimely death, in any way compromised his commitment to the Catholic Christianity that he had embraced thirty years before. On the contrary, a reading of the major biographies by James Forest, Michael Mott and William Shannon, of The Other Side of the Mountain, the final volume of his journals, of his retreat conferences in Thomas Merton in Alaska, given immediately before leaving for Asia, and of his final talk on the day of his death, published in The Asian Journal, confirm that it was because of the deep grounding in his own Catholic, Cistercian, contemplative tradition that he was able to enter into meaningful dialogue with representatives of other religious traditions like the Dalai Lama, who has repeatedly said that it was his encounter with Merton that first allowed him to recognize the beauty and authentic spiritual depths of Christianity.

As Merton himself said in a classic passage in his Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander (published two years before his death):

"I will be a better Catholic, not if I can refute every shade of Protestantism, but if I can affirm the truth in it and still go further. So, too, with the Muslims, the Hindus, the Buddhists, etc. This does not mean syncretism, indifferentism, the vapid and careless friendliness that accepts everything by thinking of nothing. There is much that one cannot 'affirm' and 'accept,' but first one must say 'yes' where one really can. If I affirm myself as a Catholic merely by denying all that is Muslim, Jewish, Protestant, Hindu, Buddhist, etc., in the end I will find that there is not much left for me to affirm as a Catholic: and certainly no breath of the Spirit with which to affirm it."

If that wasn't enough to persuade Wrenn & Whitehead, let's hear a refutation from Jim Forest himself [photo, left], from a lecture given at Boston College (Nov. 13, 1995):

Because Merton was drawn to develop relationships with non-Christians -- Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists -- casual readers occasionally form the impression that Merton's bond with Christianity was wearing thin during the latter years of his life and that he was window-shopping for something else. It is not unusual to meet people who think that, had he only lived longer, he would have become a Buddhist. But as you get to know Merton's life and writing more intimately, you come to understand that his particular door to communion with others was Christ Himself. Apart from times of illness, he celebrated Mass nearly every day of his life from the time of his ordination in 1949 until he died in Thailand 19 years later. Even while visiting the Dalai Lama in the Himalayas, he found time to recite the usual Trappist monastic offices. One of the great joys in the last years of his life was his abbot permitting the construction of a chapel adjacent to the cider block house that became Merton's hermitage -- he was blessed to celebrate the Liturgy where he lived. If there were any items of personal property to which he had a special attachment, they were the several hand-written icons that had been given to him, one of which traveled with him on his final journey. Few people lived so Christ-centered a life. But his Christianity was spacious. The Dalai Lama has remarked, "When I think of the word Christian, immediately I think -- Thomas Merton!"

Merton - Conventional Catholic and Otherwise

Whatever position one takes in the present debate, it must be recognized that Merton was anything but a conventional Trappist monk.

On one hand, Merton very much catered to such a portrayal as a "traditional" Catholic -- he wrote a spiritual biography heralded as one of the most influential religious works of the twentieth century (The Seven Storey Mountain, 1948); he produced lengthy meditations on traditional Catholic subjects like the Eucharist (The Living Bread, 1956), the Carmelite spirituality of St. John of the Cross (The Ascent to Truth, 1951) and the monastic calling (The Silent Life, 1957).

On the other hand, the latter period of Merton's relatively brief life did everything to call his portrayal as a "traditional Catholic" into question: he ventered into political activism in the 1960's (protesting the Vietnam war, racial segregation and the nuclear arms race); displayed a genuine interest in other religions and engaged in dialogue with their practicioners (including D.T. Suzuki, Thich Nhat Hanh, and the Dalai Lhama) in a spirit that anticipated Vatican II's Nostra Aetate, and journeyed to Japan and India to attend conferences on Buddhist-Christian dialogue.

There is no denying that the later Merton had changed to some degree in his thought and attitude toward the Catholic Church. In fact, according to Merton's friend Edward Rice, he went on to say

I have become very different than what I used to be. The man who began this journal [The Sign of Jonas] is dead, just as the man who finished The Seven Storey Mountain when this journal began is also dead, and what is more, the man who was the central figure in The Seven Story Mountain was dead over and over . . . The Seven Story Mountain is the work of a man I had never even heard of." [The Man in a Sycamore Tree, p 101].

The remark can be interpreted on a number of levels. Rice interprets it as a sign of Merton's disappointment with Trappist life, that it did not bring the peace and contentment he had envisioned when initially becoming a monk. But perhaps Merton's statement can be read as well as a sign of his personal exasperation with Seven Storey Mountain, which propelled him into the public eye and branded him as a kind of "poster boy for American Catholicism" sought after by thousands of adoring readers -- not an easy situation for a Trappist monk attempting to live a life of solitude, seeking to relenquish his ego in the quest for God.

However much we may appreciate Seven Storey Mountain, one can also recognize an underlying current of pious revulsion at the secular world, a distinct attitude which laid the groundwork for further change -- as can be seen by Merton's account of his spiritual epiphany en route to the city of Louisville in The Sign of Jonas:The Sign of Jonas:

I wondered how I would react at meeting once again, face to face, the wicked world. I met the world and found it no longer so wicked after all. Perhaps the things I resented about the world when I left it were defects of my own that I had projected upon it. Now, on the contrary, I found that everything stirred me with a deep and mute sense of compassion . . . I seemed to have lost an eye for merely exterior detail and to have discovered, instead, a deep sense of respect and love and pity for the souls that such details never fully reveal. I went through the city, realizing for the first time in my life how good are all the people in the world and how much value they have in the sight of God."

The Universal Appeal of Thomas Merton

Jim Knight and Edward Rice, two of Merton's close friends, published an online recollections of their memories of Merton -- The Real Merton -- resisting the characterization of their friend as a triumphant Catholic ("a portrait that was unrecognizable, that of a plastic saint, a monk interested mainly in pulling nonbelievers, and believers in other faiths, into the one true religion"). According to Knight and Rice:

The Merton we knew, who is still in the lives of both of us, was a different man, and monk, from the saintly person of pre-fabricated purity that has become his image these days. He was a real person, not a saint; he was a mystic searching for God, but a God that crossed the boundaries of all religions; his was not a purely Christian soul. He developed closer spiritual ties than Church authorities will ever admit to the Eastern religions, Hinduism as well as Buddhism. In fact just before his appalling accidental death in December 1968, he was saying openly that Christianity could be greatly improved by a strong dose of Buddhism and Hinduism into its faith. These are things the record needs.

For us Merton was one of the seminal figures of our time. He was deeply curious about all religions, all areas of thought and philosophy. Rice says: "The Church has not done right by him. In fact, the Church has wronged him, and continues to wrong him, by glossing over, by evading the universality of his thought. The Church wants to obscure his basic human nature, his reaching out to other people in a desire to create a common bond, not necessarily based on religion."

Edward Rice, who sponsored Merton's conversion, goes on to challenge what he calls the "Thomas Merton Cult":

"['The Thomas Merton cult'] presents Merton as a plastic saint," Rice says, "a contemporary Little Flower, a sweet, sinless individual who has a direct line to God. But the God some people see Merton communicating with is not the God that I think Merton would have been praying to. I am not comfortable with the plastic saint image of Merton; he was no such thing. I see Merton as an individual in the grand scheme, and it makes no difference whether he is approached as a Roman Catholic monk or a Buddhist lama. He was Merton, and he has his influence as Merton."

Granted, Rice's vision of salvation may be deemed more universalistic and non-traditional than most Catholics ("in Paradise with Merton, Rice says, are Lao Tse, Isaac the Blind, Ibn el Arab[i], Confucius, Thomas Aquinas, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King, Charles de Foucau[l]d, . . . "an endless number, hundreds, thousands of saints of all faiths, some with no faith at all"), and I am not altogether certain where such a "Thomas Merton Cult" is to be found (the appreciations I've read of Merton readily acknowledge his defects in character), but I believe he is nevertheless correct in challenging those who seek to claim Merton entirely as Catholic, who could only be appreciated in the context of Catholicism and denying his universal appeal by other religious, or even non-religious folk.

Merton's Interest in Other Religions - Two Closing Observations

It would be mistaken to assume that Merton's interest in other religions was a post-conversion manifestation of his disappointment with Catholicism, as alleged by Msgr. Michael J. Wrenn and Kenneth D. Whitehead. I question this because Merton displayed an interest in the other religions (especially those of the East) from the time he was a college student at Columbia University.

For one thing, the young Merton was impressed by the spiritual conversion of Alduous Huxley (from materialism to mysticism recognizing "a divine Reality substantial to the world of things and lives and minds . . . [as can be found] among the traditionary lore of primitive peoples in every region of the world, and in its fully developed forms it has a place in every one of the higher religions"), and who was fascinated by Huxley's investigation of mysticism in the world's religions The Perennial Philosophy.

Likewise, it was at Columbia University, that Merton met a Hindu spiritual pilgrim -- Bramachari -- who first encouraged him to read St. Augustine's Confessions and The Imitation of Christ, and thus played a part in his journey to Catholicism. Both Merton's encounters with Huxley and Bramachari are described in The Seven Storey Mountain). According to Alexander Lipski (Thomas Merton and Asia: His Quest for Utopia), around the same time he met Bramachari Merton also was reading the Hindu scholar Ananda K. Coomaraswamy (initially in connection with his M.A. thesis on William Blake).

Again, to borrow from Bill Cork, much of this is common knowledge to anybody who has studied Merton or has read Merton's biography. I suppose the real question here is not when did Merton begin to study Eastern religions, but rather to what degree did Merton's Catholicism inform and influence his post-Christian exploration of Eastern religions? -- Write and Wrenn have their own conclusions, but so do Robert Forest, Jim Knight, Edward Rice and a number of Merton scholars worldwide.

That said, Merton's later writings on other religions -- particularly those on Buddhism -- should nevertheless be read with great care and critical judgement by the laity. Raymond Bailey (curiously, a Southern Baptist minister who became Director of the Thomas Merton Studies Center at Bellannine College in the early 80s) goes into detail as to why this caution is necessary in his study Thomas Merton on Mysticism (Doubleday Image, 1975). It's a little long, but worth repeating in full:

Merton's writings on Eastern mysticism are tempered by repeated allusions to traditional Christian symbols. His diaries written in the last months he spent at the hermitage record his preferences for the Fathers for reading in the cottage and for the works of the Zen masters in the fields. However, his published works are not always instructive as to how the Zen experience can contribute to the Christian experience or how the study of Eastern religions or the practice of oriental techniques engender or complement the Christian experience. Some of his published works might well be interpeted as syncretistic and might leave the reader with the im pression that it does not matter what religious expression one's spirituality takes as long as it has broken through the facade of the illusionary self.

Published discourses excerpted from continuing dialogue between or among two spiritual masters do not always mean the same thing to the general reader as to the dialogue participants. Few Westerners are endowed with the ability to think "oriental" or to translate their Western experience into Eastern modes. Some are deluded by teachers who interpet oriental an occidental religious concepts as univocal when in fact the differences are profound [emphasis mine]. The casual reader might overlook the fact that Merton spent half his life disciplining himself and reaching a level where he could think and write in terms of the "universal" man and transculturation. Even then, he considered himself a beginnner who had much to learn.

The ease with which he accepted the potential worth of Eastern spirituality at this stage was undoubtedly due to his "Augustinian bent." Augustine refused to differentiate "truth," contending that all truth is of God, and th erefore, revelatory. An accurate impression of Merton or understanding of his thought cannnot be gained from any single work bearing his name. He is open to abuse and distortion by one using his writings as prooftexts for a position on almost any theological question. Because of the revelatory nature of his work, i.e, the record of personal dialectic, there is a certain danger in isolating any one work or phase of his work as definitive of him or his philosophy.

Should Merton be recognized in the new American Catechism?

When it comes to Merton, I find myself agreeing with Robert Royal, on why -- despite his apparent flaws -- we may regard Merton as worthy of praise:

Merton's true greatness lies in having engaged in person the whole range of challenges and trials of life in the late twentieth century and yet remaining essentially faithful to his Catholic inspiration. Many of those issues we still confront: poverty and war, the relationship of Eastern and Western thought, and especially how a deep religious life may be lived in contemporary conditions. As we near the end of the century, religion-even contemplative practices-have had a tremendous resurgence. Many of the paths religious people took during the 1960s are coming more and more to look like a dead end. But the attempt to bring a deeper spirituality to the public realm-to say nothing of recovering authentic spirituality-remains a burning necessity.

Merton is beyond doubt one of the great spiritual masters of our century. His personal turmoil and the misjudgments in his social thought notwithstanding, he is a forceful reminder that what may appear the most rarefied of contemplative speculations have powerful and concrete implications for the world. God dealt Thomas Merton a difficult hand. His greatness as a man lies not only in that he was able, more or less, to keep several different persons together in difficult times under the banner of "Thomas Merton," but that he provides an enduring witness to all of us much less gifted seekers who have to shore up our own fragmentary lives in quest for the "hidden wholeness." Requiscat in pace.

Does Merton deserve placement in the USCCB's Catechism for adult American Catholics? -- I'm inclined to think that Robert Royal might say yes for the reasons stated above, even with due respect to the concerns raised by Merton's interest in Eastern religions. I would answer in the affirmative as well, although I admit here to being a little biased in the matter, since it was through reading Thomas Merton and Dorothy Day that I discovered and was led to the Catholic faith in the first place.

I would also question (if the Louisville Courier-Journal is correct) Bishop Wuerl's justification that young people "had no idea" who Merton was -- as if he were an eclectic relic of the early 20th century better swept underneath the rug, whose life and thought simply had no relevance for Catholics of today. Judging by the staying power of Merton in bookstores and conferences on Merton attended by those interested in "the silent life" of contemplation, perhaps Bishop Wuerl underestimates the prevalence Merton has in the hearts of the laity, and his influence (even today) in leading souls to the Catholic faith.

Related Readings (Online and In Print):

• The Real Merton, recollections by Edward Rice and James Knight, two close and lifelong friends of Thomas Merton.
• The Seven Storey Mountain remains a classic story of one man's journey to the Catholic Faith, and while you're at it, check out Mark Gauvreau Judge's appraisal of recent editions which parodixically use the novel as a means to bash the "pre-Vatican II" Catholicism: Strangers in the House: When Catholics in the Media Turned Against the Church", Crisis Nov. 4, 2003.
• The Thomas Merton Foundation draws attention to Merton's writings and contemplative practices.
• The Fons Vitate Publishing House as several books on Merton's dialogue with other traditions. I've read the first in the series, Merton & Sufism: The Untold Story (on Merton's little-publicized friendship and correspondence w/ various Muslims as well as his study of the Catholic mystic and Islamic scholar Louis Massignon); two more follow: Merton and Hesychasm: The Prayer of the Heart (Eastern Christianity) and Merton & Judaism: Recognition, Repentence, and Renewal.
• Thomas Merton's Dialogue with Buddhism, as seen by Alan Altany, professor of religious studies at Marshall University in Huntington.
• The Several-Storied Thomas Merton by Robert Royal. First Things 70 (February 1997): 34-3. A good, honest appraisal of the multi-faceted Thomas Merton from a conservative perspective.
• Thomas Merton and Asia: His Quest for Utopia, by Alexander Lipski (Cistercian Publications, 1984). A critical study of Merton's Asian interest in general, and examination of "the extent to which Merton's idealistic presuppositions colored his image of Asia and his interpretation of Asian religions."
• The Seven Mountains of Thomas Merton, by Michael Mott. The official biography sanctioned by the Thomas Merton Legacy Trust, written with access to Merton's private journals which were not made public until 25 years after his death.
• Thomas Merton on Mysticism, by Raymond Bailey. Originally published in 1974, it is an exhaustively researched study of Merton's writings on the topic. Definitely worth reading.

Thomas Merton on "Loving Others Well"

. . . It is clear, then, that to love others well we must first love the truth. And since love is a matter of practical and concrete human relations, the truth we must love when we love our brothers is not mere abstract speculation; it is the moral truth that is to be embodied and given life in our own destiny and theirs. This truth is more than the cold perception of an obligation, flowing from moral precepts. The truth we must love in loving our brothers is the concrete destiny and sanctity that are willed for them by the love of God.

One who really loves another is not merely moved by the desire to see him contented and healthy and prosperous in this world. Love cannot be satisfied with anything so incomplete. If I am to love my brother, I must somehow enter deep into the mystery of God's love for him. I must be moved not only by human sympathy but by that divine sympathy which is revealed to us in Jesus and which enriches our own lives by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in our hearts.

Thomas Merton, No Man Is An Island

Stratford Caldecott on the "Providential Role of Mohammad"

I'd been recieving old issues of The Chesterton Review from a friend. Besides regular content by the great G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936), it features a number of familiar authors like the British historian Paul Johnson, the Catholic priest and scientist Stanley L. Jaki, and Fr. James V. Schall.

The Winter, 2002 issue contained the article "The Mystery of Islam: Further Reflections", by Stratford Caldecott, director of Oxford's Centre for Faith & Culture and co-editor of its journal Second Spring. Readers might also recognize his name as a contributor to the ecumenical Touchstone.

The article was inspired by "The Word of God: A Catholic Perspective in Dialogue with Judaism & Islam", and apparently seems to be a reaction to criticism of a previous article by Caldecott: "His Seed Like Stars", a medidation on interfaith dialogue unfortunately not available online. Rather convenient, too -- given the prevalance of Islam in the public eye these days as well as the discussion of the "salvific status" of other religions that repeatedly surfaces in various conversations around St. Blogs.

Caldecott begins with a review of the Church's teaching that elements of truth and goodness can be found in other religions of the world, and the 'broad' interpretation of extra ecclesiam nulla salus articulated by Vatican II, stating that "Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation." (Lumen Gentium 16).

The interpretion of "EENS" and the salvific status of other religions is conveyed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (839-48 and 856), as well as p. 20-21 of Dominus Iesus (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith:

Above all else, it must be firmly believed that "the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and baptism (cf. Mk 16:16; Jn 3:5), and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through baptism as through a door". This doctrine must not be set against the universal salvific will of God (cf. 1 Timothy 2:4); "it is necessary to keep these two truths together, namely, the real possibility of salvation in Christ for all mankind and the necessity of the Church for this salvation".

The Church is the "universal sacrament of salvation", since, united always in a mysterious way to the Saviour Jesus Christ, her Head, and subordinated to him, she has, in God's plan, an indispensable relationship with the salvation of every human being. For those who are not formally and visibly members of the Church, "salvation in Christ is accessible by virtue of a grace which, while having a mysterious relationship to the Church, does not make them formally part of the Church, but enlightens them in a way which is accommodated to their spiritual and material situation. This grace comes from Christ; it is the result of his sacrifice and is communicated by the Holy Spirit"; it has a relationship with the Church, which "according to the plan of the Father, has her origin in the mission of the Son and the Holy Spirit".

21. With respect to the way in which the salvific grace of God -- which is always given by means of Christ in the Spirit and has a mysterious relationship to the Church -- comes to individual non-Christians, the Second Vatican Council limited itself to the statement that God bestows it "in ways known to himself". Theologians are seeking to understand this question more fully. Their work is to be encouraged, since it is certainly useful for understanding better God's salvific plan and the ways in which it is accomplished. However, from what has been stated above about the mediation of Jesus Christ and the "unique and special relationship" which the Church has with the kingdom of God among men — which in substance is the universal kingdom of Christ the Saviour -- it is clear that it would be contrary to the faith to consider the Church as one way of salvation alongside those constituted by the other religions, seen as complementary to the Church or substantially equivalent to her, even if these are said to be converging with the Church toward the eschatological kingdom of God.

Certainly, the various religious traditions contain and offer religious elements which come from God, and which are part of what "the Spirit brings about in human hearts and in the history of peoples, in cultures, and religions". Indeed, some prayers and rituals of the other religions may assume a role of preparation for the Gospel, in that they are occasions or pedagogical helps in which the human heart is prompted to be open to the action of God. One cannot attribute to these, however, a divine origin or an ex opere operato salvific efficacy, which is proper to the Christian sacraments.88 Furthermore, it cannot be overlooked that other rituals, insofar as they depend on superstitions or other errors (cf. 1 Cor 10:20-21), constitute an obstacle to salvation.

It is in response to Dominis Iesus's invitation "to explore if and in what way the historical figures and positive elements of these religions may fall within the divine plan of salvation" that Caldecott takes his cue. Caldecott observes how, in Acts 5:33-9, the great Jewish scholar Gamaliel allowed for tolerance of "the new faith" by Jews under the rationale: "if this endeavor or this activity is of human origin, it will destroy itself; but if it comes from God, you will not be able to destroy them; you may even find yourselves fighting against God." In like manner, says Caldecott, Christians are prompted to account for the existence of the world's great religions, which "as distinct from the various heresies within them, we have to take account of the fact that they have not withered after a few generations, but have successfully inspired an entire civilization." Just as St. Paul in Romans 9-11 wrestled with the continued existence of Judaism and fact that so few of his contemporaries accepted the Messiah, so too, Caldecott appears to say, must Christians theologically contend with the existence but the expansion of a rival monotheistic religion that is Islam.

According to Caldecott, Christianity may be doctrinally closer than it initially appears. He cites Peter Kreeft, who in Ecumenical Jihad informs Christians that "the Qur’an attributes no shortcomings of any kind to Jesus. [I]t says (3:59) that He was one of only two men who were immediately created by god, rather than having a human father. (The other was Adam); [I]t calls Jesus ‘the Word of God’ (4:171); It says He had the power to work miracles, even giving life to the dead (5:110). He shares with the angels the experience of being in God’s presence (4:172)." It is also worth noting, says Caldecott, that the statements in the Quran criticizing Christianity "may be mitigated to some extent by noticing that they seem to be directed against misunderstandings that were prevalent at the time of Muhammad, particularly in the Jewish and heretical Christian communities with which he may have had most direct contact" -- a position taken by Louis Bouyer in his book The Invisible Father:

For Bouyer, Islam is intelligible partly as a protest movement directed against a Christian tendency towards idolatry and tritheism. The "truth, the original and lasting authenticity of the prophetic element" in this protest is attested by "the quality of the mysticism Islam has nourished" ever since. Bouyer looks forward to the time when the "Wedding of the Lamb ... will consummate the truth of the prophetic protest of Israel and of Islam, and do this within the pure confession of a Christianity which will have overcome every historical temptation".

Islam regards Jesus as subordinate to Mohammmed (chief among God -- Allah's -- prophets), and yet it is Jesus, not Muhammad, to whom Muslims await "at the end of the world to institute the reign of God." ¹ It is for this reason that Caldecott proposes that Islam may be "tolerated by God" to, in its own way, prepare a portion of the world for the Second Coming:

If it is divinely permitted by God for the Abrahamic monotheists to reject Christ for a time - as it evidently is, despite every Christian effort at evangelization, which must continue till the very end and even in the face of persecution - then Islam must exist as the possibility, now actualized, of a semitic monotheism active on the world stage as a rival to Christianity, constituting for us both a scourge and a challenge. So be it. The passages in the Old Testament where God uses the pagan kings to rebuke Israel and to bring about his purposes in history are there to confirm this possibility. . . .

To Christians Islam, though chronologically subsequent to the birth of Christ, appears to belong to an earlier period of religious development, one that has been extended in time for reasons connected with the failure of Christianity to be accepted by the Jews – a divine "reprieve" for monotheism. Islam no doubt requires its own purification before the End. Of that I am not qualified to speak. Nevertheless, when Jesus does return, the Muslims, unlike our Western atheists, will at least have been taught to expect his arrival.

It should be recognized that Caldecott's theological speculation is not new -- the French mystic Paul Claudel, the French diplomat, Islamicist and Catholic convert Louis Massignon, and even Thomas Merton have, prior to Vatican II, contributed to interfaith dialogue with Muslims. ²

Even so, for Caldecott to even propose this topic strikes one as daring, especially given that it was written in September 2002 -- just a year after 9/11, the biggest terrorist attack on U.S. soil by Islamic militants in Al Qaeda's self-proclaimed jihad against Western civilization. When the picture of Islam in so many minds (and dominant in the media) is that of the black-masked terrorist reciting "Allahu Ackbar" while decapitating a hostage, the mere suggestion that Christians ought to engage our fellow Muslim neighbors in dialogue, or moreover that Christian theologians are "invited to explore if and in what way the historical figures and positive elements of these religions may fall within the divine plan of salvation", may feel like a slap in the face. And yet, such a call by the Church may never be as necessary as it is today.

Stratford Caldecott's appreciation of the salvific possibilities within Islam are permitted (and with the qualifications as stated in Dominus Iesus) even endorsed. In his attempts to articulate the "eschtalogical hope" of Christianity, Caldecott remains cognitive of and faithful to the centrality of Jesus Christ and his Church in salvation, emphasizing the obligation of all Christians:

The fact that Christ was an "Incarnation" of God (not a mere Prophet, Manifestation or Avatar)[8] places him at the centre of history. No matter how much of great value there may be in the other religions, and whatever providential roles they may be able to perform, they can only be subordinate to a religion in which God is completely united with man. The fact of the Incarnation, however, can be known only by faith, and is necessarily veiled from those who are not Christian believers. A Christian, on the other hand, is obliged by this knowledge to take seriously the task of evangelization, the purpose of which is to try to convert others: by, for example, removing obstacles that might be preventing them from receiving God’s gift of faith. . . .

If we are Christians, we must evangelize. We must love the Truth, which is God, above all things, and our neighbour (even though he be of a different faith) as much as we love ourselves. We must walk the path that is before us, knowing the direction, but not yet in sight of the end.

1. "Jesus (Isa) A.S. in Islam, and his Second Coming", by Mufti A.H. Elias.
2. See Christian Hermit in an Islamic World : A Muslim's View of Charles De Foucauld, by Ali Merad, Zoe Hersov. Paulist Press. March 2000; Louis Massignon: Christian Ecumenist, by Giulio Bassetti-Sani, O.F.M. and Merton & Sufism: The Untold Story, edited by Rob Baker & Gray Henry. Fons Vitae. January 1, 2000 (particularly the chapter: "Merton, Massignon and the Challenge of Islam," by Sidney H. Griffith).

Related Links

• Jesus and the World Religions, by Father Augustine Di Noia. First Things 54 (June/July 1995): 24-28.

• Must the Truth Offend?, Further discussion between Jerry L. Walls and Di Noia of the article "Jesus and World Religions". First Things 84 (June/July 1998): 34-40.

• Reflection And Orientations On Interreligious Dialogue And The Proclamation Of The Gospel Of Jesus Christ, Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue.

• "Sacred Hospitality: Badaliya - The Way of Mystic Substitution", by Christopher Bamford. Offering the spiritual biography of Louis Massignon and a look at his association:

  . . . [a] "sodality of prayer," called Al-Badaliya, whose members would offer themselves in mystical substitution -- as "hostages" -- "paying their ransom in their place and at our expense"—for the salvation of the Muslim community.