Francis has reminded us time and time again that we cannot withdraw into our protective cocoons and ignore what is going on around us.

We might hope that in tandem with the pope’s recognition of the horrors of the first two atomic bombs, there is a concurrent abhorrence of tens of millions of human souls brutalized and murdered by four totalitarian political regimes.

Fr Robert Barron founder of Word on Fire and creator of the impressive nbsp Catholicism nbsp series a few days ago nbsp published an essay nbsp expressing the impact that Thomas Merton 39 s writings exerted on his Fr Barron 39 s interest in religious life Fr Barron says that Merton quot h

How Merton kept the scales of his two vocations, writer and monk, in balance.

Jan. 31, 2015, would have marked the 100th birthday of the American Trappist monk and author Thomas Merton.

Merton was only 53 years old at the time of his sudden and unexpected death.