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A new biography of American Trappist Thomas Merton, who died in a freak accident near Bangkok in 1968, has raised controversy among scholars with its disclosure of the name of a young woman with whom the monk fell in love.
He was 51, she a 25 year old student nurse, USA Today reports.
Margie Smith had read at least one of the books that made Thomas Merton famous when she walked into his hospital room in Louisville in 1966. Over the next several months, the nurse and the monk wrote letters, drank wine and fell in love, sneaking in and out of the Abbey of Gethsemani like teenagers.
“There is no question I am in deep,” Merton wrote in his journal just a month after meeting M., as he coded her name.
Though some Merton biographers have been reluctant to reveal Smith’s full name and still gasp at its disclosure, it has been published in biographies and national newspapers.
Scholars and even casual fans have long known of his affair with Smith, especially since his seven-volume personal journals were published in the 1990s.
In a new Merton biography, Beneath the Mask of Holiness, falls firmly in the latter camp, author Mark Shaw paints a portrait of the monk as a tormented “imposter of sorts” who reluctantly played the part of the happy, contemplative guru.
In reality, Shaw argues, Merton was haunted by his youthful indiscretions with women and the chasm between his past and image.
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Book on monk Thomas Merton’s love affair stirs debate (USA Today)
LINKS
Thomas Merton (Wikipedia)
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