C. Anthony has served as president and a corporate director of a number of companies after beginning a career in advertising. He is also a board member of many charities. Having studied journalism in college, he continues to writes books, articles and recurring columns.
Dom Eusebius Wagner was Abbot of New Clairvaux Abbey in Vina, California.
James O. Wade was an editor for the MacMillan Company in New York.
Fr. Chrysogonus Waddell is a Trappist monk of Gethsemani Abbey who was studying in Rome at the time of this correspondence.
Vladimír Vyhlídka was was from Czechoslovakia. He studied for the priesthood in Rome, returned to Czechoslovakia, and later was made a monsignor. He died in Prague, Czech Republic, in 2011.
Fr. Urban Voll was a Dominican priest and an editor for the «Catholic Theological Encyclopedia». He writes from Washington, D.C.
Cintio Vitier is a poet, anthologist and literary critic from Havana, Cuba. His early poetry was influenced by the Spanish Nobel laureate Juan Ramón Jiménez. In the late 1950's and 1960's, the Cuban Revolution changed his style. Vitier later credited Merton with giving him spiritual and political guidance during the 1960's. (Source: «The Courage for Truth», p. 235.)
Sr. Vera Marie of Christ the High Priest (Sr. Vera Lea Virant) was a Carmelite nun from a monastery in Cleveland Heights, Ohio.
Fr. Vincent was a Trappist monk writing from Notre Dame de Sept-Fons Abbey in France.
Fr. Vincent Mary was a Passionist priest. He writes from St. Bernard's Hospital in Chicago, Illinois, where he was going to conduct a retreat for the nuns.
Sr. Joana Villon-Bras writes from the Abadia de Nossa Senhora das Graças in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
Marjorie Villiers was one of the founders, in 1946, of the Harvill Press with Manya Harari. She writes from London, England.
Virginia Vigrass was a volunteer teacher at the Quakers' Friends Girls School in Ramallah, Jordan (currently in the West Bank of the Palestinian Territories). She was originally from Cleveland, Ohio, and had been in Ramallah for a year.
Germaine Vignolle writes from Marseille, France.
Alejandro Vignati was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. At the time of writing to Merton, he was in Lima, Peru. He was a poet, critic and co-authored a Peruvian screenplay. He wrote a study on author Henry Miller as well.
Fr. Joachim Viens was a Trappist monk of St. Benedict's Monastery in Snowmass, Colorado.
Madeleine Viénot writes from Paris, France.
Fr. P.M. Vidal, was a priest and member of the Third Order of Dominicans of the Couvent des Dominicaines de Béthanie at Saint-Morillon, Gironde, France.
Elisabeth Vester was Secretary of Der Christ in der Welt and writes from Vienna, Austria.
Fr. Roman J. Verostko was Staff Editor for Art for «The New Catholic Encyclopedia» and writes from Washington, D.C.
Sr. M. Verenice was a Sister of St. Joseph from Nazareth, Michigan.
Fr. Venard was a Carmelite priest from a monastery in Austria.
James G. Vargiu writes while on vacation in Italy, but permanently resided in Palo Alto, California.
Msgr. Béla Varga was Chairman of the Amnesty for Political Prisoners in Hungary Action Committee in New York. He was a Papal Prelate and former President of the Hungarian Parliament from 1946-1947.
Maria de Varela was a professor at the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba in Argentina.
Fr. Joseph Vann was a Franciscan friar and one of the founding fathers of St. Bernardine of Siena College in Loudonville, New York, an extension of St. Bonaventure College.
Fr. Lambert Vandermeulen was a monk of St. Benedictus-Abdij, a Cistercian monastery in Achel, Belgium.
Dom Hubert Van Zeller was a Benedictine monk of Downside Abbey in England and scholar on the monastic life. He authored a number of books and articles on the contemplative life, the scriptures and monasticism.
The Rev. Dale L. Van Meter writes from Medfield, Massachusetts. He was working on a Masters degree in Social Work from Boston College at the time of writing to Merton.
Mrs. A. Van Horn writes from Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
Merton writes to Dom Emmanuel Van Gassel, Abbot of St. Benedictus-Abdij, a Cistercian monastery in Achel, Belgium. He was superior of the abbey from 1965-1989.
Mark Van Doren won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1940 for his 1939 volume of collected poems and was a literary critic and professor. He had a profound effect on Merton as a professor of English at Columbia University in New York. Van Doren was at Columbia from 1920 to 1959. Merton stayed in contact with Van Doren after leaving Columbia and after entering the monastery. Van Doren selected the pieces for Merton's «Thirty Poems» and helped get them published. Merton also knew Van Doren's wife, Dorothy, and sons Charles and John. Mark Van Doren visited Merton at Gethsemani a few times and met once with him in Louisville. (Source: «The Road to Joy», p. 3.)
Charles Lincoln Van Doren was the son of famed poet Mark Van Doren, Mark having been one of Merton's professors at Columbia University. Charles became an scholar and professor at Columbia University, as well, but his legacy was later overshadowed by scandal. He was a long-term contestant on the game show Twenty-One. His winning streak was later revealed as a fraud.
Laurens van der Post was a writer born in South Africa. He writes about the conflicts of having been born into a Boer family, educated by the British who had recently defeated them, and hating the system of apartheid. His attacks on South African apartheid in a magazine he co-founded in his youth, «Voorslag», led to his exile. He spent some time in Japan and later joined the British army in 1939. He served in the Second World War. After the war, he was send on a mission by the British government's Colonial Development Corporation, which took him into the African interior. He began to write some travelogues and novels with influences of Jungian psychology. He saw racial tensions in light of the conflict between our interior battles between our primitive and civilized self, and racism as exteriorizing our interior hatred of the primitive self to what we perceive as primitive in other groups. Other themes of mysticism and interiority occur in his novels, prompting Merton's interest in them. (Source: "Van der Post, Laurens". World Authors 1950-1970. 1975. Wilson Biographies Plus. Online. H.W. Wilson. Bellarmine University Library, Louisville, KY. 18 July 2006. ‹http://vnweb.hwwilsonweb.com›.)
José Maria Valverde was a poet born in Valencia de Alcántara, Spain. At the time of writing to Merton, he was a professor at University of Barcelona. He was the administrator of the publisher Eler.
Georgette de Vallejo was born Georgette Marie Philippart in Paris in 1908. She married poet and author César Vallejo in 1934. Widowed by César's death in 1938, she would later write some biographical works and compile some anthologies of her late husband and his works in the 1960's and 1970's.
Francisco Valle was a surrealist poet born in Nicaragua. He sends Merton an inscribed copy of one of his books.
Valerio Cardinal Valeri was Prefect of the Roman Curia's Congregation of the Affairs of Religious, currently known as the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life. He writes from the Vatican.
Mariann Vail writes from Richmond, Indiana.
Gabriel Vahanian was one of the foremost theologians of the Death of God Movement that flourished in the 1960's. Later, he would write about technology and its effects on society and theology, including reflections on the thoughts of Jacques Ellul. Gabriel Vahanian writes to Merton while at his summer residence in Allauch, France. At that time, he was a professor at Syracuse University in New York.
In late 1958, Archbishop Egidio Vagnozzi was appointed Apostolic Delegate to the United States, replacing Amleto Cicognani. Vagnozzi was elevated to Cardinal in 1967.
Julián Urgoiti was head of Editorial Sudamericana publishers in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Dom Wilfred Upson (born John Henry Neil Upson) was, at the time of writing to Dom James Fox, Abbot of Prinknash Abbey (Our Lady and St. Peter at Prinknash), a Benedictine monastery in Gloucestershire, England. Upson first entered monastic life as an Anglican with the community of monks led by Aelred Carlyle on Caldey Island. After a conflict with the Church of England, the community converted en masse to Catholicism. Caldey Island was later sold to Cistercian monks in 1928, and the community moved to Gloucestershire. Upson was elected first abbot in 1937 and served in that position until 1961. Merton would be in contact with another Anglican-convert who would become Catholic at Prinknash, Bede Griffiths (Merton and Griffiths having been in contact during Griffith's later years at his monastery in India). (Source: "A Monk and His Movies." 23 October 2013. Accessed 5 August 2020. ‹https://darklanecreative.com/a-monk-and-his-movies-2/›.)
M. R. Uminski was master of a British ship in the Hudson Steamship Company. He was of Polish decent and offers to translate Merton's book «New Seeds of Contemplation» into Polish, and for this book he writes to thank Merton.
Raymond Tyner was editor of the «Green River Review» (originally to be entitled the «Kentucky Review» until duplicate title discovered). He writes from Owensboro, Kentucky.
Fr. Tamás Tüz writes from St. Edward Church in San Diego, California. He was a poet born in Hungary. He spent time in a Russian concentration camp during the Second World War. After the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, he came first to Canada and then to the United States. At the time of writing to Merton, he had published four books of poetry.
Sr. Lucille was a Religious Sister of Mercy writing from Clymer, New York, at the time of writing to Merton. She later left the religious life and resumed her birth name, Mary Turner.
Carlos Tünnermann Bernheim was Rector of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Nicaragua in Leon, Nicaragua. He is a lawyer, educator and literary critic.
Sr. Jane Tully was a Maryknoll Missionary from Mwanza, Tanzania.
Percyval Tudor-Hart was the art teacher and mentor of Thomas Merton's father, the painter Owen Merton.
Martin Tucker writes from Brooklyn, New York.
Tashi Tshering was a student from University of Washington in Seattle, Washington. He was a Tibetan and sent Merton the book «Tibet's Great Yogi Milarepa», edited by W. Y. Evans-Wentz. Tashi Tshering worked at University of Washington's Tibetan Research Project. He met Merton through a visit to Gethsemani in 1961 and later wrote a letter.
