Paul Marx Papers (MRX), University of Notre Dame Archives (UNDA), Notre Dame, IN 46556
Fr. Marx's papers consist primarily of twenty years of correspondence between Marx and church officials; brother priests and men and women religious interested in HLI's pro-life activity; fellow Benedictines regarding Marx's work with HLI and business related to the order and to St. John's Abbey; HLC/HLI personnel and members of the HLI Board of Directors; the leaders of other pro-life groups including, notably, Judie Brown of the American Life League and Dr. Jack Willke of the National Right to Life Committee; speakers and contributors at HLI symposia; individuals involved in various controversies surrounding the organization during the 1980s; contacts Fr. Marx made during national and international speaking tours; HLI members and donors; hostile critics complaining about HLI techniques and aims, particularly the organization's mass mailings and visual propaganda; and persons requesting Masses celebrated by either Fr. Marx or an HLI-affiliated priest commissioned for this purpose.
A second large portion of the papers consists of reference files covering a multitude of issues that interested Fr. Marx as founder and director of both HLC and HLI. Although individual items pre-dating 1960 may be found in various parts of the collection (e.g., some of Marx's homily notes date from the late 1940s), the majority spans Marx's work with HLI, beginning with the events that led to his departure from the Human Life Center in 1979. Several of Marx's writings for the HLI newsletter and other publications appear in a subseries of writings and course materials along with a number of chronicles and diaries that Marx kept, mainly during his international travel on behalf of HLI.
The manuscripts in the collection reflect neither a systematic office structure within HLI nor a rigid filing system within Marx's office: no such system existed prior to the records' transfer to the University of Notre Dame Archives. The papers begin with Marx's correspondence, arranged according to the quite broad categories by which Marx himself kept them filed. While Marx maintained clearly marked files for correspondence with church officials, his fellow Benedictines, and international contacts (grouped primarily by nation), he also singled out other individuals with whom he presumably corresponded frequently enough in order to keep their letters in individual files. Aside from other correspondence relevant to particular "controversies" and the Mass requests of HLI supporters which Marx stored separately, the collection features thirty boxes of general correspondence. Some of the general correspondence overlaps with the categories mentioned above while the remainder consists of Marx's day-to- day business as the president and chairman, and after 1992 as the founder and advisor, of HLI. The chronological overlap in the reference files subseries that follow the correspondence reflect three distinct sets of files that cover the same general range of topics.
For reasons of preservation and efficiency, oversize items, memorabilia and graphic items (photographs and souvenir postcards) have been separated from the papers and each filed together. The memorabilia include bumper stickers, a rosary, a button and a stenographer's tape. The postcards are kept in small albums that presumably correspond to Fr. Marx's various trips abroad and have no writing or postmarks; the photographs include several images of Marx and document various HLI events without commentary.
Summary: Influential pro-life activist and writer; pioneering advocate of natural family planning (NFP); professor of sociology and department chair at St. John's University, Collegeville, Minnesota (1957-1965); founder and executive director of the Human Life Center at St. John's (1972-1981); founder, president, and chairman of Human Life International (HLI)(1981-1992).
Widely recognized as one of the most important and influential figures in the American pro-life movement, Father Paul Marx, O.S.B., built his career as a crusader in defense of human life first as a newly ordained Benedictine priest in 1947 and then as a professor of sociology teaching at the order's St. John's College in Minnesota during the 1960s and 1970s. One of the youngest of fourteen surviving children born to a Belgian mother and Bavarian father in St. Michael's, Minnesota, Marx entered the Benedictines in 1942 after finishing college. He did various studies at Berkeley, Harvard and American University and completed his Ph.D. at the Catholic University of America in 1957 with a dissertation on the life and work of fellow Benedictine and liturgical movement leader Virgil Michel. Marx chaired the sociology department at St. John's from 1957 to 1965 and began to focus his intellectual energy on reproductive issues during that time.
In 1971, after attending a conference entitled "Therapeutic Abortion: A Symposium on Implementation," held at the International Hotel in Los Angeles, Marx wrote THE DEATH PEDDLERS, a short book in which he charged government, business and the medical profession with a conspiracy to legalize contraception, abortion and forced sterilization programs throughout the country. Marx followed with three less well-known books, THE MERCY KILLERS (1973), DEATH WITHOUT DIGNITY (1975), and ABORTION INTERNATIONAL (1978). It was during this period, as the American legal and political climate shifted in anticipation of the United States Supreme Court's controversial 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, that Marx entered the activist fray. Marx's organizational leadership in the militant pro-life movement began at Collegeville when he founded the Human Life Center (HLC), an independent organization headquartered on the St. John's campus but administratively and financially separate from both the school and the order. After a series of disputes among HLC leadership as well as with the school administration regarding Marx's vision and methods, Marx secured leave from the abbey to reorganize in Washington, DC, where he founded Human Life International (HLI) in 1981. HLI moved headquarters twice: first to Gaithersburg, Maryland in the mid-1980s and then to Front Royal, Virginia in 1994. The Center remained at St. John's until the late 1980s when it moved to Steubenville, Ohio.
Encouraged by Pope John Paul II's 1979 intimation that Marx's efforts on behalf of unborn infants, and to a lesser extent, the disabled and elderly, had him doing "the most important work on earth," Marx led his organization to national prominence and oversaw the creation of HLI offices and affiliated organizations in dozens of countries around the world. As a recognized leader of the militant pro-life movement, Marx traveled constantly. He maintained correspondence with associates in each of these countries while building HLI as a resource for organized pro-life protest; as a center for the organization of symposia, seminars, and workshops on abortion and the promotion of NFP techniques; and as a lobbying springboard that kept its supporters informed of legislative and political developments on life issues.
Although conscious of and at times outspoken in promoting Catholic moral teaching on such issues as euthanasia, the AIDS crisis, homosexuality and women in the priesthood, Marx firmly maintained his focus upon fighting abortion and what he termed the "contraceptive mentality," the rapid disassociation of the pleasure of human sexuality from its inherently reproductive nature, which he and others argued actually increased the number of clinical abortions performed both domestically and abroad each year. Closely related to Marx's struggle against abortion were his efforts to promote NFP as a medically safe and statistically more effective method of pursuing healthy sexual relationships and parenting among married couples. Marx's high-profile career embroiled him in almost perpetual controversy. This persisted even after he retired from his position as president of HLI in 1992. He continued to travel, organize, speak, and teach as the founder of HLI and a member of its board of directors until his full retirement in 1999, when he was appointed Director Emeritus. At that time he returned to his community at St. John's Abbey.
With the occasional exception, most of the letters kept in the collection's fifty boxes of correspondence date from 1979 and concern some aspect Fr. Marx's work with Human Life International or the mission of the organization as a whole. Thus, while the first series' title reflects the predominance of letters received and written during this period, it should be noted that 1979 is not a firm starting date and that letters composed and sent prior to that period will be found mixed in within the series.
Aside from those letters that Fr. Marx kept in clearly marked files (i.e., correspondence with church officials, particular individuals, international correspondents, etc.), he maintained no clear order to his correspondence other than a very loose chronological progression. In arranging the GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE, no comprehensive effort has been made to impose a tighter chronology or to refile those items that were marked in writing as intended for specific, permanent files. Such notations appear in Marx's handwriting at the top of particular letters, often in red ink. Researchers may also note a code inscribed at the top of most letters that consists of a number written above a letter, or combination of letters. HLI employees and Fr. Marx have confirmed that the number represented the amount of money enclosed in the envelope. The meaning of most of the letter codes has been lost over time and it is clear that they were not a factor in the original filing "system." In many cases, a copy of Fr. Marx's reply is stapled to the original letter and may clarify its meaning and its relationship to other letters.
One year of the correspondence, 1987, has been arranged more thoroughly as an example of what researchers should expect to find in the general correspondence. The year was chosen for its greater volume. In this one instance, several folders of letters, alphabetized by correspondent, were already separated by an HLI employee prior to their removal to Notre Dame. Following these come letters separated in parallel fashion to the categories that structure the rest of the series (i.e., church officials; OSB; individuals; controversies; international, etc.). The remainder are sorted first monthly and then alphabetically by correspondent's last name within each monthly grouping.
In the early 1990s, HLI hired Fr. Richard Mulhern as a temporary member of its staff. One of Fr. Mulhern's primary responsibilities was to assist Fr. Marx in answering his voluminous correspondence, a job previously outsourced to volunteers like Liz Stong. These letters were banded together by the days on which Fr. Mulhern wrote them but not separated from the rest. They remain as found and occasionally include letters written in his own name and not on Marx's behalf.
Similarly, various employees and volunteers took on the task of organizing the thousands of MASS REQUESTS that Fr. Marx received every year beginning in the mid-1980s. Where possible, these requests have been filed in a separate subseries given that many of them were preserved apart from the rest of the general correspondence. Additional requests may be found together with the general correspondence where they were not maintained separately. This accounts, for example, for the apparent moratorium on Mass requests between 1990 and 1993.
The remaining subseries of correspondence were kept in comparatively consistent files. The collection begins with Fr. Marx's CORRESPONDENCE WITH VARIOUS CHURCH OFFICIALS: primarily archbishops, bishops and the apostolic nuncio in Washington, DC. The primary correspondents here include both prelates highly supportive of Marx's work and those whose words and actions prompted Marx's scrutiny. One prelate, Roger Cardinal Mahony of Los Angeles (appointed 1985), received special attention from Marx. For reasons that are yet unclear, several Mahony files may be found along with the files maintained on other important lay individuals; only one Mahony file is found with the archbishops (see subseries I.A.3.).
The collection proceeds in similar fashion with correspondence between Marx and various other members of the ORDER OF ST. BENEDICT. The letters range from matters personal to official. Marx arranged his correspondence with fellow Benedictines by years; separate files document various aspects of his departure from Collegeville in 1981, when he was granted an indefinite leave from the abbey in order to continue his pro-life work. Additional files on Marx's psychiatric evaluation, conducted prior to his departure from Collegeville and the Human Life Center in 1981, are currently closed to researchers.
Neither the church officials' correspondence nor the O.S.B. correspondence should be viewed as complete. As noted above, the subseries of general correspondence retains numerous items that seem logically better suited for the more specific subseries. The subseries of CORRESPONDENCE WITH PARTICULAR INDIVIDUALS and with INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENTS are especially porous in this regard. The former are arranged alphabetically by last name and should not be taken as a list of Marx's most important or frequent contacts. Several files appear to be the beginnings of an effort to store all files alphabetically and contain relatively few letters while many important contacts have no personal file at all (e.g., Emil J. Bodart (the pseudonym of Robert J. Lombardi, a Philadelphia-area writer); Fr. William Most of Loras College, Dubuque, Iowa; Joseph Scheidler of the Chicago-based Pro-Life Action League; and various senators and congressmen). Thousands of items in the general collection might more accurately be refiled in all of these special subseries.
The correspondence ends with a box of MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND CLIPPINGS, maintained apart from the general collection and not yet clearly assimilable with it.