The Call to Struggle Against Totalitarian Dictatorship and War — Thomas Merton

We need to hear these prophetic words from Thomas Merton today. Once more, his words, written in the mid-1960’s are profoundly relevant as events in the United States continue to reveal the warped views of this administration and the criminal actions of DHS and ICE against both citizens and undocumented residents of this country. This insanity has to stop! Here is Merton’s challenge to us today:

In this most critical moment of history we have a twofold task. It is a task in which the whole race is to some degree involved. But the greatest responsibility of all rests upon the citizens of the great power blocs which hold the fate of other nations in their hands.

On one hand we have to defend and foster the highest human values: the right of man to live freely and develop his life in a way worthy of his moral greatness. On the other hand we have to protect man against the criminal abuse of the enormous destructive power which he has acquired. To the American and Western European, this twofold task seems reducible in practice to a struggle against totalitarian dictatorship and against war. — Seeds of Destruction (location 950ff — Kindle Edition)