Matthew Fox’s new book,

THE POPE’S WAR:

WHY RATZINGER’S  SECRET CRUSADE HAS IMPERILED THE CHURCH AND HOW IT CAN BE SAVED,  is NOW available at Barnes & Noble.

The Pope’s War offers a provocative look at three decades of corruption in the Catholic Church, focusing on Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI, and how the devastation the past two papacies has wrought can be a blessing in disguise to reinvent Christianity for a third millennium.

An internationally acclaimed theologian who was a member of the Dominican Order for thirty-four years, Matthew Fox was forbidden to teach theology by the then-cardinal in 1988 and was later dismissed from the order. Now he presents insights from his twelve-year, up-close-and-personal battle with Ratzinger, tracing the historical roots of degradation in the Church and offering a new way to understand why Benedict XVI is mired in crisis as pope.

Fox begins with Ratzinger’s life story as a youth and as an upcoming theologian at the Second Vatican Council as well as his “conversion” from progressive thinker to ecclesial climber and chief inquisitor. Also covered are eight of the 110 theologians that Ratzinger silenced and denounced. He next turns to Ratzinger’s allies—Opus Dei, the Legion of Christ, and Communion and Liberation—three of the special groups that he praised and protected for years while attacking theologians and spiritual movements that did not fit his criteria of über right-wing politics and religiosity. He also explores what has created the priestly pedophilia crisis in the Church and examines Ratzinger’s role in its cover-up. Finally, Fox delivers his vision for a new Catholicism—one that is not Vatican-based but truly universal, celebrating critical thinking, diversity, and justice.

Both analytical and hopeful, The Pope’s War not only presents insights into the state of the Catholic Church today, but also provides inspiration for the dawn of a new spiritual era.

Book Review :

Everything you need to know in one place about what’s wrong, August 26, 2011

Few would argue that there is something seriously wrong with the institutional Catholic Church. The so-called conservative restorationists point to Vatican II as the primary cause of all problems. Their goal is to return the institution to what it was like prior to Vatican II, which means moving backward by half a century. The world-wide sex abuse scandals, financial scandals and heavy-handed oppression of thinking theologians, priests and bishops paint a different picture of the Church and what is wrong with it. Retreating to the former age when the institution and the body of believers were identified as one in the same doesn’t seem to be a realistic or even sane answer. Matt Fox, who has been in the forefront of theology, spirituality and Christian community for almost half a century has written a fascinating and “right-on-target” book that fearlessly goes where many fear to tread….right to the heart of the matter. He carefully and accurately documents the campaign of Josef Ratzinger, now Benedict XVI, to re-shape the global church into how he believes it should act, think and look. This is not an angry harangue or an emotional diatribe made up of assertions and accusations that lack foundation. Matt Fox provides detailed stories of the key campaigns by Ratzinger to shut down anyone or anything that does not fit into his vision of Church. Equally essential to understanding the state of the Church today is understanding the nature and mission of the key allies in the march back to the mythological golden age of the monarchical church. Matt takes a critical and shocking look at the Opus Dei, Legion of Christ and Communion and Liberation, comparing their cult-like, oppressive modus operandi to basic Christianity. The fourth section of the book responds to the second part of the title, “…”How it can be saved.” The layout of the historical facts in itself makes the book a valuable source for sorting out the Church’s confusion but the section on change is invaluable as a detailed summary in one place of how a spiritual entity grounded in Christian compassion can come back to life. Twenty years ago Matt’s thinking on spirituality, creation theology and living liturgy may have seemed radical to many but today it comes through as a massive breath of air, not just fresh air but air…..a commodity not much in evidence in the present-day institution which appears every day to be choking more and more on its own self-created vacuum. The book is well thought out and very well-written. It doesn’t use a lot of “church” language that most people don’t understand. Matt shoots straight and gets the point across clearly and without equivocation. The first section on the Ratzinger campaign may appear depressing, which in itself it is, but the proposed solution is filled with light, life and hope.

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Interview on The Pope’s War

What distinguishes your book from other books on Ratzinger?

As Bruce Chilton points out in his Forward, I am not just a pundit; I am not a journalist per se.  I am a theologian.  As a theologian I am trying to ponder how the recent events of Catholic history can be seen through the eyes of the Holy Spirit. Is there some good that come out of so much anguish, so much betrayal, so much disappointment with the false direction the church has taken under Pope John Paul II and Ratzinger?  And I come to a clear conclusion that Yes, the Holy Spirit is still at work in the events of deconstruction and reconstruction that are at hand.  It is time to restart the church.  Let many of its forms go; let them die as they are doing.

What if any background do you bring to this study that others do not bring?

The fact that I stepped out of the Roman Catholic box so that I could think and act more true to my conscience some sixteen years ago gives me more freedom to tell the truth as I see it.  I know many Roman Catholic theologians and sisters and priests who are too busy looking over their shoulders, too engrossed in surviving in a closed system, too weighed down by the “chill” of heresy hunters to be able to speak their truth.  Since the Vatican used the Dominican Order to expel me some sixteen years ago, I am not part of that “chill” that has descended on theology in the church at this moment in history.

Also, my work for forty-some years has been in spirituality, not in ecclesiology as such.  Thus my thirty books bring to the fore, I believe, the most important direction that religion needs to go in its reconstruction—that is spirituality, the experiential dimension of religion.   The mystical-prophetic tradition I have been recovering including the Cosmic Christ, Hildegard, Aquinas, Eckhart, Julian and others, together with today’s post-modern science, offers new and deeper expressions of healthy religion.  They are among the treasure to take from the burning building.

What in your opinion are the most important elements of your book on “The Pope’s War”?

The fact that I relay my conversation with Fr. Schillebeeckx in which he used the “S” word is very important.  The “S” word rarely gets used these days but I think that Schism properly summarizes what the past two papacies have been about.  They deliberately turned their back on a valid Ecumenical Council and in doing so are in schism.  This means that its appointed cardinals and bishops are in schism. They do not represent the lineage of the church.  This opens up whole new possibilities of seeing the church anew.  All the Yes men and sycophants that have lined up at the papal trough for a piece of the power these recent decades are seen for what they are in their transparent reality.

In addition I analyze the personality and history of this Pope Benedict XVI daring to call him what he is: a bully.  Bullies not only hide behind power structures while they abuse others but they love to hunker down with their own ‘wolf pack’ and in this case it is the curia.  How interesting that in December, 2010 Ratzinger appointed 24 new cardinals and of these 10 more are in the curia (as if there were not enough there already).  The Roman Catholic church in our day is not about the “people of God”; it is about a clique of decision-makers in the curia.  Its “service” is to its own pack, its own boys club.  That is one reason women are not allowed in. It is also the explanation for the scandalous pedophile cover-up.  It is a closed, sick system.

I also remind people of the 92 persons (since I handed in my manuscript there are another ten or so to bring the number over 100) who have been maligned, deprived of their work and reputation, abused, thrown overboard so that the uber-right ideologies of sects like Opus Dei and Legion of Christ and Communion and Liberation can prevail.  All is sacrificed on the altar of obedience and control.  By exploring more deeply how these groups operate and what they stand for, I think the book sheds light on the ugly and scary and unholy marriage of fascism and fundamentalist religion in our day.

But I also remind people of the genuine heroism and gracious gifting of many theologians and activists whom the past two papacies attacked as heretical.  I know no movement of the past 500 years that was more Christ-like than that of base communities and liberation theology.  Memory and gratitude are very important for they feed the courage that is needed today to start Christianity over again.

Of course the pedophile disaster and its awful cover-up by hierarchy to “preserve the church institution” in itself deprives the Vatican of all moral and spiritual credibility and lays bare the real motives of its so-called leadership.  The role of money and power is fully integrated into this sordid story as well, as Jason Berry has made clear.

And I have tried to sketch out some directions for new versions of Christianity that are needed today with of course the primary emphasis on lay leadership.  We do not need another Council (after all the last one was totally stuffed); what we need is a rise and indeed a take over of the church by lay leaders.  Jesus was not a clericalist.  He never heard of the Vatican (or of cardinals) all of which developed centuries after his death.  Time to start over.  And with the courage and imagination and generosity that characterizes all authentic spirituality.

Do you see any precedents for what you are speaking of?

Let us remember what Thomas Aquinas taught about religion.  That it is, he felt, primarily a virtue, that is a habit that persons carry within them.  Indeed, for Aquinas religion’s essence is Gratitude.  Gratitude for existence.  This means that institutions are NOT what religion is primarily about.  What goes on in the heart and mind and gives birth to outer form is what is at the essence of religion.  This means that social constructs like basilicas, cathedrals, churches, vaticans, popes, cardinals, bishops, canon laws, etc. are on the periphery of real religion.  And they render themselves religiously irrelevant when their thrust at certain times of history is very far from the love and compassion and service that Jesus preached.  They have more to do with accumulation of power and prestige and institutional and personal ego.

At the bottom, the crisis in Roman Catholicism is a crisis in spirituality or the lack thereof.  Real people want spirituality.  The church as we know it today is the last place they go looking.  We are talking about the future of religion, the future of spirituality and very likely the sustainability or unsustainability of our species on this planet.  This is why the issues at hand are of deep importance to us all, whether within or outside of organized religion.

If I am not Catholic (or even Christian), should I be at all interested in this book on the woes of the Catholic Church?

The Roman Catholic Church is the largest Christian denomination by far.  Its global influence is profound for good or for ill.  It has at times drawn many wonderful and generous souls into its service even if today many are tripping over each other to exit.  When it chooses at its hierarchical level to support dictatorships and fascist rulers—and to imitate them—that impacts on all of us.  When it teaches that birth control and condoms are wrong when the world is being swamped by excessive human population as well as by sexually transmitted diseases like AIDS, that affects us all.  When its theatrical rituals suck all the religious air out of the room because it is pleasing to television’s needs to elevate a person dressed in white to cult status, that affects us all.  When Ratzinger interfered in the US presidential election of 2004 by telling bishops to publicly announce that a Roman Catholic voter cannot vote for a politician (i.e. Kerry) who favors women’s choice and the vote of three states (Iowa, Ohio and New Mexico) was determined by that intervention as studies show, then the fact that the Vatican got Bush elected his second term is of concern for all.  When theological thinkers are suspended and pedophile priests are countenanced and their hierarchical defenders are promoted (a la Cardinal Law), that affects us all.  When fascist cults like Opus Dei and Legion of Christ and Communion and Liberation are promoted by the Vatican, that affects us all.  When base communities and liberation theology are denounced, that affects us all.  When the spirit and teachings of the great Vatican Council including outreach to all world religions are denied, that affects us all.  And when morality is reduced almost exclusively to sexual issues instead of the great issues of planetary survival and social and economic justice, that affects us all.

The hijacking of the name and teachings of Jesus in the name of Ecclesiolatry affects us all.  Ours are not a time for keeping silent about the sins of organized religion.  Ours are a time for starting over.

The Intimate Relationship between The Pope’s War book and the Christian Mystics Book

Writing The Pope’s War (Sterling, May 2011) was so dour, so dark, so dreary, the news was so much the opposite of uplifting that I told a friend I felt like Oscar the Grouch who lived in the garbage can on Sesame Street.  Yes, it was like living with garbage.  What to do?  I put the project, about 60% finished, on a shelf not sure I would ever return to it.  All my other books had uplifted me in the writing; not that one.  It dragged me down day after day.  It was not fun.

But there is a second connection between the two books as well.  The culmination of the pope book was my conviction that the Holy Spirit is so decimating Catholicism as we know it today that we can and need to push the restart button on Christianity.  This includes “taking the treasure from the burning building” as I put it in the book.  And first and foremost of those treasures is our mystical and prophetic heritage.  Thus Christian Mystics is a deep part of the treasure that our lineage contains.  It points the way to Christianity’s greatest accomplishments and its greatest future potential.  The task is not that complicated: It is about turning out mystics and prophets.  Like Jesus did; and was.

Matthew Fox’s latest book! CLICK HERE TO ORDER

CHRISTIAN MYSTICS

“One of the  Best Spiritual Book of the Year 2011″

365 Readings and Meditations

Price: $16.95   Paperback   416 pages

The 365 writings in Christian Mystics represent a wide-ranging sampling of these readings for modern-day seekers of all faiths — or no faith. The visionaries quoted range from Julian of Norwich to Martin Luther King, Jr., from Thomas Merton to Dorothee Soelle and Thomas Berry.. Fox is uniquely qualified to comment on these profound, sometimes startling, often denounced insights. He has dedicated his life to recovering the often hidden treasures of Christianity including people like Hildegard of Bingen, Meister Eckhart, the mystical side to Thomas Aquinas and to today’s science. Here he lays out much of this neglected or forgotten wisdom in simple but profound fashion for others to imbibe. Mysticism and prophecy (social justice) go together in Fox’s creation spirituality. The latest scholarship on St. Paul, the first writer in the Christian Bible, suggests that for Paul “you cannot be a Christian without being a mystic” (John Dominic Crossan). Yet how many Christians know their own mystical tradition? Fox does and he shares it here. Now there is no excuse for the continued mystical illiteracy of so many Westerners.

Book Review:

CHRISTIAN MYSTICS: 365 READINGS AND MEDITATIONS tells how traditional Western educational systems have neglected mysticism since the 16th century, offering instead an academic approach to religion and the soul. This collects a variety of quotes from Christianity’s greatest mystics over the past two thousand years, exploring and celebrating the mystical path of Christianity over the last two thousand years and offering commentary on these revelations. Christian collections will find this inspirational and unusual.

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Q & A by Matthew Fox

Ø      What is mysticism?  Mysticism is our deep experiences of unity—with nature, with music, with friends, with truth, with God.  It is a work of the right brain more than the left brain; it is the essence of authentic religion and it is about experiencing, not intellectualizing.  “Taste and see the Lord is good” says the Psalmist.  Mysticism is about tasting.  No one can do it for you.

Ø      What is the relationship between fundamentalism and mysticism?  Fundamentalism, unfortunately, tends to be more about rules and order and control than about mystical experience.  It is often an enemy of mysticism.

Ø      You say that a lack of mysticism is what makes religion boring. Why?  Mysticism provides breakthroughs in consciousness and is often the basis of new, deep and creative breakthroughs.  Religion without mysticism degenerates into rules and laws, dogmas and words and control compulsions.  The left brain takes over and renders experience dull and unimportant.

Ø      You say that deep down we area all mystics. What is the key for connecting with the mystic within?  The key to connecting with the mystic within is to trust one’s deep experiences whether of Awe or of Silence, of suffering or of creativity, of justice-making and compassion.  True mysticism leads to justice-making and the practice of compassion.

Ø      How did you choose which mystics to include in the book?  I paid special attention to those who are pre-modern such as Aquinas, Hildegard, Mechtilid, Eckhart, Julian and Cusa because post-modern times need pre-modern wisdom.  And I paid attention to Jesus and Paul of course but also to twentieth century mystics who share sensibilities around current issues such as science and spirituality, sexuality and spirituality, ecology and spirituality, deep ecumenism and spirituality..

Ø      Do you have a favorite mystic? If so, who is it and why? I have special regard for Hildegard, Aquinas and Eckhart because, being pre-modern, they were intent on linking science and spirituality and also justice and mysticism.  If I were pushed to name one it would probably be Eckhart because he does such a breath-taking job of marrying art and creativity with mysticism and also justice and compassion with mysticism.  And he walked his talk and was condemned by the corrupt papacy of his day for doing so.  I also have favorites among the twentieth century mystics however including Dorothee Soelle, Fr. Bede Griffiths, Thomas Merton, Fr. Tom Berry, etc.

Ø      What is the difference between Mystical Christianity and regular Christianity?  Mystical Christianity begins with experience and leads to experience.  It encourages creativity and the work of Spirit rather than excessive dogma and structure and control and institution-building.  It honors the presence of Spirit in nature, in sexual sharing, in art and music and architecture and creativity in its multiple expressions.  It practices silence and is not afraid of solitude.  It is both personal and communal and it finds its full expression in service and work of justice-making and compassion.  It also looks to make connections with the mystical practices (such as meditation) of other traditions than one’s own.

Ø      In your opinion, how does religion in Western culture need to change?  It needs to become less institutional, less about the religious-ego, and more about spiritual experience.  Less about church and more about community.  Less about “us” and more about kinship with all beings; less about the upper chakras of words and thinking and the rational and more about the lower chakras which are about dance and vibration and generativity and connecting to the earth and the cosmos.

Ø      You say that mystics teach us to be “drunk with love.” What do you mean by that?  Mysticism encourages letting go, getting high, expanding one’s consciousness, allowing joy to explode, going to the edge.  As John of the Cross put it, “launch out into the deep.”  Too many people are standing on the shore.

Ø      Are nature and mysticism related? How?  Most people I have interviewed over the past 40 years have their most powerful mystical experiences in nature and in studying nature.  That should be no surprise since awe resides deeply in nature.  That is why science can lead us to a deeper experience of mysticism and is no enemy of religious experience but an ally.

Ø      Which is more important — consciousness or technology?  Why?  Rabbi Abraham Heschel observed that “Humanity will destroy itself not from lack of information but from lack of appreciation.”  Expansion of consciousness is necessary for knowing how to steer technology and what technology’s deepest uses are.  Technology, like everything humans give birth to, can be used for good or ill, for creation or destruction.  Consciousness guides us into wise use of technology.  Without it technology just ups the ante on human destructiveness.

Ø      Who or what is the Cosmic Christ?  The Cosmic Christ is the Christian archetype for the divine image present in every being, indeed, every atom in the universe.  It is the “light in all things.”  It is also, with its incarnation in Jesus, the wounds in all things.  Divinity is both the light and the wounds in all things.  All beings are other Christs therefore.  And every human is meant to be another Christ.

Ø      Do you consider yourself a mystic? Why or why not?  I suppose so.  I would not be qualified to write about mysticism if I was not in some way practicing what I preached.

Ø      What role does silence play in mysticism? Is it important? Why?  Silence is part of the via negative of the mystical way, the letting go of all things, all sounds, all projections, all thoughts.  This emptying is necessary if there is to be a filling.  How can there be mindfulness without  mind emptying?  Silence is one of the proven highways to the human heart (along with joy and moral outrage).  Meister Eckhart says: “Nothing is so like God as silence.”  And “all things seek repose.”

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Matthew Fox’s latest book! CLICK HERE TO ORDER

THE HIDDEN SPIRITUALITY OF MEN

Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine

It is no secret that men are in trouble today. From war to ecological collapse, most of the world’s critical problems stem from a distorted masculinity out of control. Yet our culture rewards the very dysfunctions responsible for those problems.

To Matthew Fox, our crucial task is to open our minds to a deeper understanding of the healthy masculine than we receive from our media, culture, and religions. Popular religion forces the punitive imagery of fundamentalism on us, pushing most men away from their natural yearning for spirituality and toward intolerance and domination. Meanwhile, many men, particularly young men, are looking for images of healthy masculinity to emulate and finding nothing.

To awaken what Fox calls “the sacred masculine,” he unearths ten metaphors, or archetypes, ranging from the Green Man, an ancient pagan symbol of our fundamental relationship with nature, to the Grandfatherly Heart to the Spiritual Warrior. He explores archetypes of sacred marriage, showing how partnership becomes the ultimate expression of healthy masculinity. By stirring our natural yearning for healthy spirituality, Fox argues, these timeless archetypes can inspire men to pursue their higher calling to reinvent the world.

Book Review:

It’s hard to know where to start with Matthew Fox’s prolific body of work, now logging in at more than two dozen books and continuing to stack up. There’s no question that his pivotal book remains “Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality Presented in Four Paths, Twenty-Six Themes, and Two Questions,” a 1983 landmark so important that a circle of Fox’s friends and supporters gathered in the summer of 2008 to celebrate its 25th anniversary. Then, I still recall the debut of “The Coming of the Cosmic Christ” five years after “Blessing.” I also like, “Creativity,” written just a few years ago.  read more

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