The Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University

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Author QuotedCarl Amery
Title QuotedCapitulation: The Lesson of German Catholicism
Date (Year/Month/Day)1967/08/11
Imprint[S.l.] : Herder and Herder. 1967
QuotationFinished Carl Amery's Capitulation. One of the best things I had read on modern Catholicism as it is - in its identification with bourgeois material establishment, its inclination to favor the bomb and war (against Communism), to frown on pacifists and radicals, but at the same time to triumphally present "progressiv" images of itself - Mercedes-Benz churches - streamlined liturgy conducted by boy Sergeants etc. And (as in Germany) its serene capacity to eat its cake and have it: to celebrate in the same breath [Franz] von Papen, who lined the Church up with Nazism, and the [indecipherable] resistance fighters - all five or six of them, who were destroyed by the Nazis while abandoned and excluded by their fellow Catholics ([Fr. Alfred] Delp, [Fr. Max Josef] Metzger, [Franz] Jägerstätter etc. Even unknown to fellow Catholics). The book reinforces my conclusion that there is nothing to be looked for from Church officialdom. Any good that I will ever do for the people of my time will be done, if at all, in spite of my Superiors rather than with their help.
JournalLearning to love: exploring solitude and freedom. The Journals of Thomas Merton, Volume 6, 1966-1967.; Edited by Christine M. Bochen. / [San Francisco] : HarperCollins. 1997, p. 275
Link to Merton's Copy