Thomas Merton s wisdom for a church in crisis ncronline.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from ncronline.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The Seeker and the Monk: Everyday Conversations with Thomas Merton (Broadleaf). She co-authored the memoir
This Child of Faith (Paraclete) with her son, Tain Gregory. See All Articles
When he was a teacher at St. Bonaventure’s College in Allegany, New York, he met Catherine de Hueck, who visited the school to speak about the conditions in Harlem and the community center she ran there, Friendship House. Merton asked her afterward if he could come to Harlem and volunteer. She agreed, and he arrived via subway on a rain-soaked, humid day in August 1941. His impression of Harlem affected him so deeply that he would recall it with stunning power years later in
A marker commemorating Thomas Merton in downtown Louisville, Kentucky. Demonstrations took place in Louisville surrounding the police killing of Breonna Taylor March 13. (Wikimedia Commons/W.marsh, CC by SA 3.0)
He was a white guy, who spent most of his life alone in the woods in a then-Jim Crow region. But the words Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk, wrote on racial justice resonate as strongly today as they did when they were published more than a half-century ago. He was ahead of his time, Gregory K. Hillis, a professor of theology at Bellarmine University in Louisville, Kentucky, told NCR. As a white Catholic, he got it, at a time when people didn t get it. . It is remarkable how insightful he was.