{"id":6535,"date":"2016-04-07T19:59:06","date_gmt":"2016-04-07T19:59:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2016\/04\/07\/why-evelyn-waugh-wanted-thomas-merton-to-shut-up\/"},"modified":"2016-04-07T19:59:06","modified_gmt":"2016-04-07T19:59:06","slug":"why-evelyn-waugh-wanted-thomas-merton-to-shut-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2016\/04\/07\/why-evelyn-waugh-wanted-thomas-merton-to-shut-up\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Evelyn Waugh Wanted Thomas Merton to Shut Up"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia,palatino;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.catholicherald.co.uk\/magazine-2\/arts-and-books\/2015\/04\/02\/book-review-why-evelyn-waugh-wanted-thomas-merton-to-shut-up\/\">Worth reading<\/a> and the same goes for some of the comments.&#0160; Here is an overly harsh comment that yet makes an important point:<br \/><\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<header><span style=\"font-family: georgia,palatino;\"><span class=\"post-byline\"> <span class=\"author\">A. I. Reeves<\/span> <a class=\"parent-link\" data-role=\"parent-link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.catholicherald.co.uk\/magazine-2\/arts-and-books\/2015\/04\/02\/book-review-why-evelyn-waugh-wanted-thomas-merton-to-shut-up\/#comment-2001198185\"> Sonya Roberts<\/a> <\/span> <span class=\"post-meta\"> <span class=\"bullet time-ago-bullet\">\u2022<\/span> <a class=\"time-ago\" data-role=\"relative-time\" href=\"http:\/\/www.catholicherald.co.uk\/magazine-2\/arts-and-books\/2015\/04\/02\/book-review-why-evelyn-waugh-wanted-thomas-merton-to-shut-up\/#comment-2001918195\" title=\"Sunday, May 3, 2015 11:16 PM\">a year ago<\/a> <\/span><\/span><\/header>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div class=\"post-body-inner\">\n<div class=\"post-message-container\" data-role=\"message-container\">\n<div class=\"publisher-anchor-color\" data-role=\"message-content\">\n<div class=\"post-message \" data-role=\"message\" dir=\"auto\">\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia,palatino;\">According to Sonya Roberts on Merton, &quot;<em>we can readily identify with his journey of faith.&quot;<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia,palatino;\">Oh can we just? Well, I, for one, most certainly do <em>not<\/em> identify with anyone displaying Merton&#39;s level of mental confusion and sheer erotomania.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia,palatino;\">This is a bozo who, at the age of 51 and sworn to monastic vows, got the blathering hots for a nurse half his age (with whom he almost certainly had full sexual relations: why else did he destroy the correspondence that passed between him and her?). He&#39;d already fathered an illegitimate child. And perhaps worst of all: by the time he had his Close Encounter of The Electric Fan Kind, he seems to have had only the vaguest awareness that Catholicism might differ from Buddhism.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia,palatino;\">There&#39;ll probably always be a market for Merton, just as there&#39;s notoriously always a market for Che Guevara T-shirts. But Holy Church in 2015 needs Merton (and Che) about as much as She needs the proverbial hole in the head.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia,palatino;\">As nasty and uncharitable as this comment is, Reeves is right that Merton often in his writings displays very little understanding of Catholic doctrine and how it differs from that of Buddhism and other religions.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<fieldset class=\"zemanta-related\">\n<legend class=\"zemanta-related-title\">Related articles<\/legend>\n<div class=\"zemanta-article-ul zemanta-article-ul-image\" style=\"margin: 0; padding: 0; overflow: hidden;\">\n<div class=\"zemanta-article-ul-li-image zemanta-article-ul-li\" style=\"padding: 0; background: none; list-style: none; display: block; float: left; vertical-align: top; text-align: left; width: 84px; font-size: 11px; margin: 2px 10px 10px 2px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/maverickphilosopher.typepad.com\/maverick_philosopher\/2015\/06\/the-seven-storied-thomas-merton.html\" style=\"box-shadow: 0px 0px 4px #999; padding: 2px; display: block; border-radius: 2px; text-decoration: none;\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/i.zemanta.com\/347468667_80_80.jpg\" style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; border: 0; display: block; width: 80px; max-width: 100%;\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/maverickphilosopher.typepad.com\/maverick_philosopher\/2015\/06\/the-seven-storied-thomas-merton.html\" style=\"display: block; overflow: hidden; text-decoration: none; line-height: 12pt; height: 80px; padding: 5px 2px 0 2px;\" target=\"_blank\">The Several-Storied Thomas Merton: Contemplative, Writer, Bohemian, Activist<\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"zemanta-article-ul-li-image zemanta-article-ul-li\" style=\"padding: 0; background: none; list-style: none; display: block; float: left; vertical-align: top; text-align: left; width: 84px; font-size: 11px; margin: 2px 10px 10px 2px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/maverickphilosopher.typepad.com\/maverick_philosopher\/2014\/08\/is-catholicism-a-religion.html\" style=\"box-shadow: 0px 0px 4px #999; padding: 2px; display: block; border-radius: 2px; text-decoration: none;\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/i.zemanta.com\/292683760_80_80.jpg\" style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; border: 0; display: block; width: 80px; max-width: 100%;\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/maverickphilosopher.typepad.com\/maverick_philosopher\/2014\/08\/is-catholicism-a-religion.html\" style=\"display: block; overflow: hidden; text-decoration: none; line-height: 12pt; height: 80px; padding: 5px 2px 0 2px;\" target=\"_blank\">Is Catholicism a Religion?<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/fieldset>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Worth reading and the same goes for some of the comments.&#0160; Here is an overly harsh comment that yet makes an important point: A. I. Reeves Sonya Roberts \u2022 a year ago According to Sonya Roberts on Merton, &quot;we can readily identify with his journey of faith.&quot; Oh can we just? Well, I, for one, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2016\/04\/07\/why-evelyn-waugh-wanted-thomas-merton-to-shut-up\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Why Evelyn Waugh Wanted Thomas Merton to Shut Up&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,73],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-literary-matters","category-merton-thomas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6535\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}