Thomas Merton (1915-1968) is arguably the most influential American Catholic author of the twentieth century. His autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain, has sold over one million copies and has been translated into over fifteen languages. He wrote over sixty other books and hundreds of poems and articles on topics ranging from monastic spirituality to civil rights, nonviolence, and the nuclear arms race.
posted by Trurl
on Dec 29, 2011 -
8 comments
From a Time magazine article: A new, innocuously titled book,
Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light (Doubleday), consisting primarily of correspondence between Teresa and her confessors and superiors over a period of 66 years, provides the spiritual counterpoint to a life known mostly through its works. The letters, many of them preserved against her wishes (she had requested that they be destroyed but was overruled by her church), reveal that for the last nearly half-century of her life she felt no presence of God whatsoever — or, as the book's compiler and editor, the Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk, writes, "neither in her heart or in the eucharist."
Previously on Mother Teresa's doubt,
more generally.
posted by ibmcginty
on Aug 23, 2007 -
110 comments
Hey, It's Not Enough We Die Of Obesity without having to go to Hell too? Some enlightened Frenchmen are bending the Pope's ear, trying to spring Gluttony from the
Deadly Sins blacklist. Well, even clever old
Thomas Aquinas did his damnedest to narrow the seven buggers down. So: which sins would
you excuse today's poor sufferers from and which ones would you
insist on keeping, if any? [
Something tells me MetaFilter is ideally suited to put in a good word for Sloth. I wonder why? Speaking of which, NYT reg. is required but you can read about it here instead. Via Arts and Letters Daily.]
posted by MiguelCardoso
on Mar 12, 2003 -
19 comments
Catholics, Jews, Muslims - all three feel suddenly embattled and isolated [nyt reg req] "This is a rare moment in history, like a planetary alignment: three world religions simultaneously racked by crisis....this confluence is highly unusual but not without precedent... — from 800 to 200 B.C., a period of tremendous violence and upheaval on many continents.... We could use this suffering to create wonderful new religious systems, as the Buddha did, or we could retreat into the spiritual barbarism of hatred ." Perhaps
Karl Marx was right that religion, like opium, results only in illusion and false hope.
posted by Voyageman
on Jun 13, 2002 -
14 comments
God Changes Everything Let's say there was a school system or a chain of clinics on whose professional staff were a certain number of men who molested the children in their care and who, whenever this behavior came to the attention of their superiors, were shifted to another school or clinic, with parents and colleagues, not to mention the justice system, kept in the dark whenever possible...
posted by cell divide
on Mar 20, 2002 -
8 comments
New!
Jesus Sports Statues. When you saw the
Buddy Christ idea in the movie
Dogma you thought it was a funny, yet biting swipe at the Catholic Church. But apparently Catholics think it's a great idea. These figurines have already sold out. Jesus playing tackle
football is my favorite.
posted by y6y6y6
on May 31, 2001 -
31 comments
Pope John Paul II has been busy protecting his conservative legacy by appointing
a record number of new cardinals. This expanded group of cardinals will vote for the next pontiff and so a continuation of the Church's present course on abortion and birth control is quite likely.
Still, it's a little known fact that the Vatican actually ceased to the home of the
true Catholic Church on
October 9th, 1959 and that John Paul II is, in fact, a
heretical anti-pope.
posted by lagado
on Jan 24, 2001 -
26 comments
Saint Chad was the object of some controversy in his life. The title of Bishop in Lastingham was thought to be vacant and Chad was appointed. It was later discovered that the title was not actually vacant, and Chad was not the rightful holder. He politely stepped aside. On an interesting side note, this happened in the year 666.
posted by tomorama
on Dec 2, 2000 -
2 comments
Our religion is better then yours, Naa, Naa! “The truth of faith does not lessen the sincere respect which the Church has for the religions of the world, but at the same time, it rules out...a religious relativism which leads to the belief that ‘one religion is as good as another’,” it said.
posted by john
on Sep 5, 2000 -
14 comments
