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.