The selfishness of an age that has devoted itself to the mere cult of pleasure has tainted the whole human race with an error that makes all our acts more or less lies against God.

Francis of Assisi on 31st Street. Merton began routinely praying but discontinued the practice after leaving the school. During his initial months of schooling Merton begged his father to remove him.

O. T. Merton was a keen proponent of interfaith understanding.