Thomas Merton on U.S. Militarism

Our government is facilitating mass slaughter. The two political parties running for president are complicit. The Catholic monk Thomas Merton’s writings on U.S. militarism were censored and often forbidden. He resorted to sending his work privately, much of it unknown until after his assassination.

1961:

“We have to become aware of the poisonous effect of the mass media that keep violence, cruelty, and sadism constantly present …

We have to recognize that the danger to the whole world is the fact that today the economic life of the more highly developed nations is centered largely on the production of weapons, missiles and other engines of destruction.

We have to consider the hate propaganda, … We have to recognize the implications of politicians who promote policies of hate. …

It is no longer reasonable or right to leave all decisions to a largely anonymous power elite that are driving us all, in our passivity, toward ruin. We have to make ourselves heard. [We] have a grave responsibility to protest clearly and forcibly …

Ambiguity, hesitation, and compromise are no longer permissible. War must be abolished. … time is rapidly running out.”

In 1962 Merton wrote Catholic Worker co-founder Dorothy Day:

“Yesterday I mailed you a book which is not to be published, [He titled this work Peace in a Post-Christian Era]. My Superiors, having been alerted by zealous individuals in this country, felt that I was ‘going too far’ and getting away from the contemplative vocation into ‘dangerous ground,’ etc.“

To another, he writes,

“The top brass in the American hierarchy is getting wind of my articles and is expressing displeasure. An editorial … takes very strong exception. … The whole line taken … is the official Pentagon line: Russia’s attitude is the real obstacle to peace.”

Ethel Kennedy, wife of U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy and confidant of his brother President John F. Kennedy, corresponded with Thomas Merton over 25 times. In 1961, JFK’s first year in office, Merton wrote her,

“… I must put down in black and white my very strong objection to the resumption of testing nuclear weapons. … there can be no longer any moral justification for … the motives for promoting nuclear armament … [they] mask a horrible, indeed diabolical, danger to mankind.

… these people, however sincere may be their motives, tend to be prejudiced in favor of everything that endangers the peace of the world. … to want weapons as badly as they do … is how wars are made.

It seems to me that the great problem we face is NOT RUSSIA, but war itself. War is the main enemy and we are not going to make sense unless we see that.

… Every form of healthy human contact with Russia, and above all China, is to be encouraged. We have got to see each other as people and not as demons.”

A year later JFK engaged in secret back-channel communication with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, both admitting their militaries had gone mad. Merton praised JFK’s June 10 speech. Early in 1964, Merton wrote Lyndon Johnson in his first year as U.S. President:

“… [a] united Vietnam … would certainly do more for the interests of freedom, … than a useless and stupid war.

Quite apart from humanitarian and ethical considerations which, to me, are primary, it would seem that … realistic awareness of the situation ought to warn us that a prolonged war in Asia is not going to benefit … the interests of democracy.

… I therefore respectfully recommend a prudent and rational course along the lines laid down in Pacem in Terris (Pope John the 23rd’s encyclical).

With cordial good wishes and the assurance of my prayers for the success of your policies in the area of civil rights and the war on poverty …”

Eight months later he would again reach out to LBJ,

“… it seems to me that methods of sheer force are not only unavailing but … immoral and unjust …

… our present policies in Vietnam [substitute Palestine, etc] are probably doing more to help Communism [substitute “terrorism”] than to hinder it, and may well end by making the U.S. a more hated and discredited interloper than anything else.

… In short, I think the U.S. military would do more for democracy if they got out of Vietnam …”

In 1968, with our Vietnam invasion at its height of terror, and civil rights revolts on our streets, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr were assassinated. Still wrongly covered up as a self-inflicted accident, the monk Thomas Merton is also executed. All three remain un-silenced as champions standing up to rampant militarism, racism, and economic injustice. A man who readily embraced other faiths as deepening his own, Merton was on a journey in the East gathering with the leaders of humanity, spirituality, and peace when he was assassinated.

Merton deserves the truthfulness he so diligently strove for all his life.

Returning seven years earlier again to 1961, the Catholic Worker published some of Merton’s thoughts on nonviolence, considered radical, headlined “The Roots Of War.” A few excerpts:

“The present war crisis is something we have made entirely for and by ourselves. There is in reality, not the slightest logical reason for war, and yet why the whole world is plunging headlong into frightful destruction.

… The duty of a Christian in this crisis is to strive with all his power and intelligence … to do the one task which God has imposed upon us in the world today. That task is to work for the total abolition of war… .

We tend by our very passivity and fatalism to cooperate with the destructive forces that are leading inexorably to war. … At the root of all war is fear …

… We have created for ourselves a suitable enemy, a scapegoat in whom we have invested all the evil in the world. He is the cause of every wrong. He is the fomenter of all conflict. If he can only be destroyed, conflict will cease, evil will be done with …

… We prevent ourselves from seeing any good or any practicability in the political ideals of our enemies. … I believe the basis for valid political action can only be the recognition that the true solution to our problems is … all must arrive at it by working together.

… What is the use of … the exhortations to “pray for peace,” and then spending billions of dollars on atomic submarines, thermonuclear weapons, and ballistic missiles?

… consider the utterly fabulous amount of money, planning, energy, anxiety and care that go into the production of weapons that almost immediately become obsolete. … When I pray for peace, I pray God to pacify not only the Russians and the Chinese, but above all my nation and myself.

When I pray for peace, I pray to be protected not only from the Russians but also from the folly and blindness of my own country. … I am praying that both we and the Russians may somehow be restored to sanity and learn how to work out our problems, as best we can, together, instead of preparing for global suicide.

…The “cold war” [now renewed] is simply the normal consequence of our corruption of a peace based on a policy of “everyone for himself” in ethics, economics, and political life.

… So instead of loving what you think is peace, love other people … If you love peace, then hate injustice, hate tyranny, hate greed — but hate these things in yourself…”

Thanks to the Thomas Merton Center, and Bellarmine University for their resources.