Tibetan medium Thupten Ngodup, the spiritual counselor of the Dalai Lama, was received in the Abbey of Gethsemani. During a tour around the United States (July 15- August 8, 2007) he was invited to address the Trappists in their Chapter Room at Gethsemani.

The Buddhist medium is seated on the Abbot's chair, above, the place for the representative of Christ in that community. Ironically, on the wall above the Abbot's chair is the Latin motto of the Trappists Christo Omnino Nihil Praeponant [Let them prefer nothing whatsoever to Christ]. The photo shows Buddha being preferred to Christ, one more example of how the conciliar inter-religious dialogue mocks Catholic principles.

From that chair, the guru addressed the Trappist monks, shown below first row. In the second row, the Abbot greets the medium and his delegation after the lecture; third row, again the Buddhist psychic has the place of honor in the refectory.

Gethsemani, close to Louisville, Kentucky, was the first Trappist Abbey founded in the United States in 1848. Even if its history presents a first phase of militancy against its Protestant environs, in the 1900s it gradually became a place for Modernist experiments and innovations. In 1941, author Thomas Merton entered to become a monk and priest there, bringing to Gethsemani the bad connotations of his inter-religious tolerance.

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