Passion For Peace: The Social Essays [Abridged] [Paperback]

Thomas Merton (Author), William H. Shannon (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 25, 1997

This book is a series of Thomas Merton's most important writings on peace, racial issues and non-violence. on peace, racial issues, and non-violence.Essentail reading.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

William H. Shannon, the biographer (Silent Lamp [1992]) of the great American Catholic apostle of nonviolence and racial justice, Thomas Merton, here restores to print Merton's essays on those matters and provides the briefest of context-setting headnotes to each. Introductorily, Shannon notes how much soul searching and courage it took for Merton to speak out against the cold war and its perversions, as he saw them, of society, the economy, language, and religion, at a time when his own Catholic Church was, if not silent about war, liable to cheer on armed American aggression. These particular writings of Merton's are, besides being stirring reminders of the Christian duty to prosecute peace, documents of importance to American history as much as or more than to Christian history. Ray Olson --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

Skillfully edited by William H. Shannon, Passion For Peace: The Social Essays is a comprehensive volume containing Thomas Merton's principal writings on non-violence, war, and racism. Much of what he wrote between 1961 and 1968 is prophetic and speaks penetratingly to our time thirty years later. Wars and rumors of war are still with us. Justice and love remain a dream. In most of these articles, it's as if Merton is actually writing in the 1990s! He is speaking to us -- reminding us of the essential oneness that roots the equal dignity of all people. Merton's writings on social issues flowed from a deep contemplative vision. Shannon puts each of Merton's essays in context and reveals how this vision developed. We see a side of Merton's character that does not come through in his other books: his passion for peace and the ardor with which he pleaded for it in a world where people so desperately yearn for it. Passion For Peace is a book of testament, vision, and hope. This is yet another legacy Merton left behind for the enlightenment and encouragement of future generations. -- Midwest Book Review --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 338 pages
• Publisher: Crossroad Classic; Abridged edition (March 25, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0824516575
• ISBN-13: 978-0824516574
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,574,741 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Thomas Merton (1915-1968) is arguably the most influential American Catholic author of the twentieth century. His autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain, has millions of 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.

After a rambunctious youth and adolescence, Merton converted to Roman Catholicism and entered the Abbey of Gethsemani, a community of monks belonging to the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance (Trappists), the most ascetic Roman Catholic monastic order.

The twenty-seven years he spent in Gethsemani brought about profound changes in his self-understanding. This ongoing conversion impelled him into the political arena, where he became, according to Daniel Berrigan, the conscience of the peace movement of the 1960's. Referring to race and peace as the two most urgent issues of our time, Merton was a strong supporter of the nonviolent civil rights movement, which he called "certainly the greatest example of Christian faith in action in the social history of the United States." For his social activism Merton endured severe criticism, from Catholics and non-Catholics alike, who assailed his political writings as unbecoming of a monk.

During his last years, he became deeply interested in Asian religions, particularly Zen Buddhism, and in promoting East-West dialogue. After several meetings with Merton during the American monk's trip to the Far East in 1968, the Dali Lama praised him as having a more profound understanding of Buddhism than any other Christian he had known. It was during this trip to a conference on East-West monastic dialogue that Merton died, in Bangkok on December 10, 1968, the victim of an accidental electrocution. The date marked the twenty-seventh anniversary of his entrance to Gethsemani.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Working for Social Justice, August 30, 2000

By 

brian (Chicago) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Passion For Peace: The Social Essays (Paperback)

A great book that lists many essays of Merton during the 60's, including some that orignally appeared in the Catholic Worker Newspaper. Many on non-violence, others on important figures of that time. I especially enjoyed the piece on Malcolm X.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Same War, Different "Enemies", September 27, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Passion For Peace: The Social Essays (Paperback)

Never mind fighting terrorism and the Taliban. America's conflicting values put it at war with itself and make it seek scapegoats abroad. Merton speaks to us across two generations to show how the hatred and evil in us spread across oceans to infect those who become our enemies.

But Merton does not bash America or Americans. He provides a vital antidote to the disinformation that passes as news reports in our media, which are just as clueless as we are in understanding the whys and wherefores of our current crisis.

So do yourself a favor. Turn off the TV and the radio, set aside the newspapers and magazines, and read this book. You'll swear as I do that Merton could have written it yesterday. Substitute "terrorism" for "cold war" and "communism" while you're reading, and you'll see what I mean. There's still time for enlightenment and wisdom to triumph over ignorance and vanity if enough of us can learn to tell the difference.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars CLEARLY AND UNEQUIVOCABLY PRESENTS FATHER MERTON'S MAJOR WRITINGS ON THE CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE AND PREREQUISITE OF PEACE IN ACTION, December 11, 2007

By 

C. Scanlon "least helpful reviewer" (among us humans) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Passion For Peace: The Social Essays (Paperback)

Various compilations of American monk and martyr for peace Father Merton have gathered his ever more clear and strong prophetic writings for pacifism as a principle of Christian action and orthopraxis, no matter what compromise might have been made with the imperial powers and dominations in this material world which adulterating compromises drove past and present ages of monks into the isolated anchorite mountains and deserts and caves, horrified by any surrendering of the Faith of the Prince of Peace to institutional violence.

Thus we receive most gratefully this gathering of Father Merton's clear essays for Peace as principle of Christian Faith edited by Merton biographer the Reverend Father William Shannon, author as well of Silent Lamp: The Thomas Merton Story.

As Roy Olsen writes in his Booklist essay describing this excellent collection on Christian Peace, "Shannon notes how much soul searching and courage it took for Merton to speak out against the cold war and its perversions, as he saw them, of society, the economy, language, and religion, at a time when his own Catholic Church was, if not silent about war, liable to cheer on armed American aggression. These particular writings of Merton's are, besides being stirring reminders of the Christian duty to prosecute peace, documents of importance to American history as much as or more than to Christian history."

Indeed in that dark day as now to speak of peace was to be exiled and insulted as un-American and even against all evidence anti-Christian, and thus we understand the courage it took for Father Merton to speak out thus prophetically ever more and more clearly and uncompromisingly, compelled by our faith in its fullness and by our Eucharist, causing no doubt his death.

Remember the recent Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis: el Sacramento de la Caridad: una Exhortacion Apostolica Postsinodal recalls how our participation in the Eucharist compels us to work for compassionate peace.

In his lengthy introduction, Father Shannon indicates that many of the articles and essays republished here originally appeared in Seeds of Destruction and in The Nonviolent Alternative. Father Shannon indicates the correct criticism that those works tended to decontextualize the writings, and thus lent themselves to drawing Father Merton's words far out of context, by which some eager ideologues could even force the grotesquely and absurdly erroneous point that Father Merton supported war and killing under certain circumstances. He did not.

Fortunately his biographer, Father Shannon here supplies the context and the fullness of Father Merton's pacifist and faithful thought and spirit. Father Shannon concludes: "I hope that understanding these articles in their context will show readers a neglected side of Thomas Merton: his passion for peace and the ardor with which he pleaded for it, in a world that yearned for it so desperately (p. 7)."

Now we do not even yawn for it, nor appear to care for peace whatsoever, as we murder a million Iraqis, so long as we get our oil, which is why we need very much to read this book once more, and return home to the fullness of our Faith in the Prince of Peace, now in this season of Advent as the angels first announce to the poor shepherds abandoned on the night hillsides: Pacem in Terris. Read here one of the closing articles entitled "The Vietnam War: An Overwhelming Atrocity (p. 315)" and watch how close to home it calls us even now in this time of endless, fruitless, brutal, unjustifiable, immoral and causeless war without end. Pray for our conversion back to Catholicism in its plenitude, and pray for peace.