Identity elements
Reference code
Name and location of repository
Level of description
Title
Date(s)
- 1961 December 16 (Creation)
Extent
2 page(s); Xerox copy of a typed signed letter with holograph annotations.
Name of creator
Biographical history
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.)
Content and structure elements
Scope and content
First lines: "We received word from our Most Rev. Abbot General in regard to the article on PEACE written"... Contents index: [originally filed in a collection of Censors Reports kept by James Fox - see also the "Censors Reports" file under "Christian Ethics and Nuclear War" (possibly also referring to "Target Equals City" and "Peace: Christian Duties and Responsibilities")].
System of arrangement
Conditions of access and use elements
Conditions governing access
Technical access
Conditions governing reproduction
Languages of the material
- anglų
Scripts of the material
Language and script notes
Finding aids
Acquisition and appraisal elements
Custodial history
Immediate source of acquisition
The donor or source was: Gethsemani Abbey Archives.