Jacques like me: John Howard Griffin tells Twomey of visit with Maritain and Merton

More finds from the Twomey Papers at Loyola New Orleans

Oh, to be a fly on the wall! Jacques Maritain and Father Thomas Merton at Gethsemani, photographed by John Howard Griffin (source)

I returned Friday afternoon from a marvelous whirlwind 45-hour visit to New Orleans, during which I gave two talks: one on Father Ed at Loyola University’s Holy Name of Jesus Catholic Church (which you can watch at this link) and the other on Father Louis J. Twomey, S.J., at the legendary Round Table Club. While there, thanks to the wonderfully helpful staff at the Loyola University New Orleans Archives and Special Collections, I also had the chance to spend nine more precious hours researching some of the 40,000-odd letters in the Twomey Papers for my biography of the great priest from which this Substack takes its name.

One of the top items on my to-do list for this Twomey Papers visit was to continue my research of Father Twomey’s correspondence with his friend John Howard Griffin, the Catholic convert who wrote (and lived) the groundbreaking memoir Black Like Me. Thus far, I’ve found several letters that attest to the close bond between Griffin and Twomey.

As a lay convert to Catholicism myself, and one who shares with Griffin the exciting but lonely pursuit of writing books, I know how important it can be to receive vocational encouragement from a priest. So I’m really touched to see how readily Father Twomey recognized and met Griffin’s need for such encouragement.

The letters between Griffin and Twomey that I have found thus far include correspondences from a period when Griffin was distressed over the threats and venom being directed against him due to his exposing racial prejudices.