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Beneath Thomas Merton's Mask of Holiness: An interview with author Mark Shaw part 1
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Cover of Mark Shaw's new book on Merton
This interview is broken into 3 parts. Part 2 of this interview can be found here, and part 3 is here. For further information on Mark Shaw, his book, his blog and more, see the end of part 3 for links.
Mark Shaw is the author of fifteen books and a graduate of San Francisco Theological Seminary where we met four years ago. His new book, Beneath the Mask of Holiness: Thomas Merton and the Forbidden Love Affair That Set Him Free, is set for release November 10th. You can find more information about the book and Mark Shaw on his website. I had some time to speak with Shaw about where his inspiration came from and where the writing process led him as he delved into the live and love of Thomas Merton.
Mark, thanks again for talking to me about your new book, Beneath the Mask of Holiness. As I understand it, I was there when this book was 'conceived'. Could you talk about where the idea for this book came from?
I had been first introduced to Thomas Merton in a spiritual direction class at San Francisco Theological Seminary in 2005 and began to study his book, "New Seeds of Contemplation." Merton's views on the contemplative life and the inclusion of all religions and spiritualities captivated, me but it was not until another course, this time one focusing on Conversion in 2007 that I began to question whether Merton had ever truly been converted based on a love affair late in his life. Then, during the Conversion class, taught by the gifted scholar Dr. Lewis Rambo, a paper was required and I decided to write about the romance since I wondered why the famous monk had fallen so madly in love with a student nurse half his age.
Then a true blessing occurred, the first of many along the way to writing the book. You were there one day when a fellow student named Don mentioned that Merton's private journals had been published in the mid-1990s with Volume Six featuring information about the love affair. Presto, I bought Volume Six and wrote the paper, the first step to writing the book since, as with all of the books I have written, I could not get the "Why" out of my mind. My curiosity would lead in all sorts of directions, but the birth of the idea for a fresh Merton biography occurred in that Conversion class.
You talk about your curiosity leading you - where are some places you have been led that were surprising?
Many biographers had skirted the issue regarding the Margie Smith love affair, but no one had focused so much on it as as to realize that it was the link to understanding why Thomas Merton was so miserable as he noted in his private journals. Working backward, I discovered that Merton's misery and turmoil ("I am fifty. People think I am happy") was directly connected to pre-monastic sin including drunkenness, fathering a child out of wedlock, participating in a mock crucifixion that left marks on his hands, and adultery shortly before he entered Gethsemani. When he was asked to write his autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain, he wanted the experience to help cleanse his soul but Catholic Censors prohibited him from doing so to protect the image of the church.
In the book, I noted:
"Why is SSM not a “whole truth” account of Merton’s early years? The answer lies in a quiet conspiracy, a cover-up if you will, by not only Merton, but also the Catholic Church hierarchy, stretching from the United States to the Vatican, Abbot Frederic Dunne, Merton’s literary agent, and his publisher, none of whom did anything other than promote the book as factual even though critical parts did not disclose the whole truth. Strict censorship, in effect, issued a restraining order on Merton’s true story, omitting critical information about him, and readers were hoodwinked and misled into believing that while Merton may have been a sinner prior to entering Gethsemani, he was not “that bad” a sinner.
Through this false impression, an act of omission just as severe as one of commission, readers were, and are today, left with a portrayal of Merton as a poor, lost soul who was converted to Catholicism and entered the monastery seeking salvation. In fact, he was a sinner of the first degree who was never held responsible for more serious conduct that would have tarnished the Merton “image” being promoted. Based on this motive, a cover-up was necessary so the Catholic Church and Gethsemani would not be embarrassed over Merton’s pre-monastic conduct, which was, as the complete truth indicates, reprehensible at best, and downright despicable at worst.
Protecting the image of the church thus remains, whether it is covering up sexual abuse, clamping down on dissent, or perpetuating the image of its public figures like Merton, saintly in nature. Secrecy and denial still exist, causing concern as to whether incidents of sexual or mental abuse continue to this day because few safeguards are in place to prevent re-occurrence, which is based on a code of silence. Lack of candor, together with secrecy, are the bywords in what author Russell Shaw calls “clerical elitism,” triggering a belief among bishops and priests that they are “intrinsically superior to the other members of the church and deserve automatic deference.” Shaw traces this disease back to days before Vatican I on through Vatican II, where openness and honesty were replaced with deception and cover-up, resulting in scandals caused by the church’s “attempting to control access to truth.” Nowhere is this more evident, Shaw believes, than in the sexual predations of priests that caused the dam of secrecy to break. This was due to the church’s placing priests on pedestals, causing an atmosphere similar to the one where portions of Merton’s book were censored in what may be characterized as a rather usual course of doing business, never give it a second thought–type of mindset.10 Shading the truth was necessary to keep Merton’s pre-monastic “dirty laundry” from view with nary a concern for readers who deserved to know the truth for a book promoted as true, with no disclosure otherwise except for a notation opposite the table of contents listing John M. A. Fearns, S.T.D., as “Censor Librorum.”11
The fact that SSM was heavily censored is a given. Its editor, Robert Giroux, admitted it; official Merton biographer Michael Mott corroborated it; and fellow monk Father Basil Pennington, with apparent direct knowledge, confirmed it. Most important, longtime Merton friend and confidant Edward Rice, author of The Man in the Sycamore Tree: The Good Times and Hard Life of Thomas Merton, the first biography of Merton, criticized the publication of SSM by questioning its legitimacy when he exposed the cover-up in 1970, two years after Merton died. He reported that after Merton’s draft was submitted for publication, “Then came the immense job of editing—and castrating— the manuscript. During the year before publication a large portion, perhaps as much as one third, was either seriously altered or literally thrown away on the insistence of the Trappist censors.”12 Whether this meant two thirds of the book was more fiction than fact is unclear, but regardless, the book presented only part of Merton’s pre-monastic story. This prompts the view that while the book is regarded as a classic, all copies should be recalled until a disclaimer is included indicating to readers that the book they are reading is less than truthful."
Having been unable to shed the yoke of guilt that was choking him, and never having how to love and be loved, Merton suffered beneath a mask of holiness no one knew about since he was promoted as some sort of a plastic saint. But he knew the truth and it was only when God presented him with a wonderful gift in the form of Margie Smith, a student nurse half his age, that he could finally learn what true love was all about. Certainly the affair began with an erotic tone ("we love each other to ecstasy"), but over time it ripened into a blessed togetherness Merton had never known before. Finally he could share his life with a woman who adored him, one he called "a miracle in my life."
Censorship is wrong in any form and at any time, and the Catholic Church caused Merton so much agony by controlling his every writings. He was also, as several fellow monks told me, basically imprisoned at Gethsemani with no freedom to travel or speak about his ideas and views. The church treated him like the junkyard dog always on a leash for fear he would run away or embarrass the church in some way. How cruel this was to Merton, at the time promoted as the poster boy for the church.
The Catholic Church censoring Thomas Merton? Clearly there is more to talk about as I continue my conversation with author Mark Shaw.
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