You are here

Tag: Vietnam

The Early Thai Reports, the Press, and the Abbey on Thomas Merton’s Death

David Martin

by David Martin and Hugh Turley The Trappist monk Thomas Merton might well have been the most significant Roman Catholic thinker and writer of the 20th century.  His 1948 autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain, sold over 600,000 copies in its original hardcover edition and, in one version or another, has remained continuously in print.  Its Kindle edition as of this writing has 803 customer reviews, with an average rating of 4.6 out of 5 stars. Merton was a prolific writer.  The Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University in Louisville, Kentucky, lists 106 books that he authored, 42 of which were published before his mysterious violent death on December 10, 1968, while he was attending a monastic conference near Bangkok, Thailand.…

FULL ARTICLE

Thomas Merton: Enemy of the Warfare State

James Tracy

  Recent research suggests how the bizarre and untimely death of Catholic author, mystic and outspoken anti-Vietnam War activist may in fact have been carried out by the CIA and at the direction of President Lyndon Johnson, whose Executive Branch tenure saw the political assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. While there is a wealth of historical research on the deaths of the Kennedys and King, we are just beginning to understand how and why Merton had likewise become an enemy of the warfare state. Music: Gregorian Chant: Easter Sunday – Alleluia – Pascha nostrum Benedictine Monks of the Abbey Münsterschwarzach and Pater Godehard Joppich.

FULL ARTICLE