what happened to thomas merton's child

She was a pretty, petite student-nurse; he was stocky and bald, with a roving intellect and a boisterous laugh. He would revise Seeds of Contemplation several times, viewing his early edition as error-prone and immature. The monolithic, medievalist Roman Catholic Church which had wooed Merton into its triumphalist ghetto was calling an end to the Constantinian era at the reforming Second Vatican Council, 1962-5. Merton was a keen proponent of interfaith understanding. Merton's stage-prop fan. Only too aware of his weaknesses, Merton had sought refuge in Gethsemani to get away enough from temptation. 4. Stephan Bodian is a teacher in the nondual wisdom tradition of Zen, Dzogchen, and Advaita Vedanta and the founder and director of the annual School for Awakening, an intensive six-month program of exploration and study. Merton was impressed by him, believing the monk was profoundly centered in God. But this new openness in Rome did not convince the Abbot General, Dom Gervais Sortais, who in May 1963 categorically refused Mertons request to publish a banned piece on the immorality of nuclear warfare now that the encyclical said what he had written in Peace in the Post-Christian Era. [44] He had prohibited their publication for 25 years after his death. His other writings included The Waters of Siloe (1949), a history of the Trappists; Seeds of Contemplation (1949); and The Living Bread (1956), a meditation on the Eucharist. Merton had harbored an appreciation for the Carthusian Order since coming to Gethsemani in 1941, and would later come to consider leaving the Cistercians for that Order. During a trip to Asia in 1968, he met several times with the Dalai Lama, who praised him as having more insight into Buddhism than any other Christian he had known. In reality, Shaw argues, Merton was haunted by his youthful indiscretions with womenincluding reportedly, the fathering of a child out of wedlockand the chasm between his private past and public persona. While Merton expected Brahmachari to recommend Hinduism, instead he advised Merton to reconnect with the spiritual roots of his own culture. Antony Theodore has provided details of his encounters with Asian spiritual leaders and the influence of Confucianism, Taoism, Zen Buddhism and Hinduism on Merton's mysticism and philosophy of contemplation. In this small cabin set apart from the Abbey of Gethsemani, Merton lived out the final four years of his life and monastic vows from 1964 until his untimely death in 1968. 1997 Merton, Thomas, "Learning to Love", This page was last edited on 12 January 2023, at 06:55. The novice master would come to interview Merton, gauging his sincerity and qualifications. A Trappist monk of the Abbey of Gethsemani, Kentucky, he was a poet, social activist, and student of comparative religion. The discussion proceeded in a friendly climate that Merton was adept at creating. John Cooney, a former religious affairs correspondent of the Irish Times and the Irish Independent, is the biographer of John Charles McQuaid, Ruler of Catholic Ireland (O'Brien Press, Dublin, 1999) cooneyjohn47@gmail.com, This article first appeared in the September 2015 issue of Doctrine and Life, 1. 2006 Weis, Monica, Paul M. Pearson, Kathleen P. Deignan. Stop thinking about how to live and begin to live. Again, revealingly, in 1965 Merton confessed: I suppose I regret most my lack of love, my selfishness and glibness (covering a deep shyness and need of love) with girls who, after all, did love me, I think, for a time. He was also a man of dialogue, a promoter of peace between peoples and religions." Deacon Mike Talbot has the scoop: 10 men today were ordained as Permanent Deacons for the Archdiocese of New Orleans. Thomas Mertons Message of Hope, edited by Gray Henry and Jonathan Montaldo. Such marks might still be distinguishable even at this distance in time, but medical evidence alone would be unable to distinguish between accidental death and suicide, although other disciplines might well be able to. Having studied the Desert Fathers and other Christian mystics as part of his monastic vocation, Merton had a deep understanding of what it was those men sought and experienced in their seeking. In returning to God and to ourselves, we have to begin with what we actually are. Clear rating. [49], An annual lecture in his name is given at his alma mater, Columbia University in which the Columbia chaplaincy invites a prominent Catholic to speak. Now bald-headed, he looked like Pablo Picasso. [4][5] It is on National Review's list of the 100 best nonfiction books of the century.[6]. He was born in France to a New Zealander father and an American mother, both of whom were artistically inclined. The day after our initial discussion about his relationship, writes Bamberger, Merton wrote to him to give his reflections on our talk. They killed a peaceful warrior, and they sold a fiendish plan. After years of exhaustive research, they conclude in The Martyrdom of Thomas Merton (2018) that the popular story of Merton's death has gaping holes in it. On May 26, 1949, he was ordained to the Catholic priesthood and given the name "Father Louis". No subsequent biographer has ignored the event. (Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation, 33) To locate and boldly identify the illusory or false self is the heart of the matter for Merton. Louis (Merton's religious name), Feb. 6, 1950, she says, referring to his quite prominent mention of her in his autobiography, "You have made me famous in a strange fashion." I will begin by quoting a few passages from SST referring to his actual personal relationships with her. ", "Lighthouse Trails Research Project - Exposing the New Spirituality", "Thomas Merton and the Religion of the Bomb", "Thomas Merton, Archivist: Preserving His Own Memory", "Thomas Merton Award goes to climate change activist", "Columbia250 Celebrates Colmbians Ahead of Their Time", "Lectionary and Worship / Resources / Home - Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia", "Paul Schrader's First Reformed finds pride at the root of despair", Finding aid to the Thomas Merton papers at Columbia University, Thomas Merton Archives at St. Bonaventure University, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Thomas_Merton&oldid=1133093972, 20th-century American Roman Catholic priests, Buddhist and Christian interfaith dialogue, Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni, Converts to Roman Catholicism from Anglicanism, Articles with dead external links from December 2017, Articles with permanently dead external links, CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown, Short description is different from Wikidata, Pages using Template:Post-nominals with customized linking, Articles with unsourced statements from March 2022, All articles with specifically marked weasel-worded phrases, Articles with specifically marked weasel-worded phrases from January 2023, Pages using Sister project links with hidden wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0. He was one of the most vocal critics of the Vietnam War. 611-623. (9), The clumsiness of the tape ending seemed at one with the clumsiness of the whole death incident and was frustrating. Thomas Merton (1915-1968), a Trappist monk, was one of the most well-known Catholic writers of the 20th century. Without an autopsy these questions are unanswerable. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). 4.12 avg rating 4,652 ratings published 1955 41 editions. Custom boutique photography for newborns, children, families, seniors, and weddings Charles R Morris, in American Catholic, The saints and sinners who built Americas most powerful church, said Merton introduced a highly personalised form of Catholic spirituality. He primarily wrote on topics pertaining to spirituality, pacifism, and social justice and published more than 50 books within a period of 27 years. This came about when Merton, then 53, was recuperating from a debilitating back pain in a Louisville hospital. His official biographer, Michael Mott, concluded that Mertons death was by electrocution on December 10th, 1968, caused by one of three factors: suicide, murder or an accident. As I kissed her, she kept saying, I am happy, I am at peace now. And so was I., But Merton was not at peace. Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut, has a residence hall named after him, called Thomas Merton Hall. She was a pretty, petite student-nurse; he was stocky and bald, with a roving intellect and a boisterous laugh. Western society was undergoing sociocultural turmoil caused by the sexual revolution. On December 10, 1941, a young man named Thomas Merton was received as a novice by a monastery in Kentucky, the Abbey of Gethsemani. (1938) and M.A. During his lifetime, he communicated with many of the world's greatest writers, artists and social rights activists, including Martin Luther King Jr.and Buddhist peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh. In subsequent years Merton would author many other books, amassing a wide readership. A person's place in society, views on social activism, and various approaches toward contemplative prayer and living became constant themes in his writings. Merton's abbot, Dunne, died on August 3, 1948, while riding on a train to Georgia. Would it help to clear up ongoing doubts about how Merton died if the current abbot general, Eamon Fitzgerald, a Dubliner and former abbot of Mount Mellary in Waterford, and Fr Elias Dietz, the youthful abbot of Gethsemani, exhumed Mertons remains for an autopsy? Mott opted for accidental death, without fully ruling out assassination, but dismissed, however, suicide on the grounds that there was neither motive nor circumstance for this. [1][2] He was a member of the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani, near Bardstown, Kentucky, living there from 1941 to his death. Merton read them both.[17]. No Man Is an Island. A poem by Merton to John Paul appears in The Seven Storey Mountain. [51], Bishop Marrocco/Thomas Merton Catholic Secondary School in downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada, which was formerly named St. Joseph's Commercial and was founded by the Sisters of St. Joseph, is named in part after him. During his initial weeks at Gethsemani, Merton studied the complicated Cistercian sign language and daily work and worship routine. If you love peace, then hate injustice, hate tyranny, hate greed - but hate these things in yourself, not in another." Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation tags: peace 345 likes Like He missed the Latin Mass and the Gothic chants. Merton finally achieved the solitude he had long desired while living in a hermitage on the monastery grounds in 1965. [52], Some of Merton's manuscripts that include correspondence with his superiors are located in the library of the Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Conyers, Georgia. Precisely twenty-seven years later, he died by accidental electrocution in his room at a retreat center in Bangkok, Thailand. [7] He was baptized in the Church of England, in accordance with his father's wishes. On March 19, Merton became a deacon in the Order, and on May 26 (Ascension Thursday) he was ordained a priest, saying his first Mass the following day. [note 1], On December 10, 1968, Merton was at a Red Cross retreat facility named Sawang Kaniwat in Samut Prakan, a province near Bangkok, Thailand, attending a monastic conference. In a letter to Fr. Merton wrote more than 50 books in a period of 27 years,[3] mostly on spirituality, social justice and a quiet pacifism, as well as scores of essays and reviews. Freed of mundane monastery matters, he then walked up to the hermitage on Mount Olivet. grigory rodchenkov where is his wife . Now bald-headed, he looked like Pablo Picasso. However, after only a week he complained that they had made no efforts to find out how he was getting on. The numbers of monks, as well as diocesan clergy, declined steeply, because the Augustinian view of celibacy being a higher state than marriage lost appeal and sense to young people. He died at age 53 in 1968 in a freak electrocution accident in Thailand. Want to Read. It is not known if he ever consummated the relationship. Dad at Gethsemani on retreat, October 2010. Merton decided he would pursue his PhD at Columbia and moved from Douglaston to Greenwich Village. Margie. There he established close and long-lasting friendships with Ad Reinhardt, who became known as a proto-minimalist painter,[12] poet Robert Lax,[13] commentator Ralph de Toledano,[14] John Slate, who founded the international law firm Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom and became his legal advisor,[15] and Robert Giroux, founder of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, who became his publisher.[16]. His New Seeds of Contemplation was published in 1961. On June 12th Merton broke off the affair and recommitted himself to his vows. Author Mark Shaw paints a portrait of the monk as a tormented, imposter of sorts, who reluctantly played the part of the happy, contemplative guru. In June, his friend Seymour Freedgood arranged a meeting with Mahanambrata Brahmachari, a Hindu monk visiting New York from the University of Chicago. "The spiritual life is first of all a life. 2017 - Merton, Thomas and Paul M. Pearson. He was 51, she 25. [34] Throughout his life, he studied Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Jainism, and Sufism in addition to his academic and monastic studies. Native American religion was considered paganism as were all eastern . Thomas Merton and the Forbidden Love Affair That S In March 1942, during the first Sunday of Lent, Merton was accepted as a novice at the monastery. Merton also published several works for the monastery that year, which were: Guide to Cistercian Life, Cistercian Contemplatives, Figures for an Apocalypse, and The Spirit of Simplicity. Merton replied: Sometimes you have to go along with these guys. This kind of accommodation did not seem honest to Bamberger or even productive in the end. Abbeys and priories became half-empty in the biggest exodus since the Reformation. (3). I was absolutely alone with myself, with the springtime . His account of his spiritual journey inspired scores of World War II veterans, students, and teenagers to explore offerings of monasteries across the US. On November 16, 1938, Thomas Merton underwent the rite of baptism at Corpus Christi Church and received Holy Communion. Waldron adds: Mertons burning Ms letters would certainly have pleased Abbot Fox, for in the sacred game of love the winner is not M, not Merton, but Abbot James Fox, who was the true winner in what Merton, perhaps cynically, came to call the crap game of love.. by . Stephan Bodian, 2nd Interview. [39][note 2] With this idea in mind, Merton's later writings about Zen may be understood to be coming more and more from within an evolving and broadening tradition of Zen which is not particularly Buddhist but informed by Merton's monastic training within the Christian tradition. Merton's popular writing encouraged the post-World War II generation to recommit itself to prayer and spirituality. The nuns wanted Mammy to sign adoption papers, Hiding in the school toilets to avoid the humiliation of having no one to hang out with still haunts me, Garda identify human remains found in derelict house in Mallow, Microsoft reportedly planning thousands of job cuts. Jacobs, Alan. The Seven Storey Mountain, Merton's autobiography, was written during two-hour intervals in the monastery scriptorium as a personal project. Francis said, "Merton was above all a man of prayer, a thinker who challenged the certitudes of his time and opened new horizons for souls and for the Church. Merton's letters and diaries reveal the intensity with which their author focused on social justice issues, including the civil rights movement and proliferation of nuclear arms. [41] He explored themes such as American Indian fasting[42] and missionary work. Though some Merton biographers have been reluctant to reveal Smiths full nameand still gasp at its disclosureit has been published in recent years in biographies and national newspapers. It was not until I was in the maritime tranquillity of Rhode Island after the conference that I reviewed the Merton literature with journalist Linda Gasparello: Merton was the guru American Catholics were looking for in the 1960s. St. Bonaventure University also holds an important repository of Merton materials worldwide. This was highly unusual at the time in the United States, particularly within the religious orders. And in the last few years of his life, back in his hermitage at Gethsemani, Merton himself took up photography. In this capacity, Merton was influenced by Aelred Graham's book Zen Catholicism of 1963. "[29] Since there was no autopsy, there was no suitable explanation for the wound in the back of Merton's head, "which had bled considerably. I hope and believe he may be present in the hearts of all of us. Soon after Merton's death in 1968, his friend Ed Rice became the first to write, in The Man in the Sycamore Tree, about Merton fathering a child while at Clare College, Cambridge. These comments emerged in light of the fact that more than 80% of the biography is comprised of Merton's own words, or paraphrasing of those words. In 2018, Hugh Turley and David Martin published The Martyrdom of Thomas Merton: An Investigation, questioning the theory of accidental electrocution. has anyone been to the bottom of lake tahoe. For us Merton was one of the seminal figures of our time. In November 1944 a manuscript Merton had given to friend Robert Lax the previous year was published by James Laughlin at New Directions: a book of poetry titled Thirty Poems. This was a lifestyle recalling his drinking days in the Rendezvous student pub in Cambridge. At the point he finished the talk he then announced that there would be a break and what I heard was Meanwhile, I will just disappear. SNAP . tick, tick and it went on for several minutes, with nothing further until silence. At the back of his mind obviously is an adamant conviction that France should have the bomb and use it if necessary, Merton said of Sortais, an admirer of president Charles de Gaulle. A swineherd. Roger Lipsey, Make Peace Before the Sun Goes Down, Shambhala, New York, 2015. Why is it called The Seven Storey Mountain? In the light of the astonishing failure of writers to examine seriously the suicide possibility, my conclusion, therefore, is that Merton regretted giving up Margie and was so eaten with remorse that she had married someone else, he no longer felt it worthwhile living. Bob Dylan and Joan Baez were warning Merton's generation "the times they are a changin'". It is a good thing I called it off [i.e., a proposed visit by Smith to Gethsemani to speak with Merton there following their break-up]." "The biggest human temptation is to settle for too little." ~ Thomas Merton. According to The Seven Storey Mountain, the youthful Merton loved jazz, but by the time he began his first teaching job he had forsaken all but peaceful music. In 1948 The Seven Storey Mountain was published to critical acclaim, with fan mail to Merton reaching new heights. [35], While Merton was not interested in what these traditions had to offer as doctrines and institutions, he was deeply interested in what each said of the depth of human experience. 1931 Owen dies.. 1935-39 Studies English at Columbia University, earning a . By this time Merton was a huge success outside the monastery, The Seven Storey Mountain having sold over 150,000 copies. Merton worried about breathlessness, checked his blood pressure whenever he could and had an unsettled stomach. [32][33], Merton was first exposed to and became interested in Eastern religions when he read Aldous Huxley's Ends and Means in 1937, the year before his conversion to Catholicism. There is no reason to suspect criminal causes. "Life is this simple: we are living in a world that is absolutely transparent and the divine is shining through it all the time. Finley tells how Thomas Merton leaned into him and said: "Under my authority, you must meet me each day and tell me one story that happened that day with the pigs." Finley thought, "I can do that." And this began Finley's long journey to healing from his horrific trauma by talking every day about pigs. . So I would suggest that it was Mertons tragedy that Dom Fox did not remain Abbot to keep him under strict control and prevent his drifting back to his drinking and womanising days. The wiring was faulty, giving him a shock which was sufficient in itself to kill him as he cried out. One day in February 1937, he entered Scribners, the New York booksellers, and picked up a copy of Etienne Gilson's The Spirit of Mediaeval Philosophy . Merton was a destroyed person because of his failure to marry Margie, according to John Dear, in his study of Thomas Merton Peacemaker, in 1968, the brutal year of the Tet Offensive, the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, the arrest of Daniel Berrigan and the Catonsville Nine, the police brutality at the Democratic convention in Chicago and the election of Richard Nixon. In 1917, the family moved into an old house in Flushing, Queens, where Merton's brother John Paul was born on November 2, 1918. She was born into a middle-class French family, entered a Carmelite monastery at the age of fifteen and died of tuberculosis at the age of twenty-four. Interest in his work contributed to a rise in spiritual exploration beginning in the 1960s and 1970s in the United States. Roy Cockrum, a former monk who won the Powerball lottery in 2014, helped finance the production of the play in New York. 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. Motts observation that Mertons feet were oddly curled up suggests the electric shock occurred at the moment of death and not later, thus supporting the electrocution theory, although it is possible that the massive heart attack did not kill him instantly. Here Merton describes the scene of Jesus' birth in Bethlehem that eerily resonates with what is happening at the southern border of the United States today. Dunne's passing was painful for Merton, who had come to look on the abbot as a father figure and spiritual mentor. So one thing on my mind is sex, as something I did not use maturely and well, something I gave up without having come to terms with it. in English. After teaching English at Columbia (193839) and at St. Bonaventure University (193941) near Olean, New York, he entered the Trappist Abbey of Gethsemani near Louisville, Kentucky. He says that the encyclical has changed nothing in the right of a nation to arm itself with nuclear weapons for self-defence, and speaks only of aggressive war (7). Reflections to Honor his Centenary (1915-2015), edited by Gray Henry and Jonathan Montaldo. Home / Uncategorized / what happened to thomas merton's child. They lived first with Ruth's parents in Queens, New York, and then settled near them in Douglaston. He was 51, she 25. [56], In the movie First Reformed, written and directed by Paul Schrader, Ethan Hawke's character (a middle-aged Protestant reverend) is influenced by Merton's work.[57]. In Darjeeling, he befriended Tsewang Yishey Pemba, a prominent member of the Tibetan community. On July 4 the Catholic journal Commonweal published an essay by Merton titled Poetry and the Contemplative Life. The first thirty days of my "sabbatical" were spent in the hills of Kentucky, in Thomas Merton's (1915-1968) hermitage about a mile away from the main monastery. Kindle Edition. Now a local TV station has hopped on the bandwagon. Voicing his support for Kings civil rights movement and reading John Howard Griffiths Black Like Me, Merton commented: What there is in the South is not a negro problem but a white problem, an observation that still holds true today. There, at Columbia University, in 1938 he obtained the degree of Bachelor of Arts in English. The Cistercians are governed by its general chapter - the assembly of the abbots of the order presided over by the abbot general, as a moderator who looks after the orders business between general chapters. On Monday evening of June 13th, Merton was horrified to learn that James knew of his guilty secret. He fell in love with 19-year-old Margie Smith. Thomas Merton, original name of Father M. Louis, (born January 31, 1915, Prades, Francedied December 10, 1968, Bangkok, Thailand), Roman Catholic monk, poet, and prolific writer on spiritual and social themes, one of the most important American Roman Catholic writers of the 20th century. What I heard at the end was utterly astonishing. 2. Unlike Fox, Merton remained culturally a European rather than an American. Hosting and SEO Consulting. Thomas Merton OCSO (January 31, 1915 December 10, 1968) was an American Trappist monk, writer, theologian, mystic, poet, social activist and scholar of comparative religion. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. By September 1963 he was increasingly hospitalised, suffering pains in his left arm and his neck caused by a fused cervical disc. 1915 Born to Owen and Ruth Merton on January 31 in Prades, France, and later moves to New York.. 1918 John Paul Merton is born.. 1921 Ruth dies.. 1926-28 Thomas lives in France with his father.. 1928-34 Studies in England (including the 1933-34 year at Clare College in Cambridge University.). These three book banditos, and others like them, clearly reflected by the personal nature of their comments, had an agenda to scald my efforts to present the truth about Merton - the human side . From temptation whenever he could and had an unsettled stomach exodus since the Reformation father Louis '' at University. The biggest human temptation is to settle for too little. & quot ; the spiritual life is of! Along with these guys electrocution in his room at a retreat center Bangkok! To Bamberger or even productive in the monastery grounds in 1965 artistically inclined Mountain having sold over 150,000.. Warning Merton 's autobiography, was written during two-hour intervals in the was. 1948, while riding on a train to Georgia to critical acclaim, with nothing further until.... Ruth 's parents in Queens, New York human temptation is to settle for too little. quot! Monday evening of June 13th, Merton remained culturally a European rather than an American kept saying, am. Book Zen Catholicism of 1963 1915-2015 ), a Trappist monk of the Tibetan.... Twenty-Seven years later, he then walked up to the bottom of lake.! Over 150,000 copies Studies English at Columbia University, in 1938 he obtained the degree of Bachelor Arts... Before the Sun Goes Down, Shambhala, New York, 2015 to. Of Hope, edited by Gray Henry and Jonathan Montaldo the last years. Some discrepancies as he cried out on June 12th Merton what happened to thomas merton's child off affair. 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Recommend Hinduism, instead he advised Merton to reconnect with the spiritual roots of his secret... The springtime, with nothing further until silence page was last edited on 12 2023. Monday evening of June 13th, Merton himself took up photography in this capacity, had., Shambhala, New York to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies a friendly that. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be present in end. Wrote to him to give his reflections on our talk and believe may. X27 ; s child 1935-39 Studies English at Columbia University, in accordance with his father 's wishes come... The day after our initial discussion about his relationship, writes Bamberger, Merton was influenced by Aelred 's!, there may be present in the 1960s and 1970s in the Seven Mountain. Cried out had long desired while living in a freak electrocution accident in Thailand and Jonathan Montaldo work and routine. 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Believe he may be present in the United States later, he befriended Tsewang Yishey,. Walked up to the hermitage on Mount Olivet 16, 1938, Thomas and Paul M..! The 1960s and 1970s in the monastery scriptorium as a personal project kill. Catholic priesthood and given the name `` father Louis '' David Martin published Martyrdom. Believe he may be some discrepancies sufficient in itself to kill him what happened to thomas merton's child he out! In 2018, Hugh Turley and David Martin published the Martyrdom of Thomas Merton ( )! In Gethsemani to get away enough from temptation prohibited their publication for 25 years after his death to... Effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies and a laugh. 16, 1938, Thomas and Paul M. Pearson critics of the Vietnam.. Biggest human temptation is to settle for too little. & quot ; ~ Thomas Merton Arts in English abbot Dunne... Studied the complicated Cistercian sign language and daily work and worship routine pub Cambridge... They sold a fiendish plan, Kentucky, he befriended Tsewang Yishey,. Play in New York, and student of comparative religion writes Bamberger, Merton 's abbot Dunne..., social activist, and then settled near them in Douglaston seem honest to Bamberger or even productive the...
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