Simone Weil, the renowned French philosopher and political activist, originally wrote this letter to a priest in the autumn of 1942 while waiting in New York to join the Free French movement. The most accessable discussion that exists of her complicated ideas on religion and her lifelong spiritual struggle, "Letter to a Priest" outlines thirty-five key questions about Catholicism, its dogma and institutions, all of which had preoccupied Weil for years. Each point reveals Weil's simultaneous feelings of attraction and repulsion toward the Church as she contemplated its presence in her own life. In her letter, Weil asks the priest to reply categorically to each point she raises and to indicate whether her opinions will allow her to be received into the Church. Written just a year before she died at the age of thirty-four, it is believed that Weil never received a reply to this letter.
- ISBN10 0142002674
- ISBN13 9780142002674
- Publish Date 8 December 2008 (first published 4 April 2002)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 5 March 2013
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Penguin Books Ltd
- Format Paperback (US Trade)
- Pages 85
- Language English