Matthew Fox responds to the protest:

I join with thousands of others in prayer to support Elder Robinson and Chief Theresa Spence and others for their generous witness in standing for justice for Mother Earth and all her creatures. We share solidarity with them and the First Nations peoples who have always known that care for the Earth precedes the misbegotten money schemes that only seek to engender greed and separation in individuals and communities. All people are diminished when profit takes precedence over the health and beauty of our waters and soil and our four-legged brothers and sisters. It is our children especially who will suffer from such greed and rapaciousness for their lives will be less beautiful and less healthy. Future generations will ask us: Where were you when they came to destroy Mother Earth in the name of corporate profits? Let us all stand up and be heard and be Idle No More.

Rev. Matthew Fox
author of “Original Blessing”

_______________________________________________________
(Anonymous background article reposted from the Occupy Canada and other Facebook pages)

April 5th, 2013, at 9:30, Grand Elder Raymond Robinson has been
without food or water for 63 hours. The most that a person can survive
without water is maximum 4 days, which is 96 hours. This means with
each passing minute, Elder Robinson is closer to death. Earlier this
year, he broke a 44 day fast after fasting to support Chief Theresa
Spence and everything she stood for, which was to bring attention to
the plight of First Nation Peoples.

This time Elder Robinson is on a hunger strike in protest to the
passing of bills (government policies), which will bring about
horrific damage to the environment. Because the pipe lines need to
pass through our reserves or the camps need to be located on the
reserves, Elder Robinson stated, ‘First Nations are being blackmailed
into signing their rights away. These changes have been implemented
without any consultation… They are asking us to give up our waters
our lands our resources and even our Inherent Aboriginal Treaty
Rights’. To his word, he has been on a hunger strike; the food is not
the biggest concern because for the human body, water is essential for
life.

Elder Robinson from Cross Lake Nation in Manitoba, asks that the
government recognize that the First Nations peoples have a right to
clean water, hydro education, proper health care, the right to have a
voice on what takes place within their territories, among other basic
human rights that others members of society are privileged to have and
take for granted. He states that the passing of the bills will deny
these basic rights to First Nations peoples, which was Chief Spence’s
message during her fast. Sadly, the response months later from the
federal government was to have this new bill quietly passed without
consultation of the First Nation leadership. Elder Robinson is asking
for the repeal of the bills and that the Prime Minister, follow
through with his January 11th, 2012 promise to meet face-to-face with
the First Nations Chiefs.

On April 3rd, Aboriginal Affairs Minister Bernard Valcourt’s
spokesperson, Jason MacDonald had this to say about the Elder
Robinson’s hunger strike, ‘Like all reasonable people we encourage,
Raymond Robinson to continue to consume food and water.’ However,
Aboriginal Affairs supports the bills that deprive children of clean
water and fundamental basics as reasonable. Today, Aboriginal Affairs
Minster Bernard Valcourt met with Elder Robinson and said, ‘I’ll make
you deal, if you quit your hunger strike and I’ll visit your reserve.’
Elder Robinson said, ‘I said to him (Aboriginal Affairs Minster
Bernard Valcourt), ask the prime minister to meet with our nation
leaders. To which he said, ‘that is not going to happen,’ and then he
laughed.’

Elder Robinson asks, ‘are my people a laughing matter?’ No. It is time
for the Prime Minister to start respecting the First peoples of Canada
as well as the land base we live upon. The general public is being
told that the chiefs do not want the bill to be passed because they
would have to report their earnings. This is a distraction to what is
really being opposed and that the government is making decision on the
First Nations behalf. So what exactly are the laws that Elder Robinson
are opposing through his hunger strike? They are the Omnibus Bills C38
and C45, which contain changes to over 90 Federal Laws. The laws
include: changes that affect the Navigable Waters Protection Act and
the Fisheries Act – developers are no longer be responsible for fixing
the environment and habitat damage they cause. The First Nations
peoples stand to be at the greatest risk of environmental
exploitation, because the law is designed to provide for quick
development access to resource extraction industries of which most
occur on First Nations’ Land. Other Acts include Canadian
Environmental Assessment Act, which decreases opportunity for First
Nations’ involvement in Environmental Assessments as well as ending
environmental assessments. The National Energy Board Act, which limits
the ability to challenge decisions of the Federal Cabinet with regards
to project approvals. Other changes that will affect the omnibus bills
are Canada Grain Act, the Canada Revenue Agency, the Indian Act and
Public Sector pensions.

And, so why should these change be so scary for us. We need only what
occurred during the recent oil spill in Arkansas, where Exxon was off
the hook for paying into the federal oil spill fund responsible for
cleaning up the spill in Arkansas, because tar sands because isn’t
classified as oil under the law. Is this what Elder Robinson sees for
our future? Oil companies destroying the land and then afterward using
loopholes in the law to leave our lands destroyed for the next
generations. Which means that the already disadvantages peoples would
be a greater disadvantage as the land is destroyed around them.

Instead what do some members of society focus on? Sadly, they believe
the lies that Elder Robinson is upset that band leadership will have
to report their income. Do the people who make these kinds of
statements really think that the traditional stewards of the land care
about currency? First, I think most people would be shocked at the low
income of some of the nations chief and councilors; however, it is not
what Elder Robinson is slowly dying because of (mere money); rather he
is hoping the Creator will intervene and Mother Earth will be left to
continue nourish her children for generations to come.

Elder Robinson has told us that he is willing to suffer on behalf of
his people and he is doing that. The simple fact is that with each
hour, his body shuts down just a little bit more. My relatives please
join my prayer for Elder Robinson. Please spend a moment sending light
and love towards this beautiful and love filled warrior. (ejh)

The post Statement In Support of Grand Elder Raymond Robinson
and Idle No More appeared first on .

(from the Alfredo’s Fire website)  In 1998 a gay Italian writer shocked the world by setting himself on fire in St. Peter’s Square to protest the Vatican’s ban on homosexuaity. Years later, his gesture faded into obscurity.

What is the flame he ignited and how deep are its shadows? By unraveling this tragic story, ALFREDO’S FIRE highlights the issue of religious intolerance, which burns as strong and deadly as ever at the crossroads of faith and sexuality.

_________________________________________________

Matthew Fox endorses the film, and urges support for the Kickstarter crowdsourcing campaign to complete the funding of its production:

This is a moving and powerful story, and the story of this truth teller to power–the homophobic power of the Vatican–needs to be told.  The pope and other homophobes are as wrong about homosexuality as they were about the sun moving around the earth in Galileo’s day–and for the same reason.  They TOTALLY ignore science to further their prejudice.

Science has spoken: 8 to 10% of human population is gay or lesbian.  Over 464 other species also have gay populations,  Therefore, homosexuality is not “against the natural law” but utterly natural for a minority of humans.

Let the sacrifice of this Italian martyr not be in vain.  Give to this movie.  I surely intend to.

The post Matthew Fox Endorses “Alfredo’s Fire” appeared first on .

• Defending Mother Earth who is in so much peril; living simply (how one does that in a palace like the Vatican, surrounded by an obsequious court, is another question);
• Speaking out on behalf of the poor and impoverished, the sick and neglected;
• Speaking out on those social and economic structures that institutionalize injustice.

I also hope he cleans up the rat’s nest of corruption, pedophile cover-up, ego mania and power-addicted prelates who run the curia that in turn runs the Vatican. Good Luck and God’s Blessing!

One looks at the new Pope’s simple lifestyle while cardinal in Argentina, rejecting the bishop’s palace, living in an apartment, rejecting a limousine and taking the bus to work, cooking his own meals, speaking off the cuff since being made Pope. Very nice. It gives one hope (again, not sure how it translates to a world of pope-mobiles and court hangers-on in the last monarchy of the Western world, the Vatican). But Good Luck there also.

But red flags do emerge as we learn more of this man who is heralded as the first non-European Pope in 1400 years, first South American, citizen of the “third world” and more. One has to be a bit careful here of the hagiographic hype that gushed upon us from CNN and elsewhere the day he was elected. These starry-eyed journalists wallowing in pious sentimentalism for a few days have not done their homework about the recent papacy (or past papacies). I have. That is why I wrote The Pope’s War: How Ratzinger’s Secret Crusade Imperiled the Church and How It Can Be Saved.

Here are some areas to watch out for:

1. Opposition to Liberation Theology

This new Pope opposed liberation theology and base communities in Latin America: those being the grassroots Church that took seriously the teaching of Vatican II that the Church is “the people,” not the hierarchy. Many heroes of that movement were killed and tortured throughout Latin America, Oscar Romero being the most visible. Bergoglio was nowhere to be seen standing with them. Quite the opposite; he fought liberation theology tooth and nail as head of the bishops’ conference, and he was an effective instigator of papal attitudes in this regard (supported by the CIA under Reagan, which linked up with Pope John Paul II to kill liberation theology, as I prove in The Pope’s War.)

Can he change as Pope? One prays. But don’t bet the farm on it. One tends to “dance with the ones who brung ya”– even to the top of the clerical elite.

2. Involvement in Communion and Liberation

This Pope’s allegiance is not to the principles of justice enunciated by Vatican II (or those of freedom of conscience, or of empowerment of laity, or of the independence of national bishops’ conferences, or of sensus fidelium. etc.), but to Communion and Liberation. (See Chapter 7 of The Pope’s War.)

C&L is a neo-fascist movement supported strongly by the past two Popes (the women who will cook and wash clothes for Ratzinger as pope emeritus are C&L people). It is all about obedience, all about hierarchy, all about centralizing power in the Pope, and all about pronouncing on “sins of the flesh” (i.e. homosexuality, birth control, abortion) and repressing women’s and LGBT rights. C&L is much like Opus Dei, though less secretive and Italian based rather than Spanish based. Very powerful and very rich, and in fact larger and more influential today than Opus Dei (though not as embedded in the American media or Supreme Court or CIA and FBI).

Ratzinger was a champion of C&L, as is Cardinal Law, as is Cardinal Cordes, a very influential German bishop who actually invokes Pope Gregory VII as an example for our times. That Pope said “the Pope may be judged by no one” and the Roman Catholic Church “has never erred, nor never shall err to all eternity.” Yikes!

3. Response to Argentinian Dictatorship

Serious questions persist about this new Pope’s refusal to stand up to the military junta’s torture programs during the years of dictatorship in Argentina. Photos exist of Bergoglio giving communion to the notorious dictator, General Jorge Videla, who was convicted in 1985 of murders, torture and “disappearances.” Two of his fellow Jesuit priests were tortured, along with 30,000 other Argentinians who were murdered, and he was silent (some even say that he was complicit, but not enough facts have been uncovered to be sure).

An Argentine historian who was in the country during the “dirty war” writes that “while the upper echelons of the Church were supportive of the military Junta, the grassroots of the Church was firmly opposed to the imposition of military rule” (see http://www.globalresearch.ca/washingtons-pope-who-is-francis-i-cardinal-jorge-mario-bergoglio-and-argentine-dirty-war/5326675).

This reminds one of Nazi times in Germany, when some, but not many, bishops stood up to be heard. Bergoglio dismissed two Jesuit priests committed to liberation theology. The result? They were kidnapped and tortured for six months and six parishioners of theirs were “disappeared.” One of the priests, Fr. Orlando Yorio, “accused Bergoglio of effectively handing them over [including six other people] to the death squads.” The second priest has spent his life since in seclusion in a German monastery.

Communion & Liberation is fiercely opposed to liberation theology.

Can this pope confess and move on? One hopes so.

4. Links to Church’s Right-Wing German Faction

Bergoglio’s connection to the right-wing faction of the German Church is very clear. When an Argentinian autobiographer says that “he is not a third-world priest,” he is noting that he has resisted the call for the systemic justice of liberation theology. What is he then, since he lived in the third world most of his life? Very late in life, in his late sixties, Bergoglio traveled to Germany to get a doctorate in theology. I think one can conclude that he was also receiving a deep marination in the kind of right-wing German thinking that Ratzinger and his cronies represent. That, plus more link-ups with C&L and Cardinal Cordes, cheerleader of C&L. The German bishops are the most influential in the Church; Germany gives more money to the Vatican than any other group because lay people are taxed whether they go to church or not. Pope Francis represents them far more than he does the ‘third world,’ unfortunately.

Can he change? One does believe in and pray for miracles–in this case that he exits the cage of C&L in favor of a Catholic Church that is far larger and diverse than tribal sects.

5. Position on Gender/Gender Preference Justice

Bergoglio called the gay rights movement a work of “the Father of Lies” (though he says one should be nice to gay people). The president of his country called his opposition to gay marriage “medieval” and smacking of the Inquisition in its tone. I see no evidence that he even considers women’s rights to be a valid issue. Do not expect any theological depth or breadth here beyond what we have been witnessing for 42 years, years of schism in my opinion, from two (now three?) popes who have scuttled the reforms of Vatican II.

In short, the new Pope is presented as a pastoral person. His visiting AIDS victims and his walking in the slums and riding buses to work attest to this. His charm and spontaneity with the press and people since becoming bishop of Rome attest to the same. But the papal job is much more than one on one pastoral actions. Love is not just about charity; it is also about justice. Is he up to that? Will he take on power structures of economic injustice and support those who do? We shall see.

A key to his job today is cleaning up the Church itself, which is mired in pedophile scandals and their cover-ups, financial scandals, and blatant hypocrisy around such issues as homosexuality, with rings of gay prostitutes blackmailing curia officials, and the Cardinal of Scotland having to recuse himself from the papal conclave because three priests accused him of sexual misconduct with them…and that cardinal was a ranting anti-gay voice in Scotland. How many others in the curia and elsewhere are preaching that “homosexuality is evil” while having gay sex on the side (by the way, do they use condoms? – they say that would be another sin). What hypocrisy!

Of course the on-going Inquisition which was brought back by the two previous Popes (I was only one of 105 of their victims, who are listed in my book) — will the new Pope address that? As a Jesuit, one would hope he has some intellectual awareness that goes beyond C&L’s theology of “Obey the Pope.” As a Jesuit, one would hope that he would have been exposed to the vast depth and width of the Catholic intellectual tradition, no matter what the neo-fascist and anti-intellectual sects tell us (that the Pope is the only teacher, a heresy in itself). Maybe he was playing a game all along with the German wing to get elected, and now will let the Spirit open things up and dispense with his right wing handlers. One can hope. One would expect a Jesuit pope to have some respect for Teilhard de Chardin, Karl Rahner, Anthony de Mello and other Jesuits whom the fierce right wing castigates.

Where does he stand on the New Inquisition fostered by then-Cardinal Ratzinger and his minions? We shall soon know. Is he able to throw off the narrow shackles of the C&L and Opus Dei sects and serve the whole Church? We shall soon know. Can he overcome the sin of sexism so rife in ecclesial boyz club circles? We shall soon know. Can he end the unconscionable cover up of priestly pedophiles by the hierarchy and fire all of the perpetrators and put “millstones around their necks” (figuratively at least) as Jesus proposed for all those who endanger children? We shall soon know.

The key to the work of this Pope is the person he appoints as secretary of state. That is the person who must clean up the curia. Will he appoint someone who can take on that heavy task? Or will he appoint someone who is content to keep the power games and cover-ups and hypocrisy going on there essentially as they have been for 42 years? Someone of the 115 who got him elected in order to keep things as they are? Stay tuned.

It is false thinking to look up to the papacy to represent Jesus’ teaching at this time in history. Look to yourself and the base communities of many stripes that put justice and love ahead of power games and sentimental pomp and papalolotry. One program I am developing in collaboration with Andrew Harvey is the Christ Path Seminar (www.christpathseminar.com) which is an effort to resurrect the real story and teaching of Jesus and the Cosmic Christ tradition.

The Holy Spirit may be doing a very great thing in ending the papacy as we know it and starting Jesus’ message over again through the people, not the ecclesial potentates. Surely we all pray that Pope Francis will join that work and be part of the rebirth of the Christ message.

Already some good things have resulted from Bergoglio’s election as Pope. The press (usually the non-mainstream press, the new press created by the Internet that bypasses the ruling financial, political and religious elite) is finally taking a critical look at the history of the American government in Latin America (its role in the military coups of Argentina and Chile, to name a few). And the new press is finally taking a critical look at the dark and fascist side of recent Church history — a side I lay out in detail in The Pope’s War, which has been studiously ignored by the mainline press — the far-right sects of Opus Dei, Communion and Liberation and other coddled children of the past two schismatic papacies. To shed light on these dark sects, as the non-mainline press is finally doing, is already a positive result of the papacy of Pope Francis. Will he and it be able to tolerate the light? Stay tuned.

In closing, let us call on the recently canonized saint and Doctor of the Church, the twelfth-century reformer Hildegard of Bingen. Her words to the Pope of her day follow:

“O man, the eye of your discernment weakens…..You are neglecting Justice, the King’s daughter, the heavenly bride, the woman who was entrusted to you. Her crown and jeweled raiments are torn to pieces through the moral crudeness of men who bark like dogs and make stupid sounds like chickens which sometimes begin to cackle in the middle of the night. They are hypocrites. With their words they make a show of illusory peace, but within, in their hearts, they grind their teeth like a dog who wags its tail at a recognized friend but bites with its sharp teeth an experienced warrior who fights for the King’s house. Why do you tolerate the evil ways of people who in the darkness of foolishness draw everything harmful to themselves? They are like hens who make noise during the night and terrify themselves.”

It is difficult to find a more apt naming of the curia today than these words of Hildegard, who also said:

“The Catholic chair of Peter will be shaken through erroneous teaching…The vineyard of the Lord smolders with sorrow…The injustice of the clergy will be recognized as thoroughly despicable. And yet no on will dare to raise a sharp and insistent call for repentance.” (Matthew Fox, Hildegard of Bingen, a Saint for Our Times, pp. 102ff, 129).

Hildegard raised such a call. One hopes that Pope Francis will do so also.

The post Red Flags Round Pope Francis appeared first on .

I have written in my last post of the abuses committed by this and the previous Popes and curia. The pedophile priest coverup, the financial malfeasance, the silencing of dissent, the destruction of spiritual movements toward social justice, and the support of fascist sects… all of these affirm the historian Lord Action’s remark that “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” The Vatican remains an “absolute monarchy” as historian John Julius Norwich names it.

But there is more. In my book, The Pope’s War: How Ratzinger’s Crusade Imperiled the Church and How It Can Be Saved, where I document all the above abuses and more, I also make the point that the late and great Dutch Dominican Father Schillebeexks made to me over fifteen years ago when he said: “I and many other European theologians believe the present papacy is in schism.”

Why? The past two papacies have been in schism, he said, because they have turned their back on the Second Vatican Council and its principles of justice for the poor, freedom of conscience, the right of theologians to think, the understanding of the church as the people and not just the hierarchy, the priesthood of the laity, the “sensus fidelium,” the right of national councils of Bishops to be heard, etc. etc.

If we are correct that the Vatican is in schism, then that means that every Cardinal, bishop and priest anointed over the past 42 years is in schism, and therefore, does not need to be heeded or listened to. One’s conscience holds first place, now more than ever. (The recently canonized saint, John Henry Newman, used to say that if pushed to choose between conscience and pope he would “drink to conscience every time.”)

And now we have a conclave full of schismatic cardinals voting for another schismatic pope.

Thus my pope vote goes to…the Dalai Lama.

Such a move would:

1. Get the Church out of the schismatic pope death spiral;
2. Allow time for all bishops, cardinals and priests ordained in the past 42 years to get themselves retrained regarding the fundamental principles of the Gospel and of Vatican II and in the tradition of creation spirituality to which Jesus belonged (scholars today finally agreeing he came from the wisdom tradition of Israel);
3. Allow time to fumigate the very infested buildings and palaces of the Vatican;
4. Shut the Vatican down for good and reopen it for the museum that it is, while selling off the art treasures in the basement of the current museum and giving the proceeds to the poor.

In short, because the Vatican is so sick and infested with evil spirits (as two Native American elders told me on my last visit to Rome), it is time to admit that in its present configuration history has passed it by, the Holy Spirit has exited, and its usefulness has run out. But electing a person of genuine spiritual and ethical stature such as the Dalai Lama, who also stands for global intelligence and peace and who calls compassion “my religion” would be a genuine act of humility and vision by the voting cardinals. It would also draw us nearer to the real teaching of Jesus and the person who Jesus was.

Electing a non-westerner and a non-Christian who recognizes the spiritual genius of Jesus and the truth of the “Buddha Nature” or “Cosmic Christ” in all beings would refresh the move for interspirituality and interfaith that our planet needs so badly. (A bishop of Rome could be elected, hopefully by the people, who would live in that bishop’s place which is the Lateran and preside over the Roman flock meanwhile.) This creative and visionary act by the conclave would help turn the tide of history at this time when our species is in mortal danger of destroying itself by weaponry and wars and/or by continued ecological imperialism, destroying the very nest that feeds and nourishes us.

Now, if the Dalai Lama could not get the required 2/3 vote from this conclave, a second choice that would provide a meaningful message to the world from these cardinals – schismatic though they be – would be the following candidate: Sister Joan Chittister of the Benedictine Order.

This one move by the electors would also change the religious map (which SO needs changing!) by declaring that “we, the all-male cardinals who alone lead the Catholic Church, are not, after all, a closed, incestuous, men’s club busy beating up on women with ancient rules against birth control and declaring that we and male politicians have the right to tell women what to do with their bodies. We are listening to today’s women and recognize that they have intelligence, wisdom and deep spirituality and surely they can lead in religion as they do in every other field.”

Overnight, the image of the hierarchical church would improve. Women’s oppression and subjugation, a moral issue the world over, would become more visible on our ethical radar. Moreover, since I know Sister Joan, I know that she would wield an axe with both intelligence and courage that would clean out the evil spirits from the Vatican, just as her sister Benedictine Hildegard of Bingen, recently declared Saint and Doctor of the Church, proposed doing in the twelfth century (she said the pope was surrounded by “evil men who cackle like hens and scare themselves doing it”).

But Sister Joan too would need to shut the place down for spiritual fumigation and get on with retraining all who claim the priesthood or leadership. She would not hesitate, I am sure, to reinvent seminaries more in the spirit of Jesus and values of the “preferential option for the poor” mandated by the Gospels and Vatican II, while allowing women priests, married priests, gay and lesbian priests to step up into interdependent leadership roles. She would return the church to the people of God – which is supposed to be (according to Vatican II and also Hildegard and the Gospels) what it is.

At the same time she would be conscious of the grave sin of papalolatry that so feeds network ratings and television spectacles, but which has nothing to do with real spirituality. Decentralizing leadership lies at the heart of resisting the grave offense of papalolatry.

Finally, such a woman as pope would also have the smarts to let the papacy itself die. She would deconstruct the hierarchical power of patriarchal domination, and empower the people to rise, imbued with God’s values of justice and love, to rise and to do so in circles of sharing in tune with the interdependent web of life.

The post How the Papal Conclave Could Renew Religion: My Two Votes for Pope appeared first on .

Some VERY exciting news! As announced earlier Andrew Harvey and myself are teaming up to try to resurrect Christianity in a series of weekend seminars/initiations called the Christ Path. This series is now offered at an unprecedented gift economy price of $50 registration per workshop, whether offered onsite or online!

Our first weekend is with Joanna Macy presenting “Cosmic Christ as Doorway into Deep Time.” The March 8-10, 2013 seminar is called Cosmic Christ and the New Humanity and will be in Oakland, CA on 2141 Broadway at the former UCS location.

We, like all of you, recognize what a sorry state our species finds itself in these days, from endless war games (we are spending $39,000 per second on war) to playing the usual fiddles while the planet burns and goes mad with increased storms and the plague of consumer gluttony eating up souls and defining our very economic system through an addiction called consumeritis. Just this morning I received a letter from an active Christian who tells me her young adult children are far more at home calling themselves “atheist” than believers since religion has sold out so boldly to fascism, sexism and more.

Andrew and I feel that a healthy Cosmic Christ spirituality—one that fuses action and contemplation, mysticism and prophecy, masculine and feminine, science and consciousness—can make all the difference. That the revolution unleashed by Jesus might still happen even with time running out, indeed especially with time running out.

Just as the Jesus seminar discovered much that was valuable and useful for those who know and want to know the Jesus story, so too the Christ Path Initiation will offer an awakening that is both substantial and practical to reinvent religion and Christianity. The discovery of the Cosmic Christ tradition helps us to do that. Here is how we describe our audience:

For spiritual seekers who want a comprehensive and living vision of Christian mysticism.

For mystics in the church who yearn for authentic mystical teaching and practice.

For those who have left the Christian church and yet long for a deep, direct connection with Jesus and the message.

For those within the church who are deeply disturbed by the narrowness of church doctrine and church corruption.

We will be conducting four events per year for three years. We meet Friday evenings to Sunday, 1PM. Most events will include a visiting lecturer who will speak Saturday night and interact with myself and Andrew Sunday mornings. Guest Speakers the first year include the following: Joanna Macy; Bruce Chilton; Adam Bucko; Brian Swimme. Second year: David Korten; Caroline Myss (and more).

Andrew sees this series as an opportunity to “distill” our work in the context of providing a spiritual substructure to the social movements of our time. Between us we have written over 60 books on spirituality and culture. Our weekends will give considerable attention to spiritual practices new and ancient, and “distilled” for our times as well as intellectual heft. People can participate in person or by teleconferencing —or some of both.

Please Spread the Word! And come yourselves!

Details are found in the website: www.christpathseminar.org.

Here’s to a Birth of the Cosmic Christ in our time,

Matt Fox

Why Such a Low Registration Fee for the Christ Path Seminar? – A Bold Experiment in the Emerging Gift Economy

A Note from Matthew Fox and Andrew Harvey

Dear friends,

We have received your feedback and taken it to heart. We have decided to shift our consciousness around payment options for “Cosmic Christ and the New Humanity.” We want these teachings to be accessible to everyone.

So we are experimenting with a bold approach from the principles of a Gift Economy: we ask that all participants contribute a minimal registration fee of $50 (whether they are attending in person or on line). Beyond that, we intend to experiment in the spirit of the growing “gift economy” consciousness: we will be offering the seminar as a gift.

Rather than assuming people want to maximize self-interest, our starting place is that people want to behave selflessly–with a consciousness of abundance as shown by the Gospel story of the loaves and fishes.

What would it look like if we shared our resources so that everyone’s needs were met? How can a gift economy move us toward this end? What would our lives be like if money were a factor, but not a barrier? We find this opens up huge possibilities for creative co-responsibility and transformative action that is in alignment with the Cosmic Christ consciousness.

As we are doing this within the current economy, and are not seeking any external sources of revenue, we would also like each participant to come mindful of some of the practical aspects of such a strategy.

The seminar is not free. Rather we believe that it is priceless, because how can we possibly measure in money gifts of wisdom, of insight, of prayer, of an engaged learning community, of shared responsibility, of personal and collective transformation?

It’s important for us to have a sense of confidence that when people say they plan to attend, they really mean it. The on-site seminar will be limited to 100 participants. The usual way of getting this kind of commitment is to ask for a non-refundable deposit. If you are willing to demonstrate your clear intention to join us in this way, then please make a payment of $50. If this is an obstacle to your participation, please send us an email so we can engage with you around other options.

If you are moved to make a financial contribution in advance of the seminar, it will be gratefully received and contribute to our current costs.

At the end of the event, we will together look at questions such as: how will we be able to cover the costs of live streaming, facility rental, publicity, travel, as well as stipends to sustain the three teachers?

We will connect in gratitude for all that we have received and then invite each participant either to make a voluntary financial contribution to the real expenses of the seminar, or to move the gift forward through some other way of their choosing.

We view this as an experiment that reflects the new model of workshop we are co-creating with you: an ongoing, creative process of dialogue and transformation.

Blessings,
Matthew Fox and Andrew Harvey

“Unlike a modern money transaction, which is closed and leaves no obligation, a gift transaction is open-ended, creating an ongoing tie between the participants. Another way of looking at it is that the gift partakes of the giver, and that when we give a gift, we give something of ourselves. This is the opposite of a modern commodity transaction, in which goods sold are mere property, separate from the one who sells them. We all can feel the difference.”

–Charles Eisenstein, Sacred Economics

The post A Bold Experiment in the Emerging Gift Economy appeared first on .

But we do communicate in words, and after the shock wears down a bit, one struggles for understanding and for learning from this horrible event. Politicians are beginning to talk again about gun regulation vs NRA and especially regarding automatic weapons, which are the weapons the killer used on his mother and all the kids. And that conversation is long overdue.

But I want to talk about something else. If you look at all the perpetrators of this kind of violence, whether in Aurora or Happy Valley or Virginia Tech or Tucson or Newtown, what they all have in common is this: They were all young men. What is it about young men that makes them so prone to such violence?

I recall once being at a gathering and sitting with Malidoma Some, the spiritual teacher from West Africa, when a young man got up and started raving and ranting at everyone in the room. Malidoma leaned over and said to me: “See what happens when young men do not have rites of passage.”

Malidoma should know, for if you are familiar with his story, in a nutshell it is this: He was kidnapped as a boy from his tribal village and taken many miles away to a Jesuit seminary where other boys who had also been kidnapped were being taught. He received a fine education but at the age of sixteen he threw one of the Jesuits out a second story window. Conclusion? He didn’t have a “vocation” to be a Jesuit. He left and walked home, a very long hike through jungles.

When he arrived he was very angry–not just at the Jesuits but at his tribe, who never came to rescue him. Two years of anger and hostility in the tribe passed and finally the elders came to him and said: “You are impossible to live with. You are full of rage. This year you will take the rite of passage you missed with the thirteen year olds.” So, at the belated age of 18, he took that rite of passage which was quite severe; of the sixty-five youths who went into the jungle with five elders, four or five did not survive it.

But Malidoma did survive it, and it not only made him a man who could deal with his rage, but also gave him his vocation, how he was to be an active and contributing member of his community or tribe. Much of Malidoma’s teaching is about the value of a rite of passage, especially for boys. And what happens when rites of passage are absent.

Part of a rite of passage is leaving one’s home, one’s mother and one’s father, as it presages becoming a mother or father one day. It also includes incorporating one’s own capacity for motherhood internally, instead of projecting it on to women in one’s life.

It is of significance, I believe, that Adam Lanza shot his mother first. This woman who did so much for him, who even home schooled him as a sophomore, who taught him how to use weapons (in what seems like a clumsy but well-meaning way to appeal to his ‘masculinity’) was the first to receive his full frontal rage. All the adults whom he shot at the school were women–the principal, the psychologist, the teachers. And they all bravely stood up to him to defend the children.

Education has become very womanly in our culture. In California today, 84% of teachers are women. Where are the men? Men are less and less drawn to teaching because the pay is so modest, but also because as youngsters they rarely see men as teachers and educators (see The Trouble with Boys: A Surprising Report Card on Our Sons, Their Problems at School, and What Parents and Educators Must Do by Peg Tyre).

The effort to define educational success by exams serves girls better than boys, who more often than not learn by doing and by bodily action rather than by sitting in desks seven hours a day and, if fidgety, being diagnosed with a “disease” and often given drugs for it.

Boys are two times more likely to be “diagnosed” with so-called “attention deficit disorder” than are girls. And four and a half times more likely to be expelled from school. Fifty-eight percent of college graduates in America last year were women and only 42% were men, and the gap keeps growing. Four times more teenage boys commit suicide than teen-age girls.

There is an underlying issue to consider here. The late and great E.F. Schumacher wrote that the number one purpose of education, the bottom line so to speak, is about values. How comfortable is our education system with talking about Values? If we are not talking about values, then we are presupposing that the consumer-driven, “get to the top” value system of our culture is reasonable and sustainable and healthy and indeed what life is all about.

Many people complain that in a pluralistic society and education you cannot talk about values because religious differences (or the difference of having no religion) arise. But I have laid out a value system in my book called The A.W.E. Project: Reinventing Education, Reinventing the Human, that I have tested in public schools and that has been appreciated by Muslims and Christians, Jews and atheists. I call it the “10 C’s” and I think it takes us beyond religious differences and into a deep conversation about shared values.

I offer the list here: Cosmology (and ecology); Creativity; Contemplation (calming the reptilian brain); Compassion; Chaos; Critical thinking; Courage; Community; Ceremony and celebration; Character development.

Among the questions we need to talk about are these:

• What constitutes healthy manhood?
• When is a boy a man?
• What is the meaning and meanings of being a man?
• Is carrying a gun manliness?
• Is power over others manliness?
• Is being number one manliness?
• Is angry revenge manliness?

Our culture and its promotional industries offer their answers to these questions, but I have tried to address the deeper and more archetypal meanings of masculinity in my book, The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors for Awakening the Sacred Masculine.

We need to be teaching such matters in our so-called school system. We are rarely doing so.

I am not just talking about teachers when I talk about education. I once sat at the headquarters of WASC, the body that accredits all the schools including universities of Western United States, and listened to the head honcho tell me: “If you had $5,000,000, your new school would be on a fast track for accreditation. We just did that for a fundamentalist college that had five million in cash.”

I said to myself, “So if Hitler walked in the room with five million dollars in his pocket his school would be accredited on the spot?” No values whatsoever. None but the values of the “market place,” of consumer capitalism. Shame, shame, shame.

Education needs reinventing from the inside out. Who accredits our so-called accrediting bodies? And what values are discussed and/or taken for granted there? Are any of the “10 C’s” in the mix? And if not, why not? I was struck at that meeting that the head honcho never asked a single question about the content of our education, that is, about values.

And so, while reflection on this horrible event continues, I recommend not only a discussion about gun regulations but one much deeper. Our schools are failing us in so many ways. Our families and religions (whose rites of passage have become quite wimpy) are failing us also.

We need to consider the multiple ways in which youngsters learn, especially boys, and quit cutting money for the arts and sports. We need to address:

• Rites of passage
• Creativity as being at least as important as exam preparation and testing
• Values, including the values our educational system itself is committed to (is the Great Unspoken Value to make us all Consumers in a consumer-driven economic system?)
• What manhood (and womanhood) means.

To do these things is not only to create violence prevention; it is also to create a new society. One that puts community before competition and values of justice and sustainability before those of materialism and its very narrow version of success. One that honors stillness and our capacity for contemplation and not just racing to the top in competition. One that values Creativity over memorizing answers to tests.

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Dear Friends of Creation Spirituality,

Happy and Blessed Holidays to you all! I would like to take this time to briefly bring you up to date on some goings-on in Creation Spirituality land as some exciting prospects are blooming.

First, as regards my own writing, I was pleased that my book on Hildegard of Bingen, Hildegard of Bingen, a Saint for Our Times: Unleashing her Power for the 21st Century, came out just in time for her canonization and being named ‘Doctor of the Church’ in October. That was my goal when I heard about those upcoming events last January and was fortunate enough to be able to find a publisher (Namaste in Vancouver, run by a woman who said she was “on the ceiling for three days” after reading the MS and learning about Hildegard) who did a very special thing: Got the book out in six months time. I had to hole up in a cheap motel to get it done in a rush but, having lived with Hildegard for over 30 years, was able to do so. I liked the methodology I came up with, namely putting Hildegard in the room with 20th century thinkers like Einstein, Howard Thurman, Mary Oliver, Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Dorothy Soelle and more. I have been urged to write similar short and pungent books with similar methodology on Meister Eckhart and Thomas Aquinas and I might just do that.

I am also happy to say that Adam Bucko and I (see www.thereciprocityfoundation.org) have finished our book on young adults and spirituality called Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Vision for a New Generation, in which we dialog on the spirituality of young people today and incorporate the wisdom of these people we have gleaned from surveys and from filming a number of leaders from around the country. The book will come out in September, on the second anniversary of Occupy, from North Atlantic Press. We are grateful to Andrew Harvey for including our book in his new series on Sacred Activism with that press; ours will be the first book in the series actually. We just got a copy of the cover two days ago.

Also pleased that The Pope’s War is in paperback now, updated by a new Preface. One person very active in ecumenical work said to me recently it is a “buzz” book among his colleagues and I do know that it is getting around sort of underground as it were. Frankly I think people should read the chapter on Opus Dei before they get too optimistic about this Supreme Court taking up gay rights.

Big news on the YELLAWE front. Last year YELLAWE linked up with another program, Art Esteem, in Oakland in a high school in Oakland’s West side. But beginning in January YELLAWE will be active again on its own in two schools, Fremont and Met-West. The former is in the Fruitvale and heavily Latino district; the latter is near Laney College. Our teachers are very special. In the Fremont High School our program will feature Ernesto Olmos (Google his name) who is a remarkable artist and shaman really from the Mexican Zapotec peoples. He will be leading the high schoolers in making their own musical instruments (drums and flutes) as well as playing them while bringing in the value system of the 10 C’s which are so important to YELLAWE. Ernesto’s credits include exhibits of his paintings and sculptures at Oakland and de Young Museums as well as international venues. A beautiful and accomplished man to have teaching inner city youth!

With him at Fremont will be Rose Elizondo who helped establish the Restorative Justice movement in Oakland and beyond. She teaches meditation and centering prayer in San Quentin (among other venues) and is a real leader in and beyond the Latina community. I met her when she was preparing to introduce me at the Call to Action Conference in Louisville a month ago — she did a powerful job and among other things brought into the room of 2000 people our UCS graduate, Sr Dorothy Stang who died a martyr having been shot in the Amazon while defending the peasants there. It turns out a brother of Dorothy’s was also in the audience. I have been informed that work is afoot to create a solid movie about Dorothy and the struggle going on in the Amazon. Rose is a great leader and I am thrilled that she is joining YELLAWE and bringing other talent with her! She is also a mother of teen-age daughters.

At the Met-West program music will be the basic art form of the YELLAWE program and our instructor will be Iamani I Ameni, a hip hop artist who has also taught mindfulness and meditation among other things at the Juvenile Center in San Francisco. He brings a big heart, lots of smarts including street smarts, and experience and love in working with street youth. Google i.Ameni. When I interviewed him for the job I asked him what the youth in Detention Center taught him and he said: Character. They have strong loyalty to their tribe but we can help them to broaden their tribe and view of the world. Indeed.

Ted Richards program, Chicago Wisdom Project, which is a daughter of the YELLAWE program of which Ted was director in Oakland, is doing well in its three incarnations in the Chicago area. Ted just finished a book on reinventing education that I was happy to endorse. Keep your eye out for it!

Our director of the Cosmic Mass, Nicole Porcaro, a graduate of UCS master’s program, taught a conference course this Fall on the TCM thanks to Di Wolverton and Csource and she is doing another one this Spring. Also: She got married a year ago and just gave birth to their first child, a healthy girl! I am working here in Oakland on starting up the TCM again soon and it looks like we will be able to do it on Sundays at what was Historic Sweet’s Ballroom and is now the Tropicana.

Andrew Harvey and myself, with the strong support of Susan Coppage Evans and Di Wolverton, are planning a 12-week series of weekend “Initiations” into a Cosmic Christ-based Christianity, the Christianity of the future. We call it The Christ Path and are just nailing down the venue, one which many of you will recognize, 2131 Broadway—yes the Old UCS space (the main gathering Hall only as the other rooms are offices for various community organizations now). Good vibes? Good Morphic Resonance? We expect so! Most of the weekends will have another guest lecturer to speak on Saturday nights and be in a conversation with Andrew and myself on Sunday mornings. The weekends will run Friday night; all day Saturday (afternoon will be entirely devoted to Practices!); and through Sunday afternoon. The first four we have scheduled are these: March 8-10 (with Joanna Macy), June 28-30 (with Bruce Chilton), October 11-13 (with Adam Bucko), 2013, and January 10-14, 2014 (with Brian Swimme).

Just as the “Jesus Seminars” helped to reinvent our understanding of the historical Jesus, so we intend these gatherings, with both intellectual content and ecumenical and postmodern practices, to assist a rebirth of Christianity by deepening our understanding of the Cosmic Christ. Teilhard de Chardin once complained that he couldn’t find anyone—lay person OR theologian—interested in discussing not Jesus or Christ but the Cosmic Christ. Well, we think the time is ripe. If you agree, mark your calendars and come to these initiations. OR participate by live streaming which will also be available. OR do some of both! More details will be posted on a special web page, etc. within a month.

Speaking of the Cosmic Christ, Bishop Marc Andrus and myself (he being the Episcopal bishop of California at Grace Cathedral) led a weekend retreat this Fall on the theme and together we are preparing to launch a practice of The Stations of the Cosmic Christ to balance the stations of the cross that so dominate Christian churches. The Stations we hope to hang in Grace Cathedral include M C Richard’s “I am” clay tablets that hung at UCS for years and that she left me when she died along with 8 more tablets created by a contemporary artist around Cosmic Christ events in the Gospels such as Nativity, Transfiguration, Resurrection, Ascension, Pentecost, Matthew 25 and more. We hope said practice will go out from Grace Cathedral around the world just as the Labyrinth practice has.

I remain deeply indebted to the Academy for the Love of Learning in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with whom I am a “visiting scholar” and who support my work and that of YELLAWE in so many ways as they do their wonderful work reinventing education with art and creativity and more. Check out: www.academyfortheloveoflearning.com.

So there you have it. Just some of the goings-on occurring at FCS in the Bay Area. Of course there is much else going on, check out the CSC website for example. And our website at www.matthewfox.org. And I hope you are working in your own communities yourselves and feeling connected to it all.

If you can dig into your pocket and assist us with a tax-free donation we will be grateful and guarantee that it goes to the work itself, not to anything extraneous.

Peace, blessing and thanks to you all,

Matthew Fox
President, FCS

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Matthew Fox

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Sheldrake makes clear that he is writing his book for scientists; he is critiquing science by its own terms; after all he is a well established though controversial scientist (graduate of Cambridge and all that) and he shows great courage in daring to stand up to his own discipline and scientific super egos. Yet Sheldrake writes in so lucid a style that his arguments are for the most part easily understood even by non-scientists like myself. Nor does he just throw firebombs at the “unscientific” suppositions (ten of them) that comprise the ten chapters of the book—he offers calm (and sometimes humorous) alternatives to the stuck ideologies of modern (as distinct from post-modern) science that still rules and haunts the halls of academia and the media and the fund granters. Sheldrake has spent years creating scientific experiments on low budgets that in fact support many of his criticisms of dogmas, experiments such as those with dogs that know when their masters are returning home and with people who know when they are being stared at—findings that deconstruct some dearly held scientific shibboleths.

Speaking personally, I have to say that this book was most timely for me for at least two reasons. First, I read Stephen Hawking’s latest book that was intended to shed light on the universe for all of us but I was so frustrated and frankly angry when I finished it that I wanted to throw it across the room. Here is a man who is elevated as an icon by the media (as are so many atheists these days, a number of whom such as Richard Dawkins are raking in even more money than silly television preachers), whom we all are supposed to listen silently to, but who in telling us the story of the universe never even mentions consciousness once. What? As if consciousness is not part of the universe? Or important in it? What about his own consciousness? I admire Hawking not only for his brilliant intellect but also for the amazing battle he has had to wage with his torn body to do his work and live his life. Does that struggle alone not give evidence of a deep consciousness and determination? One silver lining in Hawking’s book was that he was honest enough to come out of the closet as a materialist—that is his ideology, that is his belief system, that is the setting in which he plants all his other seeds.

That is what makes Sheldrake’s book so important. He establishes first of all that the dominant scientific paradigm today is still that of materialistic determinism a la Dawkins and Hawking and that, practically speaking, these are the ones and this is the ideological bent that gets the lion’s share of grants for investigative research. (The English title of Sheldrake’s book plays on Dawkins’ book title, The God Delusion.) So we are talking about what questions are asked and what questions are funded for research and, of course, what questions are not asked, never allowed to be asked, and never funded research-wise.

I said my first reason for the timeliness of this book was my experience with Hawking (and of course picking up on Dawkin’s noise and so many other very vocal and very well-connected-to-the-media-megaphone atheists). My second event this year that rendered this book so timely was reading an amazing book on the spiritual perspective of Albert Einstein put together by an old friend from German days who, like Einstein, escaped Germany to come to America in the thirties. This book, Einstein and the Poet: In Search of the Cosmic Man, by William Hermanns gives first hand accounts of Einstein’s philosophy which was not at all that of scientific materialism but was beholden to Spinoza. In it Einstein talks about our need today for a “cosmic religion” that goes beyond all religions and all nationalities and political tribalism and that houses a “church of conscience.” I do not find in Hawkins work or in Dawkins much discussion of conscience. I suppose if you throw consciousness out the window, conscience goes out with it. The baby with the bathwater of course.

But this lacuna in contemporary materialism is precisely one thing that renders Sheldrake’s work so refreshing. If he is right—that ten dogmas are holding science back from doing its deeper work today—then exploring these ten shadows of contemporary culture could unleash tremendous vitality and possibility—even moral possibilities. It was Einstein who said: “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and our rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.” To which I say: Amen. Amen. Amen. Think of all the creative advertising we see on our televisions—that is intuition serving the rational gods of consumerism. Consider the numbers being posted on Wall Street. Whom are they serving? The gods of rationality and casino capitalism.

Sheldrake, with courage and finesse, with scientific brilliance and a sharp wit, dares to take on the unexamined dogmas of today’s (outmoded) scientific ideologies. He proves that, alas!, the Stephen Hawkins of the world are to science what the Cardinal Ratzingers are to religion: They are dinosaurs and they are holding us back.

Following are the ten “dogmas” of modern science that Sheldrake names and takes apart in ten chapters, each dogma with its own chapter dedicated to it. He presents the chapter titles as questions.

1. Is Nature Mechanical?
2. Is the Total Amount of Matter and Energy Always the Same?
3. Are the Laws of Nature Fixed?
4. Is Matter Unconscious?
5. Is Nature Purposeless?
6. Is All Biological Inheritance Material?
7. Are Memories Stored as Material Traces?
8. Are Minds Confined to Brains?
9. Are Psychic Phenomena Illusory?
10. Is Mechanistic Medicine the Only Kind that Really Works?

He closes the book with chapters on “Illusions of Objectivity” and “Scientific Futures.” His vision is laid out in the final chapter like this: “The sciences are entering a new phase. The materialist ideology that has ruled them since the nineteenth century is out of date. All ten of its essential doctrines have been superseded. The authoritarian structure of the sciences, the illusions of objectivity and the fantasies of omniscience have all outlived their usefulness.” (p. 318) He also adds another and significant observation: Science is now global and materialistic ideology is uniquely European deriving from religious wars of the seventeenth century. “But these preoccupations are alien to cultures and traditions in many other parts of the world.” Just this one point makes clear how important this book is. The deconstruction of the ideologies behind science is an important part of keeping science itself relevant and alive on a global scale. Science needs to be ecumenical with various cultures (and religious world views) the world-over.

Though I am a christian I am by no means a fundamentalist who wants to make war with science or use the Bible as proof texts about creation. I want to use science to better understand creation whether we are talking about the universality of homosexuality among human tribes and among non-human species, or whether we are facing global warming and humanity’s moral implications in contributing to the same, or whether we are talking about life on mars or intelligent life elsewhere in the universe—for all these great questions I expect science to inform me. I come from the tradition of Thomas Aquinas who fought the fundamentalists of his day (has much changed in seven centuries since?) and brought in the “pagan” scientist Aristotle to do so. Aquinas says, “a mistake about creation results in a mistake about God.” Science therefore is integral to my theology and worldview and always will be and I am not only curious but eager to learn about creation from science; and therefore more about God. I am as anti-fundamentalist as any angry atheist. I am very critical of my own discipline as a theologian. Can not scientists be equally critical of their own discipline? Should they not be?

Let me make my position clear. Atheism has its place. I do not begrudge atheists their philosophy or worldview and indeed all theists should be listening to and be in dialog with atheists for, among other gifts, they assist the cleansing of hypocrisy and they also challenge the overuse and misuse and projected use of the Divine Name, the Mystery without a name that “has no name and will never be given a name” that Meister Eckhart talks of. There are many kinds of atheism just as there are many kinds of theologies. Some atheists are anti-theists (I am anti-theist also, my God is a panentheistic God, not a theist God). Some atheists are anti-organized religion (a pretty easy sell these days when so-called religious leaders countenance pedophilia and saddle up with dictators). Some atheists are anti-fundamentalists who are anti-intellectual. I share common ground there also, for I believe what Hildegard of Bingen said: “All science comes from God.” The left brain is a gift as are our right (or mystical, intuitive) brains.

Meister Eckhart offers the following prayer: “I pray God to rid me of God,” a challenge that deserves to be flung before every churchgoer and theist whether by a mystic like Eckhart or an atheist of conscience (of which there are plenty). Sheldrake is not arguing for theism; he is just making clear that an entire world view of materialistic science is reductionistic and rests on unproven assumptions. Why believe the unbelievable and/or at least the unproven? Why teach that the mind is limited to what goes on in the cranium? Why make that the basis of education and the basis of grant-giving and the basis of culture itself? Especially when that culture is so often revealing a less than dignified direction and preaches despair and pessimism so readily? For the record, I do not consider myself a theist but a panentheist. They are not the same thing. All mystics are panentheists.

One bone I have to pick with scientific materialists is the lack of admiration and praise many of them offer for the great and generous souls who, whether they be Gandhi or Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela or Mother Teresa, Buddha or Jesus, Mohammad or Dorothy Day, Oscar Romero or Hildegard of Bingen, were driven to the summits of moral generosity by their spiritual beliefs. These people are moral heroes in anybody’s book. But they all come out of some kind of sense of the Sacred, God, the holy Universe, the Church (King and Romero for example), etc. That is where they derived their courage. That fed them in their darkest times. Such nourishment deserve to be acknowledged. And even praised. These people were not fools. They represent the best among us, the best within us. As Eckhart said: “Who is a good person? A good person praises good people.” Why are materialists so often short on praise? Not just of good people but of the goodness of the earth and of the universe and of our existence from which we all derive?

Years ago, with Sheldrake’s first book, a scientific journal embarrassed itself by declaring that “this book more than any other in the last ten years deserves to be burned.” Goodness! Modern science borrowing a page from religion’s dark side (or politics’ dark side? Smells a bit like Nazi times also). The response so far to this latest book from Sheldrake has been overwhelmingly positive in the press in England. BUT not a single scientific journal has had the balls to review it. Isn’t that telling? Here is a scientist talking to scientists about their unconscious and unexamined and shadow side—and not ONE scientific journal has the guts to discuss it. Isn’t science supposed to be curious? Are dogmas so frozen that questions cannot be examined? My, my. It makes the Vatican and its unexamined dogmas almost standard. I cannot think of a greater accolade for this book than to say: It scares the bejesus out of scientists. And out of academicians.

When I wrote my book on The Reinvention of Work some twenty years ago, I called on all of us to take a more critical view at our professions and to find the values and the mysticism and prophetic possibilities that were there—and to offer alternatives, to carry the good fight into our work worlds because that is how history gets altered. I have tried to do that in my work both as an educator and as a theologian over the years. Rupert Sheldrake carries on that good and prophetic fight of reinventing his profession in this book where he dares to take on the scientific establishment—not out of rancor or hubris—but out of love for his vocation and vocations of future scientists. As he says, “This book is pro-science. I want the sciences to be less dogmatic and more scientific. I believe that the sciences will be regenerated when they are liberated from the dogmas that constrict them.” (p. 7) Is anyone listening? Are any scientists listening? Are any scientific journals listening?

Rupert, like any prophet, dares to speak truth to power and science is powerful. “Its influence is greater than that of any other system of thought in all of human history.” (p. 13) He wishes to rid science of “centuries-old assumptions that have hardened into dogmas. The sciences would be better off without them: freer, more interesting, and more fun.” (p. 6) Sadly, Sheldrake notes that “many scientists are unaware that materialism is an assumption: they simply think of it as science, or the scientific view of reality, or the scientific worldview.” (p. 8) This book is rich with the history of science and philosophy telling important stories of movements and persons and ideas that have shaped our scientific world often in conflict with our religious beliefs.

In its studied and quiet and gentle and sometimes humorous way this book pulls the rug out from under an entire culture, one that is already on the down-slide as neither education nor science nor economics nor politics nor religion nor media are doing their job today. They are not feeding the souls and spirits of the Earth or its peoples. They deny us a future. We can do better. Sheldrake lights the way.

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My first response on being invited to write an article on the Silencing of Sisters in the Roman Catholic Church was: “Why? They are fully capable of defending themselves.” Yet I also know, from my own personal experience in my years of being silenced and then expelled by then Cardinal Ratzinger from my religious order in which I was “in good standing” for 34 years (and then lied about), that solidarity matters. It matters not just to an individual in the midst of an ordeal but also to others who stand under the gun and wonder if their taking stands of conscience will isolate them or bring on support and solidarity. (Interestingly, feminist theologian Dorothy Soelle says solidarity is the opposite of servile obedience.) So I have squelched my inhibitions about letting the sisters go it alone to jump into the fray and offer whatever support I can to my sisters.

The same weekend that I was invited to write this article I met a woman in her sixties who told me she had been a Catholic sister for a number of years in the Order of Saint Joseph and her response to the attacks on Catholic sisters was this: “Now they will be called to stand up and be counted like so many of us over the years who had to make decisions of conscience on our own. Just like you and many theologians also had to do. No more denial.” It is not only sister orders who can no longer deny the darkness that has taken over the Catholic Church at this time in history. Lay people too who support and rely on the sisters whether in fields of education or pastoral ministry or as examplars of Christians trying to live out the values of Vatican II about justice and solidarity with the poor — all have to move beyond denial and stand up and be counted with the sisters now under siege from the Vatican. Meister Eckhart tells us: “God is the denial of denial.”

I have laid out the stakes of this struggle in the Catholic Church in my recent book,The Pope’s War: How Ratzinger’s Crusade has Imperiled the Church and What Can Be Saved. There I try to present the last forty years of Catholic Church history and make the case that the Vatican and its bureaucrats are in fact in schism since they have abandoned the values and principles of Vatican II across the board (from national bishops’ conferences, to lay leadership, to freedom of conscience, to openness with theologians, to deep ecumenism and more). This is schism, since in the church’s tradition a Council trumps popes and not the other way around. What this means practically is that all the cardinals, bishops and priests anointed in the past forty years are invalid and not to be believed or followed. The door is open for a LOT of creativity and work of the Holy Spirit to flow anew into Christian history.

The case for schism is not just about the abandonment of Vatican II and its saintly movements and individuals such as Oscar Romero, Bishop Casigalida, Bishop Arns, thousands of church workers tortured and killed in Brazil, Peru and more but also the 101 theologians silenced and often expelled from their teaching vocations. It is also about the perverse persons and ideologies embraced by the past two papacies include Fr Maciel, so close to Pope John Paul II that he accompanied him on plane rides to Latin America, who raised more money than anyone in church history but who also sexually abused over twenty of his seminarians and had two common law wives on the side by whom he fathered four children whom he also sexually abused (3 boys and a girl). This man and his order, eagerly supportive of the dictator Pinochet and other far-right movements, was protected and highlighted by the past two papacies (only under pressure did Pope Benedict XVI, having neglected to investigate him when it was his job to do so at the Congregation of Fatih, finally order a full investigation and call for an examination of his order). There is also the scary Opus Dei movement, given full support and ecclesial carte blanche under these two schismatic papacies who rushed the founder, fascist priest and admirer of Hitler, Fr. Escriva, into canonization on a fast track never before equalled. The greatest spy in American history who now sits in jail for getting more American spies murdered than any one before him, was a devout Opus Dei member who went undetected in his post at the FBI for over twenty years. How many members of today’s Supreme Court are Opus Dei? It is hard to know since they are nothing if not secretive but the general guess is 3 or 4. Citizens United decision correctly names their philosophy of marriage of government and corporations (Mussolini’s very definition of fascism).

This is all to lay out the context of the sisters’ condemnation. One must realize that we are suffering through the most corrupt papacies since the Borgias. To the sisters now under fire, I say “Congratulations! You are in good company. Welcome to the club of thinking and caring Catholics trying to apply the principles and values of our faith who have also been attacked for doing so by so-called leaders of the church.” When I was expelled by the Dominicans I received a letter from poet Bill Everson (former Dominican Brother Antoninus) that said: “Congratulations for this culmination of your vocation.” He was right to put the ordeal in the context of vocation. Vocation is our original calling, that which invited us to take a path less traveled. To have followed that path in spite of history’s detours is a noble act. To all the sisters affected by this Vatican attack, I say: “Congratulations! Your vocation is calling you still.”

Some questions I put to the sisters are these:

1. What kind of support do you expect or can you expect from male religious orders? Will they have the courage to stand by you in solidarity? Or will they slink away in a fit of self-preservation to hide and not be heard from? Will they continue in their denial? Or will they finally stand up and be counted and stand by you?
   
   
2. What options are you considering? Are you going to “let the dead bury the dead” and move on, continuing your works of service outside any technical connection with Rome? Will you join the Ecumenical Catholic Church? Have you hired good lawyers to help you with property issues?
   
   
3. Do you think it is worth the trouble and bother and time and energy drain to fight to stay in the Roman Catholic Church as it is now constittued at the top and to try to get “permission” to continue your vocation from the sick and schismatic hierarchy of today?
   
   
4. Do you think Hildegard of Bingen (scheduled to be declared a saint and doctor of the church in October) speaks for you when she writes to the pope of her day: “O man, the eye of your discernment weakens. You are becoming weary, too tired to restrain the arrogant boastfulness of people to whom you have entrusted your heart. Why do you not call these shipwrecked people back? You are neglecting Justice, the King’s daughter, the heavenly bride, the woman who was entrusted to you. Her crown and jeweled raiments are torn to pieces through the moral crudeness of men who bark like dogs and make stupid sounds like chickens which sometimes begin to cackle in the middle of the night. They are hypocrites. With their words they make a show of illusory peace, but within, in their hearts, they grind their teeth like a dog who wags its tail at a recognized friend but bites with its sharp teeth an experienced warrior who fights for the King’s house. Why do you tolerate the evil ways of people who, in the darkness of foolishness, draw everything harmful to themselves? They are like hens who make noise during the night and terrify themselves…. People who act like this aren’t rooted in goodness.” What a marvelous picture of the curia in the 21st century!
   
   She goes on: “You should be doing battle with evil, but that is precisely what you aren’t doing, when you don’t dig out by the root that evil which suffocates the good. And why not? Because of your fear of the evil men who lay snares in nocturnal ambush and love the gold of death more than the beautiful King’s daughter, Justice.”
   
   “O man, you who sit on the papal throne, you despise God when you don’t hurl from yourself the evil, but even worse, embrace it and kiss it by silently tolerating corrupt men. The whole earth is in confusion on account of the ever-recurring false teaching whereby human beings love what God has brought, to nothing. And you, O Rome, are like one in the throes of death.”
   
   “You will be so shaken that the strength of your feet, the feet on which you now stand, will disappear. For you don’t love the King’s daughter, Justice….but as in delirium of sleep, so that you push her away from you. That is why she will flee from you, unless you call her back. And you, O man, who have been placed as a visible shepherd, rise up and hasten quickly to Justice, so that you will not be criticized by the great Doctor for not having cleansed your flock from dirt, for not having anointed them with oil.”
   
   In a letter to Abbot Hellinger she writes: “Now listen and learn, so that you blush with shame when you taste in your soul what I now say. Sometimes you have the style of a bear, who often grumbles to itself in secret. Sometimes you have the style of an ass, for you aren’t solicitous in your duties but are glum and in many ways bungling as well.” He’s glum and bungling! “To such behavior the heavenly Father gives an answer: ‘Your heart grumbles over my Justice. You don’t seek the right answer in her, but you harbor in yourself a certain grumbling like that of the bear.’” [These citations are from her letters and found in Matthew Fox, ed., Hildegard of Bingen's Book of Divine Works with Letters and Songs, Bear & Co., 1987.]
   
   
5. How is all this internal struggle strengthening your true vocation?
   
   
6. How are you feeling about the Vatican at this time in history?
   
   
7. Two proposals do come to my mind. Since it is not you who have been accused of pedophilia or of covering up pedophilia, are you considering undertaking your own investgation of hierarchy both in Rome and in the United States who have stood by while countencing priestly pedophilia? And who now are publicly attacking SNAP which exists to defend the victims of such childhood horrors and which is directed by former victims of priestly pedophilia?
   
   
8. And while you are at it, why not demand that the Vatican define “radical feminism” since Cardinal Ratzinger has been getting away with such scurilous and sloppy language for decades (in fact, he accused me of the identical offense without defining his terms when he expelled me).
   

I would be happy to invite any Catholic sister who wishes to write me their answers to these questions—I promise COMPLETE anonymity—and I will try to publish them in a follow-up to this article.

Finally, I have just one sentence of advice: Wear this badge of honor, this joining the 101 theologians and church activists who have also been denounced by radical right wing groups who hide in the Vatican canonizing one another, with humility. I am sure you will. I offer you as a gift the following poem:

It is not enough that Opus Dei occupies three to four seats in the US Supreme Court,

It is not enough that one (or two) of its admirers ran for president on the Republican ticket,

It is not enough that one (Bishop Finn) engaged in sexual cover up of a priest after pledging not to,

It is not enough that one occupies the largest diocese in North America (Los Angeles),

It is not enough that denial of contraception and other proof of wars against women and their bodies is countenced by schismatic popes,

It is not enough that pedophile priests and bishops are covered up for by hierarchy,

It is not enough that GBLT persons are bullied by schismatic popes and their sycophant bishops,

It is not enough that ecumenism is dead in the water,

It is not enough that yoga is condemned and that Thich Naht Hahn has been declared an “anti-Christ” by the Vatican,

It is not enough that women are excluded from priesthood and from leadership in the church,

It is not enough that 101 theologians have been silenced, abused, expelled for doing their job in service of the People,

It is not enough that theology is dead in the water and the only teacher left is the “magisterium,” i.e. the bureaucrats in the Vatican,

It is not enough that fear grips all theologians and priests,

It is not enough that the Vatican is in bed with dictators and with CIA, FBI, Pentegon and more,

Now cometh the latest trumpet call from the guardians of stale orthodoxy and sinful papalolotry: An attack on American religious sisters, those who have lived and led with the values of Vatican II.

May you all be blessed and thanked for your work, your generosity and your faithfulness to Gospel values. May your consciences take the lead in the creative responses you are sure to be invoking.[br}

Gratefully and in the Spirit of Hildegard,

Your brother,

Matthew Fox, oops (Once of the Order of Preachers)

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