🕯️ Rama P. Coomaraswamy: The Complex Relationship Between Perennialism and Catholic Tradition

📜 Intellectual Heritage and Ties to the Perennialist School

Rama P. Coomaraswamy (1929-2006) is considered a perennialist (or traditionalist in the sense of the perennialist school), although he maintains a complex and ambiguous position due to his conversion to traditionalist Catholicism. He was the son of the famous Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, one of the main founders of the perennialist school alongside René Guénon and Frithjof Schuon. Following the intellectual footsteps of his family, Rama edited his father's works which became references in the field (such as The Essential Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, from the Perennial Philosophy series, published by World Wisdom) and contributed to perennialist publications, such as the journal Sophia and books by the Foundation for Traditional Studies.

He wrote on traditionalist themes, collaborating with figures such as Schuon - with whom he maintained correspondence -, and perennialist publishers (World Wisdom, Fons Vitae) describe him as an important writer on traditionalist/perennialist subjects, especially applied to Christianity. His most notable work in this field, "The Destruction of the Christian Tradition", uses perennialist categories to diagnose the crisis in the Church.

⛪ Conversion, Priesthood, and the Defense of Catholic Tradition

Raised in an orthodox Hindu environment, he converted to Catholicism after his father's death, initially passing through the influence of Thomas Merton before assuming a more rigid stance. He became a fierce critic of the Second Vatican Council and a defender of pre-conciliar Catholicism. He served as a professor in a Lefebvrist seminary in the United States and was ordained a traditionalist priest, eventually arriving at sedevacantism (a theological position that considers the Papal See vacant due to alleged heresies of the post-conciliar popes).

⚖️ Theological Debates: Between Pure Metaphysics and Dogma

Some perennialist sources highlight his contribution to traditional metaphysics, while radical traditionalist Catholic sources (sedevacantists) criticize him for never fully breaking with perennialism, seeing in this an inherited influence that generated doctrinal ambiguity. This tension is explored in the academic article "Rama Coomaraswamy: between Perennialism and traditional Catholicism", which questions whether his theology was purely Catholic or an intellectual syncretism.

He is associated with perennialism through family heritage, editions, contributions, and intellectual circles, but applied it mainly to an exclusivist defense of traditional Catholicism, which generates debate about whether he was a "pure" perennialist (accepting the transcendent unity of religions) or merely influenced by this school to ground his Catholic apologetics.