Thomas Merton was an American Trappist monk, writer, theologian, mystic, poet, social activist and scholar of comparative religion. On May 26, 1949, he was ordained to the Catholic priesthood and given the name "Father Louis". He was a member of the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani, near Bardstown, Kentucky, living there from 1941 to his death.
Bellarmine University is a private Catholic university in Louisville, Kentucky. It opened on October 3, 1950, as Bellarmine College, established by Archbishop John A. Floersh of the Archdiocese of Louisville and named after Saint Robert Bellarmine. In 2000, it became Bellarmine University. The university is organized into seven colleges and schools and confers bachelor's and master's degrees in more than 50 academic majors, along with five doctoral degrees; it is classified among "D/PU: Doctoral/Professional Universities".
The Speed Art Museum, originally known as the J.B. Speed Memorial Museum, now colloquially referred to as the Speed by locals, is the oldest and largest art museum in Kentucky. It was established in 1927 in Louisville, Kentucky, on Third Street next to the University of Louisville Belknap campus. It receives around 180,000 visits annually.
The Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani is a Catholic monastery in the United States near Bardstown, Kentucky, in Nelson County. The abbey is part of the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance, better known as the Trappists. Founded on December 21, 1848, and raised to an abbey in 1851, Gethsemani is considered to be the motherhouse of all Trappist and Trappistine monasteries in the United States. Gethsemani is the oldest Trappist monastery in the country that is still operating.
The Filson Historical Society, previously known as The Filson Club, is a privately supported historical society located in the Old Louisville neighborhood of Louisville, Kentucky. Founded in 1884, the Filson is an organization dedicated to continuing adult education through a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal, Ohio Valley History, a quarterly magazine, The Filson, weekly lectures, historical tours, and exhibits.
Freedom Hall is a multi-purpose arena in Louisville, Kentucky, on the grounds of the Kentucky Exposition Center, which is owned by the Commonwealth of Kentucky. It is best known for its use as a basketball arena, previously serving as the home of the University of Louisville Cardinals and, since November 2020, as the home of the Bellarmine University Knights. It has hosted Kiss, Grateful Dead, Chicago, AC/DC, WWE events, Mötley Crüe, Elvis Presley, The Doors, Janis Joplin, Creed, Led Zeppelin, Van Halen and many more. As well as the Louisville Cardinals men's basketball team from 1956 to 2010, the arena's tenants included the Kentucky Colonels of the American Basketball Association from 1970 until the ABA-NBA merger in June 1976, and the Louisville Cardinals women's team from its inception in 1975 to 2010. The Kentucky Stickhorses of the North American Lacrosse League used Freedom Hall from 2011 until the team folded in 2013. From 2015 to 2019 it has hosted the VEX Robotics Competition World Championship Finals yearly in mid-April.
The Archdiocese of Louisville a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory, or archdiocese, of the Catholic Church in central Kentucky in the United States. The cathedral church of the archdiocese is the Cathedral of the Assumption in Louisville, Kentucky. The archdiocese is the seat of the metropolitan see of the Province of Louisville, which encompasses the states of Kentucky and Tennessee. The archdiocese is the second-oldest diocese west of the Appalachian Mountains, after the Archdiocese of New Orleans. As of 2023, the archbishop of Louisville is Shelton Fabre.
The Seven Storey Mountain is the 1948 autobiography of Thomas Merton, an American Trappist monk and priest who was a noted author in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. Merton finished the book in 1946 at the age of 31, five years after entering Gethsemani Abbey near Bardstown, Kentucky. The title refers to the mountain of purgatory from Dante's Purgatorio.
Monsignor Alfred F. Horrigan (1914–2005) was the first president of Bellarmine University from 1949 till his resignation in 1972. He was fundamental in establishing the framework for the new university's future success. He, also, was a prominent member of the Louisville community serving in many different capacities within the city from civil rights activist to local pastor.
The International Thomas Merton Society, founded in 1987, is a learned society which studies the works of American Catholic writer and mystic Thomas Merton. It sponsors conferences and co-publishes a journal, The Merton Seasonal. The society and the Thomas Merton Center are located at Bellarmine University in Louisville, Kentucky, U.S.A.
Below is a bibliography of published works written by Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk of The Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani. Several of the works listed here have been published posthumously. The works are listed under each category by date of publication.
Amiya Chandra Chakravarty (1901–1986) was an Indian literary critic, academic, and Bengali poet. He was a close associate of Rabindranath Tagore, and edited several books of his poetry. He was also an associate of Gandhi, and an expert on the American catholic writer and monk, Thomas Merton. Chakravarty was honoured for his own poetry with the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1963. He taught literature and comparative religion in India for nearly a decade and then for more than two decades at universities in England and the U.S. In 1970, he was honoured by the Government of India with the Padma Bhushan award.
The Thomas Merton Center is a non-profit grassroots organization in Pittsburgh whose mission to build and support collaborative movements that empower marginalized populations to advance collective liberation from oppressive systems.
The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Louisville, Kentucky, USA.
Religion in Louisville, Kentucky, includes religious institutions of various faiths; including Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism.
Raymond Joseph David Stanislaus Flanagan was a Catholic priest and Trappist monk.
Sibyl Harton (1898-1993) was a major Church of England writer during the twentieth century. She was a correspondent with Thomas Merton during the 1960s, and visited him at the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani in Bardstown, Kentucky. She is generally associated with an Anglo-Catholic perspective in theological writing. Harton was a frequent contributor to The Living Church magazine in the United States and published book reviews in English theological periodicals. She was a popular retreat director in the Episcopal Church during the 1960s and 1970s, and a vocal opponent of the ordination of women to the priesthood.
