Showing 2375 results

Authority record
Gendler, Everett, Rabbi
Person

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".

Person · 1878-1959

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.

Geist, Peter, III
Person

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).

Geiger, Henry
Person

Henry Geiger was Editor of «Manas» and writes from Los Angeles, California.

Gazeau, Roger, Dom, O.S.B.
Person

Dom Roger Gazeau was a Benedictine monk of the Abbey of Saint-Martin de Ligugé in France.

Gates, Ann T.
Person

Ann Gates writes from Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Garvey, Hugh
Person

Hugh Garvey was a publisher and editor for Templegate and writes from Springfield, Illinois.

Garrison, Mr.
Person

Garrison was a friend of a Sister Robert Vincent, who forwarded a letter by Garrison to Merton.

Garrigues, Emilio
Person

Emilio Garrigues was the Spanish ambassador to Guatemala.

Garfinkel, Barry H.
Person

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.

Gardiner, Margaret
Person · 1904-2005

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.

García Elorrio, Juan
Person

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.

Gannon, Leone
Person

Leone Gannon worked in Gethsemani Abbey's guesthouse.

Person

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.

Galbraith, Sara
Person

Sara Galbraith writes from Newry, Pennsylvania.

Gaither, Marice "Mimi"
Person

Marice "Mimi" Gaither was a long time supporter of Gethsemani and often sent money for Mass intentions. She writes from Louisville.

Gaither, John Francis (Jack)
Person

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.

Gagner, Gary A.
Person

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.

Gabites, O. Paul
Person

Paul Gabites was Consul General of the New Zealand Consulate in New York.

Fusco, Joseph P., Fr.
Person

Fr. Joseph Fusco was Chairman of the Departments of Modern and Classical Languages at Camden Catholic High School in Cherry Hill, New Jersey.

Person · 1872-1960

Pietro Cardinal Fumasoni-Biondi was Prefect of the Promulgation of the Faith. He writes from Castel Gandolfo and Vatican City.

Fuller, Hoyt W.
Person

Hoyt W. Fuller was Managing Editor of «Negro Digest» and writes from Chicago, Illinois.

Frost, Marguerite, Eldress
Person

Eldress Marguerite Frost was from the Shaker community at Canterbury, New Hampshire.

Frost, Jim
Person

Jim Frost was a sophomore in high school in Waterloo, Iowa.

Fromm, Ernst
Person

Ernst Fromm was Director of Livraria AGIR Editóra (Artes, Gráficas, Indústrias, Reunidas, S.A. [AGIR]) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Fromm, Erich
Person · 1900-1980

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.)

Friol, Roberto
Person · 1928-

Roberto Friol is a Cuban poet who sent some of his work to Merton.

Friess, Horace L.
Person

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.

Friedrich, Richard L., Fr.
Person

Fr. Richard Friedrich was the Associate Dean of Bellarmine College in Louisville, Kentucky.

Frieder, Jacqueline
Person

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.

Fried, Jerome
Person

Jerome Fried was an editor for New Directions publishing.

Frety, Roger, Br., L.B.J.
Person

Br. Roger Frety was from the Little Brothers of Jesus in Detroit, Michigan.

Freedgood, Seymour
Person · 1915-1968

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.)

Freedgood, Anne
Person

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.

Fredericks, Claude
Person · 1923-

Claude Fredericks was a typesetter and printer of fine books who founded Banyan Press in the late 1940s.

Frankl, Howard
Person

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.

Person · 1909-

Jerome D. Frank was a psychiatrist at Henry Phipps Psychiatric Clinic in Baltimore, Maryland.

Person · 1910-1961

Fr. François de Ste. Marie was a Carmelite priest and editor of «La Vigne du Carmel: Collection de Spiritualité».

Franciscana, Sr., O.S.F.
Person

Sr. Franciscana was a Franciscan sister at St. Anthony Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky.

Person

Mother M. Francis was abbess of the Poor Clare Monastery of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Roswell, New Mexico.

Francis, John T., Mrs.
Person

Merton writes to Mrs. John T. Francis of Louisville, Kentucky.

Person

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.

Fox, Matthew, Fr., O.P.
Person

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.

Fox, James, Dom, O.C.S.O.
Person · 1896-1987

Dom James Fox came to Gethsemani in 1927. He was serving as guestmaster when Merton's younger brother, John Paul, visited the monastery, and Fox made arrangements for John Paul's baptism. In 1948, Fox was elected abbot after the death of Dom Frederic Dunne. Fox had a keen business sense, a graduate of Harvard Business School prior to entering Gethsemani, and helped Gethsemani support itself financially through mechanization of the farm and through establishment of a mail order cheese and bourbon fruit cake business. Merton was not a fan of this mechanization, the cheese business, and had other philosophical differences with Fox. Although much has been written about their rocky relationship at times, Fox went out of his way to ensure that Merton had greater solitude in his later years, a decision which likely kept Merton at Gethsemani. He had enough faith in Merton to appoint him as his novice master and as Fox's personal confessor. Fox would eventually step down as abbot in 1967 to pursue to live as a hermit as Merton had done. (Source: The Thomas Merton Encyclopedia, edited by William Shannon, Christine Bochen, and Patrick O'Connell, pp.160-161.)

Forum
Corporate body
Person

Br. Dunstan Foretich was a Trappist monk at Gethsemani. He seemed to have been serving as a typist for Merton until he left the monastery in 1966.

Forest, Linda
Person

Linda married James Forest in 1967 and briefly corresponded with Merton.

Forest, James H.
Person · 1941-2022

A life-long activist for peace, Forest first came into contact with Merton through Dorothy Day while Forest was at the Catholic Worker in New York. He was active in the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) and started the Catholic Peace Fellowship (CPF), an affiliate program of FOR, to assist those trying to obtain Conscientious Objector status in 1964. In 1977, Forest assumed the duty of General Secretary of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation (IFOR) based in the Netherlands.

Ford, John J.
Person · 1930-2012

John J. Ford succeeded William Dwyer as attorney for the Merton Legacy Trust, which drew up Merton's will and made agreements about the use of his artistic estate after his death.

Ford, John H. (Jack)
Person · 1921-2016

Jack Ford was a philosophy professor at Bellarmine College during his correspondence with Merton and who later taught at University of Louisville. He and Merton met around 1960 and later developed a friendship.

Person · 1902-1989

Fr. John C. Ford was a Jesuit priest writing from Washington, D.C. He was a professor at a number of universities, including Boston College and Weston College in Massachusetts. He founded the journal «Theological Studies».

Ford, David
Person

David Ford was an editor at New Directions publishing in Norfolk, Connecticut.

Ford, Anne
Person · 1905-

Anne Ford was an author and publishing executive for Houghton Mifflin Company in Boston, Massachusetts.

Forcellino, Claude
Person

Claude Forcellino writes from La Borie Noble, one of the Communautés de l'Arche of Joseph Jean Lanza del Vasto in France.

Forbes, Allan, Jr.
Person · 1919-2006

Allan Forbes, Jr. was "a documentary filmmaker, writer, and peace activist" who "helped found Council for a Livable World with Leo Szilard, the physicist who worked with the Manhattan Project, then tried to get the US government to promise not to use the atomic bomb against Japan." He writes to Merton from Philadelphia. (Source: Marquard, Bryan. "Allan Forbes; pacifist found direction in war." Obituary from «The Boston Globe», online edition. 24 February 2006. Bellarmine University Library, Louisville, KY. 4 April 2008. ‹http://www.boston.com/news/globe/obituaries/articles/2006/02/24/allan_forbes_pacifist_found_direction_in_war/›.)

Fogarty, Charles James
Person

Charles Fogarty was a high school student considering a vocation to the priesthood or religious life and asks Merton whether the vocation of a Trappist fulfills "Our Lord's Commandment to go and preach the Gospel to every living creature."

Person · 1903-1990

Flanagan, usually publishing under Fr. M. Raymond, was another Gethsemani author whose writing career started in the early forties, slightly before Merton's, and ran contemporaneously with Merton's through the late sixties. Quite different in style and substance from Merton's work, Flanagan's books include «The Man Who Got Even with God», «God Goes to Murderers Row», and «Burnt-Out Incense». Merton and Flanagan often saw each other at opposing ends of disagreements about theology or the training of novices.

Flanagan, James T.
Person

James T. Flanagan was an attorney with the law offices of Driscoll, Flanagan and Ramos from New Orleans, Louisiana.

Person · 1905-1989

Archbishop George Bernard Flahiff, elevated to Cardinal in 1969, was bishop of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. At the Second Vatican Council, he was involved in what was known as Schema 13, which became «Gaudium et Spes», the Pontifical Constitution on the Church in the Modern World. Merton was particularly interested in the sections on peace, war, and how it would address nuclear weapons.

Person · 1929-

Fr. Daniel L. Flaherty was a Jesuit priest and book editor for «America» magazine.

Fitzsimmons, James
Person

James Fitzsimmons was editor of «The Lugano Review» and writes from Switzerland.

Person

Sr. Patricia Fitzpatrick was a Benedictine from Mount Saint Benedict Convent and Corbett College in Crookston, Minnesota.

Fitzgibbon, Robert J.
Person

Robert J. Fitzgibbon was editor of «Family Weekly» and writes from New York.

First, Wesley
Person · 1920-

Wesley First was director of the office of University Relations at Columbia University in New York.

Finnigan, Ed
Person

Ed Finnigan writes from Chicago, Illinois.