Merton is kinda being a jerk in this passage . . .
The minister was called Mr. Riley. Pop had always called him “Dr. Riley” to his great embarrassment. Despite the Irish name, he detested Catholics, like most Protestant ministers. He was always very friendly to me and used to get into conversations about intellectual matters and modern literature, even men like D. H. Lawrence with whom he was thoroughly familiar.
It seems that he counted very much on this sort of thing—considered it an essential part of his ministry to keep up with the latest books, and to be able to talk about them, to maintain contact with people by that means. But that was precisely one of the things that made the experience of going to his church such a sterile one for me. He did not like or understand what was considered most “advanced” in modern literature and, as a matter of fact, one did not expect him to; one did not demand that of him. Yet it was modern literature and politics that he talked about, not religion and God. You felt that the man did not know his vocation, did not know what he was supposed to be. He had taken upon himself some function in society which was not his and which was, indeed, not a necessary function at all.
When he did get around to preaching about some truth of the Christian religion, he practically admitted in the pulpit, as he did in private to anyone who cared to talk about it, that he did not believe most of these doctrines, even in the extremely diluted form in which they are handed out to Protestants. The Trinity? What did he want with the Trinity? And as for the strange medieval notions about the Incarnation, well, that was simply too much to ask of a reasonable man.
Once he preached a sermon on “Music at Zion Church” and sent me word that I must be sure to be there, for I would hear him make mention of my father. That is just about typical of Protestant pulpit oratory in the more “liberal” quarters. I went, dutifully, that morning, but before he got around to the part in which I was supposed to be personally interested, I got an attack of my head-spinning and went out into the air. When the sermon was being preached, I was sitting on the church steps in the sun, talking to the black-gowned verger, or whatever he was called. By the time I felt better, the sermon was over.
I cannot say I went to this church very often: but the measure of my zeal may be judged by the fact that I once went even in the middle of the week. I forget what was the occasion: Ash Wednesday or Holy Thursday. There were one or two women in the place, and myself lurking in one of the back benches. We said some prayers. It was soon over. By the time it was, I had worked up courage to take the train into New York and go to Columbia for the day.
Obviously, Thomas Merton has a vested interest in making Protestant religions look bad. He was a Trappist monk, and everything in The Seven Storey Mountain is filtered through the lens of monasticism. Merton was a forward thinker, especially later in his life. That forward thinking got him into a lot of hot water, especially his thoughts and writings on the Vietnam War (and war, in general). However, as this passage demonstrates, Merton toed the line when it came to his thinking on Protestantism, at least early in his religious life.
I, myself, was raised by a father who was militantly Catholic. In fact, for many years when I was young, he dragged the whole family to a church that continued to say the Mass in Latin instead of following the teachings of the Second Vatican Council. He seemed to consider saying the Mass in English as the work of the devil, and the Second Vatican Council as a communist plot. (My father was also a member of the John Birch Society for quite a while, so he saw communists in more places than Senator Joseph McCarthy, who was a personal hero of my father.)
In response to my father's ultra-conservative values, I embraced more progressive ideals--valuing all people, regardless of race, social status, gender, sexual orientation, OR religion. That's right. My best friends ran with the Martin Luther and John Wesley crowd, if not being outright atheists. And I often found these members of my inner circle to be more spiritual than the majority of Catholics I knew.
I married a Methodist. All their lives, our children have attended Catholic Mass on Saturday evenings and Methodist worship on Sunday mornings. I've often joked that I've become a Matholic, which sort of sounds like I'm a member of the Church of Pythagoras. One of my best friends is a Methodist pastor, and another is an atheist. Still another practices Buddhism. Almost all are socialist in their political leanings--feed and clothe the poor, take care of the sick, open your doors to the homeless and refugee. In short, they are walking in Jesus Christ's footsteps, even if they don't profess to be Christians.
These people make me a better human being. When I head down the rabbit hole of despair and self-doubt, they draw me back to the light. Through four years of Donald Trump, when so much hatred filled the streets of my country, my friends filled me with hope that something better was possible. Thomas Aquinas said, "There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship." I believe that with all my heart.
So, this Thanksgiving Eve, I give thanks that I have people in my life--Christian and Buddhist, straight and gay, scientist and humanist, African American and Native American, Star Wars fan and Star Trek fan--who remind me that goodness exists. Who, when I fall down, will be there to pick me up, dust me off, check to make sure I haven't broken anything, and then send me back out into the world to make a difference.
Saint Marty is thankful tonight for the miracle of his friends.
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