Gary Cooper and Thomas Merton

Last updated on: May 13, 2009 at 6:19 am by Pat McNamara

Gary Cooper and Thomas Merton 2009-05-13T06:19:00-06:00 Pat McNamara

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Today in 1961 marks the death of movie icon Gary Cooper. His daughter recalled his journey to Catholicism and his life as a Catholic in her 1998 memoir:

In the mid to late fifties, my father’s conversion to Catholicism started silently. He never discussed much about it but simply started joining us for Mass more often. The ostensible reason was to hear the good sermons given by a dynamic young priest, Father Harold Ford, dubbed by my father as “Father Tough Stuff.” Father Ford didn’t give hellfire and brimstone, but he was a very human and with-it man. My mother invited him over for a drink one afternoon, thinking there might be some deep and profound conversations about matters of the spirit. Think again! He and my father disappeared into the gun room and as far as I can tell all they talked about was hunting, fishing, and scuba diving. Father Ford became a scuba buddy and joined us diving in the large marineland of the Pacific tank where we all cavorted with its inhabitants.

My father’s search for his own spiritual kingdom apparently was coming together, and after many months of learning the basics with Father Ford, and “living with the questions,” he did, as Rilke so beautifully put it, “live the questions now. Then perhaps someday far in the future you will gradually, without even knowing it, live your way into the answer.” Into the answer he took himself. Shirley Burden, an old and dear friend, himself a convert, was godfather at Poppa’s baptism.

And, in a strange irony, Thomas Merton, the inspired, spiritual Trappist monk from the Abbey of Gethsemane, whom he had never met, played an important part in my father’s last weeks. Reading Merton’s book No Man Is an Island, gave Poppa great solace and comfort, and I received a treasured note from Father Louis (Merton) several months later:

October 11, 1961

Dear Maria,

I was touched by your kind letter, and glad that it gives me an opportunity to greet you and your mother personally, and advise you of my friendship and good wishes. With everyone else, I loved Gary Cooper and his great movies, which I often remember with satisfaction–well, relatively often. For it is a long time since I have been to a movie. I even had a temptation and hope that if Seven Story Mountain became a film, he would play a part in it. This was a clear case of vanity on my part!!

Anyway, with all my blesings and good wishes,
Father Louis Merton

PS. I am sending a book you might like.

My father was still well at the time of his becoming a Catholic. His reasons for converting are his to know. He did say to [his friend Ernest] Hemingway toward the end, “You know, that decision I made was the right one.” I know he and Papa spoke about “the Catholic thing.” Whatever Ernest’s ambivalence was, the two guys obviously hashed out a lot in that area. How tragic that Hemingway’s illness had robbed him of the comfort and sense of the supporting arms of God.

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