By Michael Patrick O’Brien–
Author Mitch Albom, of Tuesdays with Morrie fame, wrote another book about conversations (Have a Little Faith) in which a rabbi tells him, “Nothing haunts us like the things we don’t say.” This wise observation clearly applies to what I call the big things, like telling your family and friends you love them. Yet, I also have been a bit haunted by some interesting but perhaps not-so-big-things never said. One example is the conversation I could have had with a friend who, it turns out, was the Trappist censor for the famous monk and writer Thomas Merton.
Regular readers of this blog will recall that my family and I spent a lot of time, during my boyhood years, at the Abbey of the Holy Trinity Trappist monastery in Huntsville, Utah. One of our monk friends was Fr. Thomas Aquinas Porter. For a time, he locked the monastery doors at the end of the evening chant, called compline. We often attended compline and enjoyed many pleasant conversations with Father Thomas afterwards. He had a kind face, salt and pepper hair, a pleasant demeanor, and a quick, loud, infectious laugh. He passed away in 1997.
I should have suspected that he was an accomplished scholar too. It was only many years later (in fact, only recently) that I learned that my friend Father Thomas also served as one of Merton’s official censors. As a monk, Merton had to submit his writings for approval by designated readers within his order who would comment on them, criticize them, and/or suggest changes. Although I never had the chance to discuss this intriguing relationship with my Utah friend, Merton actually wrote about it in 1956.
Editing relationships can be challenging, and apparently, in the course of some back and forth about one of his works (Basic Principles of Monastic Spirituality), some feelings were hurt. I have not yet read Father Thomas’s side of the correspondence, but Merton wrote about it (see The School of Charity by Thomas Merton and Patrick Hart). The issue eventually reached the head of the entire Cistercian order in Rome, who, as Merton put it, “lays this at my door.” Merton apologized by letter to Father Thomas on August 27, 1956, saying that others have told him “I was much more aggressive than I realized” and thus “I deeply regret if I have wounded you.” Merton urged Father Thomas to continue serving as his censor and even included with the apology letter more of his writing for Father Thomas to review.
As an aspiring writer, I get Merton’s explanation for his reaction. Noting that “authors and censors inevitably tangle once in a while,” Merton stated, “An author, certainly a Trappist author, is always eager to comply with the censor, but at the same time, when the correction affects some very minute point and involves perhaps a mere matter of opinion, the author would like a little freedom so as to spare his text from the sort of mutilation involved by the forcible injection of a technical phrase.”
I have enjoyed working on my own book with a wonderful editor, but the writer/editor relationship is one that must be handled carefully. What writer has not felt somewhat “mutilated” by even the best-intentioned editor? Are we not human? Are not our words our treasured and beloved offspring? Do we not take pride─sometimes too much pride─in our own particular way of turning a phrase?
One week later, Merton wrote a similar letter to Dom Gabriel Sortais, the head of the Cistercian order. Merton explained that he had detected, in the editing, the “style of good Father Thomas Aquinas in Utah” and had written to him seeking to eliminate certain imposed corrections that the other censors had not deemed necessary. (FYI generally three censors reviewed each work, usually anonymously.) Merton repeated to the Cistercian leader what he had said directly to Father Thomas─“I deeply regret I have hurt him.” Merton concluded, “I know I am not a saint” but “I do hope that I am going to make some progress with God’s grace.”
I knew Father Thomas as a kind, thoughtful, and dedicated monk. He was well-regarded in the order, and served in transitional leadership roles at other monasteries to assist them as needed. I am sure he dedicated himself to the censor role with a sense of duty, responsibility, and zeal. Therein may be the source of the conflict. Merton’s letters called him “scrupulous” but also “demanding.” Merton said Father Thomas made him feel “unnecessarily cramped,” but also noted that his censor worked with “great care.”
Perhaps lost to history, or within some archives I have not yet been able to view, is Father Thomas’s perspective on the whole matter. I will do more research to find out, but how I wish I had known enough several years ago to discuss the matter with him personally! As noted, “Nothing haunts us like the things we don’t say.”
*Mike O’Brien is a writer and attorney living in Salt Lake City, Utah. His book Monastery Mornings (found here), about growing up with the monks at the old Trappist monastery in Huntsville, Utah, will be published by Paraclete Press (more information here) in August 2021.
