Abstract
Being interested in the intersections of theology and society, it is unsurprising that Maria Clara Bingemer is drawn to the French philosopher Simone Weil. Simone Weil: Mystic of Passion and Compassion is an English translation of Simone Weil: una mistica a los limites (Buenos Aires: Ciudad Nueva, 2011). This is Bingemer’s most recent study of Weil, which addresses Bingemer’s interest in mysticism, religious plurality, and liberation theology.
After providing a brief timeline and profile of Weil, Bingemer presents three focusing themes within her life and thought. The first theme addresses Weil’s concern for those whose ‘personal dignity had been shattered’ (p. 43); those for whom ‘God becomes imperceptible, absent, and hidden’ (p. 49). Bingemer draws connections between the Weil’s spiritual thoughts and liberation theology. The second theme portrays Weil’s mysticism, through which Bingemer hopes to describe a ‘new paradigm of the fully lay mystic’ that ‘can be useful confronting the challenge of living the faith in today’s secular and plural world’ (p. 67). This paradigm includes Weil’s factory-time purification, her encounters with otherness, and her combined rejection of institutional religion and openness to plurality. The third theme distils Weil’s paradoxical testimony: despite her secular education and religious soul, she remained critical of the Old Testament God of Judaism, her tradition of origin; she was a woman of intelligence and culture who saw these as gifts, rather than possessions, with which to serve ‘those who were most oppressed and unhappy’ (p. 107); and, although passionate about Christianity, she refused to join the institutional Church, thus maintaining her intellectual freedom to engage in interfaith dialogue.
The distillation and interpretation of Weil’s primary writings in Bingemer’s Simone Weil may leave readers feeling distant from the original woman. This is a potential consequence of all biographies, dependent as they are upon interpretation. However, in the case of Simone Weil, this may be exacerbated by the levels of translation required therein: Weil wrote in French, Bingemer writes in Spanish, and Kraft translates into English. However, if the reader trusts Bingemer’s expertise in language, Weilian scholarship, and personal insight into Weil, this distance can be closed. The reader will then discover Bingemer’s ‘mystic of Love’, whose faith translated into ‘radical service’ (p. 123).