[thomasmerton] MertonTruth/7

[Guest guest]

really, father pat!....realize this!...you are tmertons's true son as i am

not....and a faithful son does not dissect his father nor idolize him but as

a prodigal son does come home.....it (neither male nor female) evolves his

father's dreams into the dreams for his father's grandsons (such patriachal

language paul even today forces upon us).....get it....love is

arising!....we are here to realize the dream thomas merton dreamt and to be

just like him we must dream the new dream of a new beginning for our

children's childrens's children....time is an illusion....advance into

joy....retreat into suffering...thomas merton marched forward....bede

griffeths went beyond....where are we to go...the beloved lies beyond.....

 

 

all manner of arisings

time past, time present, time future

`` all are, is, will be, is wellness arisings

-white wolfe

 

so enjoy suffering (wimje, where are you?)....i read this and am worried

that the flat-lander police will commit me to a life in a room without a

window and with stale air....already been there and done that.....i travel

to my beloved even though she rejects me....^^~~~~~

 

 

 

...

 

.

-

Patrick Collins <pcollins

Merton List <thomasmerton>; <acleary;

<billcreed; <JWDIIIKMD; <frdoug

Saturday, June 16, 2001 8:24 PM

[thomasmerton] MertonTruth/7

 

> Dear Merton Group,

>

> More "On Truth" from my ms "Thomas Merton Uncensored."

>

> Patrick Collins

>

>

> During the 1960's intense debates about the morality of nuclear war,

> Merton expressed himself on the dead end which traditional moral

> theology can lead. It can seem to allow anti-Gospel policies and

> actions. Again to John Harris he wrote:

> "Yes, the jesuitical arguments: they present a serious problem.

> Especially when you apply them to something like an atomic bomb. I

> wonder when moral theologians are going to have to admit, finally, that

> things have gone so far and been blown up to such a magnitude that it is

> no longer humanly possible to hedge - because it too quickly becomes

> obvious, besides being useless. It is one thing to stick to traditional

> principles of morality, and quite another to imagine that one can easily

> reconcile them with some modern problems in what appears to be a

> 'solution'... If I as a theologian insist that people in overpopulated

> countries must not practice birth control, then I am obligated in strict

> justice to take a practical and effective position to guarantee that

> they will be able to overflow into my own not overpopulated country."

> (Harris, John 2.18.60 HGL 394)

>

> Merton judged that both the renowned moralist, Gerald Ford, S.J., and

> the prominent dogmatic theologian, John Courtney Murray, S.J., thought

> alike on matters of the morality of warfare. And Merton differed

> dramatically with both of them in a letter to W.H. "Ping" Ferry in

> 1962. "I have been in touch not with John Courtney Murray, but with

> Fr. Ford, who is a close associate and who thinks like him. I gather

> they are in a rather quixotic abstract position saying limited nuclear

> war is fine but all-out nuclear war isn't, and therefore we just have to

> see that we don't go beyond a limited one. This is very logical

> according to the tradition in which they find themselves sitting, but

> the only trouble is that that the tradition in which they sit, that of

> the post-Tridentine casuists, is a boat that has slipped its moorings

> and is now floating off in mid-ocean a thousand miles away from the

> facts. But within that boat everything is logical all right, and in

> apple-pie order..." (Ferry, W. H. 1.18.62 HGL 204)

>

> One of Merton's criticisms of traditional Catholic moral theology was

> its grounding in what he considered a very limited understanding of

> natural law. He was quite acerbic on this point in a 1961 letter to

> Daniel Berrigan: "But then the natural law can always find a way of

> being dishonest in honor of the Gospel. To save the Church. Yes,

> that's what the dear old Church needs: the protection of natural law,

> or even, who knows, of gang law? At any rate, protection. She simply

> can't get along anymore with this Christian stuff about charity, it's

> plain ruinous and utterly against the moral theology manuals."

> (Daniel Berrigan, Dec 7, 61 HGL 72)

>

> The natural law approach to sexual morality was proving particularly

> difficult for Catholics to understand and accept in the 1960's,

> especially in relation to birth control. Merton wrote to James Forest

> in 1960 of both his limitations in this area of thought and also of

> suspicions.

> "About this sex question: here I get off the train. It is not that I

> am not interested, but this really is a question beyond my competence.

> I mean, this calls for someone who has been doing work in parishes with

> married people, or in college or something, or a moral theologian in the

> field itself. There is an awful lot of Byzantine technicality that one

> needs to know in order to handle this issue in a way that will pass

> muster with Catholic theologians. And in any case I think there is so

> much sheer crap written about it by Catholics and non-Catholics alike

> that I don't want to get into such a pile of confusions. This is just

> not my line, and while I think I must speak out, insofar as I can, on

> things like war and races, when it gets down to other issues like sex,

> birth control, etc. etc., I must pass it by. I can't keep up with the

> literature and with the state of the question..." (Forest, James

> 6.24.63 HGL 275)

>

>

>

> "Christ came on earth to form contemplatives" Thomas Merton

>

> Your use of is subject to

>

>