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Article: Thomas Merton, the restless Trappist.(Religion)(Critical Essay)
- Article from:
- Quadrant
- Article date:
- September 1, 2004
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 Quadrant Magazine Company, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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THOMAS MERTON, the best-known Trappist monk of all time, was accidentally electrocuted by a faulty fan in Bangkok on December 10, 1968. Unknown to all but a few friends before 1948, Merton erupted onto the wider American scene in that year with his spectacularly successful autobiography The Seven Storey Mountain, which presented a revitalised Catholic monasticism as a cure for America's Cold War ennui.
Over the next twenty years Merton mutated from an over-confident Catholic apologist into an American guru delivering trenchant, but not always well-thought-out, missives on the evils of the race divide, the Vietnam War and modern industrial society from the bully ...