Fr. Bernard Cranor has been a Benedictine at the Monastery of Christ in the Desert since 1989. He began his monastic experience at Holy Trinity in Utah from 1951-1956, taking the name Stephen. He did not take solemn vows there, but decided to study for the Dominicans in California, where he would take the name Bernard and remain there as a priest until joining the Benedictines. It is during this time of his studies with the Dominicans that he has an exchange of letters with Merton. He was friends with another Merton correspondent, Br. Antoninus (William Everson), to whom Merton sends his greetings.
Dr. Robert Crane was a Research Associate with the Center for Strategic Studies and was later with the Hudson Institute for National Security and International Order in Croton-on-Hudson, New York. He was involved in Republican Party functions and conservative-leaning think-tanks on national and international security and outer space security.
Charles J. Crail was District Forester for the Commonwealth of Kentucky Division of Forestry in Elizabethtown.
The «C.P.S.A. Bulletin» seems to have been the magazine of the Catholic Poetry Society of America.
Norman Cousins was Editor of the «Saturday Review» and an outspoken opponent of the Vietnam War.
Fr. Guerric Couilleau was a Cistercian monk of Bellefontaine Abbey in France.
Sr. Marion William Cotty writes from St. Teresa Convent in Providence, Rhode Island.
Antoinette M. Costa writes from Taunton, Massachusetts. She was writing a school research paper on Merton's poetry.
Maria Luisa Cortés was the sister of poet Alfonso Cortés. She writes from León, Nicaragua.
Known as "El Poeta Loco" of Nicaragua, Merton had a profound respect for his works and metaphysical insights. Christine Bochen states that "[i]n a brief essay introducing his translations of poems by Cortés, Merton recalls Ernesto Cardenal's account of seeing Cortés chained to a beam in Rubén Dario's house, where he is said to have gone insane on February 18, 1927 (source: «The Courage for Truth», p. 176).
Cecilia Corsanego was a student at Pro Civitate Christiana in Italy. She was writing a thesis on Merton's poetry and asks for his assistance.
Fr. John Correia-Afonso was a Jesuit writing to Merton from St. Xavier College in Bombay.
José Coronel Urtecho was a poet from Nicaragua who influenced many other Latin American poets after him, including his nephew and former novice of Merton, Ernesto Cardenal. Having spent much of his youth in California, he read and admired Ezra Pound and other North American writers. After returning to Nicaragua, he founded the Vanguard Movement in 1927. He writes to Merton from his hacienda in Los Chiles, Costa Rica. A fan of Merton (and Merton of him), Coronel Urtecho planned to publish a Spanish anthology of Merton's work, but it did not appear in print. (Source: «The Courage for Truth», p. 171.)
Tom Cornell was active in the Catholic Worker Movement since Merton's contact with him in the 1960's and for many years lived on a Catholic Worker farm. He was a founding member of the Catholic Peace Fellowship (CPF). He was a friend and associate of Dorothy Day and Jim Forest.
Cid Corman was a poet who went to Japan in 1951 and founded a literary magazine and press by the name of Origin. Besides writing his own poetry, he translated the works of a number of French and Japanese poets (source: «The Courage for Truth», p. 246). Cid Corman writes to Merton from Kyoto, Japan.
Marty Corbin was editor of the «Catholic Worker», which published some of Merton's essays.
John Sherman Cooper served as a United States Senator from Kentucky in intermittent terms between 1946-1973 and was a member of the Republican Party.
Séamus Cooney was a professor at the Indiana University Department of English in 1968.
Doña Luisa Coomaraswamy was the widow of Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy, a scholar of Indian, Persian, and Islamic art, who saw a unifying truth underlying major religions of the world. Doña Luisa took the responsibility of organizing his papers after his death and attempted to collect some of his unfinished projects for publication as a book of collected writings. She died before finishing this project, but Roger Lipsey edited a two-volume set of his papers published in 1977 (source: «The Hidden Ground of Love», p. 125).
Terence J. Cooke was Chancellor of the Vatican Pavilion for the New York World's Fair in 1964-1965. He was later made bishop of New York and named a cardinal in 1969.
Sr. Angela Conway was a Dominican sister living in England at the time of writing.
Mother Mary Consolata was Clarissine Abbess of the Madres Clarisas monastery in La Paz, Bolivia.
Fr. Terence Connolly was Director of Libraries for Boston College from 1944 until 1959, succeeded by Brendan Connolly. He obtained a copy of a manuscript for «The Seven Storey Mountain» in the late 1940's.
Fr. Brendan Connolly was Director of Libraries for Boston College at the time of correspondence.
Fr. James Conner (who went by Fr. Tarcisius during his correspondence with Merton) came to Gethsemani in 1949, was ordained in 1957, and was assigned to theological studies in Rome at the beginning of his correspondence with Merton. He writes to Merton from Rome, Paris, and Mont des Cats Abbey in Northern France.
William Congdon was an American artist who converted to Catholicism in 1959. For much of his life, he was a wanderer who rejected a life as heir to a wealthy Rhode Island family. His conversion happened in Assisi, where he would live much of the rest of his life, dying in Italy in 1998. His early artistic influences came from the neo-romantic and abstract expressionist schools. After his conversion to Catholicism, he produced many religiously themed works of art. His biography from his foundation's web site likens his conversion to a "suicide", marginalizing him from the mainstream art community. Congdon wrote essays on art, especially sacred art and the duty of a Christian artist. Merton was writing about similar themes in his unpublished work, «Art and Worship». (Source: Official William Congdon Site, maintained by the William G. Congdon Foundation, ‹https://congdonfoundation.com›, 2004/09/16.)
Thomas Congdon was Senior Editor of «The Saturday Evening Post».
Maria Columba was writing from St. Petersburg, Florida.
Ted Coltman was writing Merton from Cambridge, Massachusetts, on behalf of «The Current».
Br. Frederic Collins is a monk of Gethsemani Abbey. Because of his business studies before entering the monastery, Dom James Fox appointed him to start a mail-order business for the cheese and fruitcake that was made by the monks. This type of monastic consumerism did not appear to Merton, and the two did not see eye to eye. In the mid-sixties, he was sent to La Dehesa Monastery in Chile that Gethsemani was taking over as a mission from Spencer Abbey (becoming an independent monastery in 1970, and moving and changing its name to Miraflores in 1986). Unlike the mail order business, Merton was very interested in Latin America and considered this as a place to become a hermit. At this time, the two monks became closer. [Sources: personal account by Br. Frederic Collins (June 2003) and Web site of AIM (Inter-Monastery Alliance) ‹http://www.aimintl.org/communs/miraflores/miraflores.htm›.]
Edward Collins was writing to Merton from Iowa City.
Fr. Bernard Collins was Editor of «Monastic Studies». He and the publication were located at Holy Cross Abbey in Berryville, Virginia, in 1963-1964. Later in 1964, Collins writes from Guadalupe Abbey in Lafayette, Oregon. By 1965 through the rest of the correspondence, he and «Monastic Studies» have moved to Mount Saviour Monastery in Pine City, New York. In December of 1966, Collins informs Merton that he has changed his religious name to Brendan instead of Bernard, and that not all solemnly professed monks would be addressed as "Father" and that he would now be Brother Brendan.
Early in their correspondence, Sr. Angela of the Eucharist (née Viola M. Collins) was a Carmelite Prioress in Louisville, Kentucky. Between 1965 and 1966, she would became Mother Angela of the Eucharist, appointed superior of the Carmelite monastery in Savannah, Georgia.
Alan C. Collins was President of the publishing company Curtis Brown, Ltd., and writes from New York.