Fr. Matthew Fox (Br. Matthew in his letter to Merton) was a Dominican priest who stirred up quite a following and much controversy over his ideas about creation spirituality, denial of original sin, interfaith unity and ecological Christianity. The Vatican had him silenced and he was dismissed from the Dominicans. In 1994, he was accepted by an Episcopal bishop in California. At the time of writing to Merton, he was still in his graduate studies with the Dominicans.
Msgr. Robert J. Fox was from the Archdiocese of New York in the office of Spanish Community Action. He died in 1984 at the age of 54.
Fr. Andre Frachebourd writes from the Abbey of Notre Dame de Tamié in France.
Archbishop Theodore Labrador Fraile was a Dominican later ordained archbishop in Foochow, China.
Merton writes to Mrs. John T. Francis of Louisville, Kentucky.
Mother M. Francis was abbess of the Poor Clare Monastery of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Roswell, New Mexico.
Sr. Franciscana was a Franciscan sister at St. Anthony Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky.
Fr. François de Ste. Marie was a Carmelite priest and editor of «La Vigne du Carmel: Collection de Spiritualité».
Jerome D. Frank was a psychiatrist at Henry Phipps Psychiatric Clinic in Baltimore, Maryland.
Howard Frankl met Ernesto Cardenal while in Cuernavaca, Mexico. Cardenal was Frankl's godfather and instructed him in catechism. Frankl spent over two months as a retreatant at the Benedictine community of Nuestra Senora de la Resurrecion. This was the community of another Merton correspondent, Dom Gregorio Lemercier. Under pressure from the Vatican, the community was disbanded and Lemercier laicized in the late 1960's. Ernesto Cardenal shared his Merton correspondence with Frankl. Cardenal liked Frankl's poems and translated some of them into Spanish. Frankl initiates correspondence with Merton by sending some of his poems.
Claude Fredericks was a typesetter and printer of fine books who founded Banyan Press in the late 1940s.
Anne Freedgood was editor in the Anchor Books division of Doubleday publishing in New York. She was also the wife of Merton's Columbia friend Seymour Freedgood.
Seymour "Sy" Freedgood was one of Merton's friends from Columbia University. It was through Freedgood that Merton met the Hindu monk Bramachari, whom Merton describes in «The Seven Storey Mountain». He was one of the Columbia group who had attended Merton's ordination in 1949. Sy Freedgood was later an editor at «Fortune Magazine», and Merton was in contact with his wife, Anne, at Doubleday. He did not seem to settle into a religious tradition, but constantly read and struggled with religion. He wanted to visit Gethsemani in 1964 to dialogue with D. T. Suzuki but it did not come about. In 1967, he arranged a trip to Gethsemani. Merton interpreted a car accident Freedgood had on the way to the monastery as a gloomy portent, and Freedgood would be killed in a house fire the following year. His wit and sense of humor are evident in his arrangement of a shipment of crates of all 57 varieties of Heinz products to be delivered to the monastery to the abbot's shock. He made Merton a member of the Steering Committee of NIPS, the National Institutes of Public Scolds, an organization dedicated to lampooning bureaucratic red tape and causing other mischief. (Sources: «The Road to Joy», p. 123; and The Thomas Merton Encyclopedia, pp. 163-164.)
Br. Roger Frety was from the Little Brothers of Jesus in Detroit, Michigan.
Jerome Fried was an editor for New Directions publishing.
Jacqueline Frieder was Contributing Editor to «American Dialog», a literary magazine with a politically progressive bent and a strong group of contributors that was active from 1964-1972. Frieder writes from New York.
Fr. Richard Friedrich was the Associate Dean of Bellarmine College in Louisville, Kentucky.
Horace L. Friess was writing to the Nobel Institute on behalf of Thich Nhat Hanh. Friess was a professor of philosophy and religion at Columbia University.
Roberto Friol is a Cuban poet who sent some of his work to Merton.
Erich Fromm was born in 1900 in Frankfurt, Germany. He left Nazi Germany in 1934 and came to New York. After teaching at a number of universities, he became professor of psychoanalysis at the National University of Mexico in 1951. Fromm was an author, psychoanalyst, philosopher, and anthropologist. Religiously, he had a Jewish upbringing and a background in the Talmud. In his adult life, he was atheist, but stressed a non-theistic spirituality that he found in the writings of Karl Marx, who was a profound influence on his view of human adjustment to society and which shaped his writings on psychoanalysis. (Source: «The Hidden Ground of Love», p. 308.)
Ernst Fromm was Director of Livraria AGIR Editóra (Artes, Gráficas, Indústrias, Reunidas, S.A. [AGIR]) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Jim Frost was a sophomore in high school in Waterloo, Iowa.
Eldress Marguerite Frost was from the Shaker community at Canterbury, New Hampshire.
Hoyt W. Fuller was Managing Editor of «Negro Digest» and writes from Chicago, Illinois.
Pietro Cardinal Fumasoni-Biondi was Prefect of the Promulgation of the Faith. He writes from Castel Gandolfo and Vatican City.
Fr. Joseph Fusco was Chairman of the Departments of Modern and Classical Languages at Camden Catholic High School in Cherry Hill, New Jersey.
Paul Gabites was Consul General of the New Zealand Consulate in New York.
Gary Gagner, a former novice at Gethsemani, was applying for conscientious objector status during the Vietnam War and was being assisted by Jim Forest and the Catholic Peace Fellowship. Merton wrote a letter on Gagner's behalf (in the "Forest, Jim" file). Gagner was stationed at Fr. Dix in New Jersey.
John Francis (Jack) Gaither was from Evansville, Indiana. He is the son of Marice (Mimi) Gaither and donated a large collection of Mimi's letters to the Thomas Merton Center in 2001.
Marice "Mimi" Gaither was a long time supporter of Gethsemani and often sent money for Mass intentions. She writes from Louisville.
Sara Galbraith writes from Newry, Pennsylvania.
Thomas Gallagher was an editor with Magi Books in Albany, New York.
Br. Lawrence Gannon was a Trappist from Gethsemani writing to Merton while at the Monastery of the Precious Blood in Eagle River, Alaska, where Merton visited in 1968 and spoke at a series of conferences for the contemplative nuns there.
Leone Gannon worked in Gethsemani Abbey's guesthouse.
Juan García Elorrio was Secretary General of the Encuentro Latino-Americano Camilo Torres to be held in Montevideo, Uruguay on February 15, 1968, and invites Merton's contributions. He supported the Movimiento de Sacerdotes del Tercer Mundo (Priests in the Third World Movement) and was Editor of the magazine «Cristianismo y Revolución» in Argentina. He writes from Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Margaret Gardiner writes to Merton from England to ask his support in making some opposition statements to the Vietnam War and in supporting US draft resisters for «The Times» of London.
Barry Garfinkel was an attorney from New York with the firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom. Merton's friend John H. Slate had died in September of 1967.
Emilio Garrigues was the Spanish ambassador to Guatemala.
Garrison was a friend of a Sister Robert Vincent, who forwarded a letter by Garrison to Merton.
Hugh Garvey was a publisher and editor for Templegate and writes from Springfield, Illinois.
Fr. Jerome Gassner was a Benedictine monk writing from Sant'Aselmo College in Rome.
Ann Gates writes from Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Bishop Caesar Gatimu was of the Diocese of Nyeri in Kenya.
Fr. Bernard Gaynon was a Trappist monk writing from Canada.
Dom Roger Gazeau was a Benedictine monk of the Abbey of Saint-Martin de Ligugé in France.
Henry Geiger was Editor of «Manas» and writes from Los Angeles, California.
Peter Geist writes from Matinicus Island, Maine and Saint Louis, Missouri. He was a professor of industrial design at Washington University in Saint Louis and designed books and corporate logos. Merton contacts him to design a books of pictures about Gethsemani Abbey, «Monastic Life at Gethsemani» (1965, softcover) and «Gethsemani: A Life of Praise» (1966, hardcover).
Fr. Agostino Gemelli was a Franciscan writing from Milan, Italy, to pass along thanks from Msgr. Dell'Acqua for Merton's contribution to a book in honor of Pope Pius XII's 80th birthday. Gemelli authored books on such subjects as Marxism, psychology and Franciscan spirituality.
Rabbi Everett Gendler was a Jewish religious leader involved in the anti-war movement and the Civil Rights movement who worked closely with Rabbi Abraham Heschel and Martin Luther King in the later. He was later described as "the father of Jewish environmentalism".
Sr. Genevieve of the Eucharist was from a Carmelite monastery in Baltimore, Maryland.