Letter to a Priest

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.

Simone Weil (1909-1943) was one of the most original and rigorous female thinkers of the twentieth century. She became increasingly drawn to Christianity in the latter part of her life and officially converted in 1938. She died at the age of thirty-four while working as an advocate for the Free French movement. Her sixteen volumes of posthumously published works include Gravity and Grace (1963) and The Need for Roots (1952).