biography
| name: |
Merton, Thomas (James)
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| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1915–68)
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| biography:
| Catholic monk and writer, born in Prades, France. Following his mother's early death, he was raised in France, England, and the USA. After earning bachelor's and master's degrees in English from Columbia University, he converted from agnosticism to Catholicism, and in 1941 entered a Trappist monastery at Gethsemani, KY, taking the name Louis. His autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain (1948), became a best-seller and made him a Catholic folk hero. He continued to write poetry and religious works, and after ordination (1949) he served as master of students, then master of novices. In later life he was increasingly preoccupied with social concerns, and he became a major figure in the 1960s anti-war movement. Also drawn to solitude, he won permission to live as a hermit on his monastery's grounds (1965). In 1968 he was allowed to pursue a growing interest in Oriental mysticism by visiting the Far East, but while attending a religious conference in Thailand he was apparently electrocuted by a faulty fan in his hotel room. |
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