Letter to a Priest (Routledge Classics) - Softcover

Weil, Simone

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0415267676 ISBN 13: 9780415267670

Publisher: Routledge, 2002

Synopsis

Letter to a Priest encapsulates the sharp wit and questioning nature of Simone Weil. Regarded by Susan Sontag as 'one of the most uncompromising and troubling witnesses to the modern travail of the spirit', Weil grips the moral imagination as few others before or since. She was only thirty four when she died in 1943, yet despite her short life she left behind an incredible body of literature. Letter to a Priest, addressed to Father Joseph-Marie Perrin, a Catholic priest who Weil met in Marseilles, is one of her most powerful pieces. Written at a time when those who knew her considered her to be 'like a soul in torment whose thinking had all the signs of a deep inner conflict', it contains thirty five powerful expressions of opinion on matters concerning Catholic faith, dogma and institutions. Vehement and controversial, yet eloquent and moving, it is essential reading for anyone who has questions about faith and belief.

About this title

Review:

Here was a woman who tried to piece together a personal moral code from all the best bits of the great faiths, but who rejected any hope of knowledge of God -- Independent

The best spiritual writer of this century -- Andre Gide

Synopsis:

This letter was addressed by Simone Weil to a French priest living in New York when she was staying there in the autumn of 1942, the day before she left to join the Free French Movement in London. It contains thirty-five expressions of opinion on matters concerning Catholic faith, dogma and institutions, which, she says have occupied her inmost thoughts for many years, and she asks whether each of these opinions is, or is not compatible with her being received into the Church. No reply, so far as is known, was ever made. When she wrote the letter Weil was considered by those who knew her to be 'like a soul in torment, an unhappy soul, an utterly sincere being, whose thinking had all the signs of a deep inner conflict'. Her state of mind becomes clear in the vehemence and immediacy of this work. The concerns she raises are no less fundamental for being highly controversial. Letter to a Priest is required reading for all who have questions about faith and belief.

About this edition

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0415267676
• ISBN 13: 9780415267670
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 80