Matthew Fox2013-05-25T00:58:20-04:00Matthew Foxhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/index.php?author=matthew-foxCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Matthew FoxGood old fashioned elbow grease.How the Papal Conclave Could Renew Religion: My Two Votes for Popetag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.28645592013-03-13T11:22:07-04:002013-03-13T17:49:36-04:00Matthew Foxhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/matthew-fox/"Young Turks" TV show how the Vatican could recover its sense of moral and spiritual leadership. First, I acknowledge the depths of the question: The Vatican over the past 42 years has lost any inkling of moral and spiritual respect.
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 more than 15 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:
Get the Church out of the schismatic pope death spiral;
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);
Allow time to fumigate the very infested buildings and palaces of the Vatican;
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 12th 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 Dark Legacy of Pope Benedict XVItag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.27203132013-02-20T12:32:45-05:002013-04-22T05:12:01-04:00Matthew Foxhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/matthew-fox/
I see that the 42-year reign of the past two popes has so destroyed the church we once knew that now the Holy Spirit can give birth to a community far more attuned to the revolutionary Gospel of Jesus than the current and dying structures ever could be. More than ever, we recognize the warning of historian Lord Acton after Vatican Council I defined papal infallibility: "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
We have witnessed how Cardinal Martini on his deathbed, issued a damning call to action to a church "200 years behind the times." We have witnessed the retaliation of the past two popes against theologians and pastoral ministers who have dared to dissent for the sake of social justice, eco-justice, gender and gender preference justice: 105 and more have been and continue to be hounded, silenced and expelled.
So as one of these dissidents, speaking now from outside the Vatican's punitive reach, I offer a short list of some of the issues for which history will hold Ratzinger accountable, both as cardinal and as pope (I offer page numbers of my study on his life and papacy in my book, "The Pope's War: How Ratzinger's Crusade Imperiled the Church and How It Can Be Saved," to see the backup evidence).
His silence for years about the notorious pedophile priest Father Maciel, who was so close to Pope John Paul II that he was often invited on the papal plane -- and who sexually abused dozens of his seminarians, had two wives on the side and sexually abused his own children. Fr. Maciel was not fully investigated until 2005 even though a New York bishop reported his actions to Ratzinger's office in 1995 (125-130).
His attacks while head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (formerly "Office of the Holy Inquisition") on theologians and pastoral leaders the world over who dared to do their job which is to think (they are listed on page 238-241 but the list keeps growing).
His (and his predecessor's) bringing back the Inquisition and dumbing-down the church, educing theology to 1) a catechism and 2) agreement with the dictates of the pope and his curia. History does not remember Torquemada as a theologian; neither will they remember Ratzinger as one.
His unrelenting attacks on base communities and Liberation Theology even though this movement, like the civil rights movement of the U.S., was the most Christ-like movement for democracy and justice and freedom in centuries (41-62).
His (and the previous pope's) promotion of neo-fascist sects as the new "religious orders," including Opus Dei, which is now embedded in places of great power including the financial headquarters of E.U., the U.S. Supreme Court, the CIA (especially under George Bush the first), FBI and the U.S. mainstream media (106-124).
His and the previous pope's support for extreme right wing groups from Maciel's Legion of Christ to Communion and Liberation to Opus Dei (130-144). Opus Dei members are being placed as bishops and cardinals in Latin America and now in North America: Los Angeles, the biggest North American diocese, is run by an Opus Dei bishop. Likewise the diocese of Kansas City, whose bishop is convicted of covering up for a predatory priest but refuses to step down.
His destroying the integrity of the canonization process by eliminating the role of "devil's advocate" in pointing out the shadow side of the candidate. With this obstacle out of the way, Ratzinger pushed through the canonization of the founder of Opus Dei, Fr. Escriva -- a recognized fascist who praised Hitler -- faster than any saint in history (106-125).
His covering up the scandal of pedophile clergy and putting the image of the Catholic church ahead of the rights of young children in the U.S., in Ireland and elsewhere. The recent HBO film "Mea Maxima Culpa" tells the facts about some of these horrors and how the buck stopped with Ratzinger (134-174).
His public disrespect for other faiths and disavowal of religious ecumenism. Ratzinger as pope managed to insult Islam, Judaism, all Protestant churches (saying they are not churches) and the mind-body-spirit practice of yoga. As cardinal he presaged this anti-ecumenical attitude, unbelievably calling the globally revered Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hahn, "the anti-Christ" (260).
His absolute reaffirmation of a "morality" of sexism (no women priests ever; Catholic sisters in America are now being subjected to inquisitions as theologians have been; priests who support women are dismissed -- but pedophile priests are not!).
His un-Christlike diatribes against gay persons, borne out in not one but two documents: his ignoring scientific research on homosexuality has created another Galileo moment in church history.
His irresponsible positions against condoms even in an age of AIDS and against birth control in a time of excessive human population on a crowded planet. His positions on sexuality are all about St. Augustine's antiquated ethics and not anything Jesus ever taught.
His interference in the presidential election of 2004, wherein Ratzinger instructed American bishops that any "Catholic politician" (i.e. Kerry) who did not denounce gays and abortion could not receive communion. This resulted in three states having very unusual Republican votes from Catholics -- if just one of them had had a more normal Catholic vote, Kerry, not Bush, would have been president.
With such a track record as this, Father Ratzinger is right to retire. Unfortunately, because he and his predecessor appointed only yes men as cardinals, one should not expect any improvement in the next pope.
Instead, we should recognize that history has passed the papacy by. Now is the time for the Holy Spirit to push the restart button on Christianity -- both Catholic and Protestant versions -- so as to strip down to the essence of Jesus' teaching and the Cosmic Christ tradition.
Christianity can be rebuilt without basilicas on our backs but mere backpacks. Travel lightly. Walk humbly. Do justice. And peace will follow.]]>With Pope Benedict's Resignation, It's Time to Move From Religion to Spiritualitytag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.26636052013-02-11T14:08:57-05:002013-04-13T05:12:01-04:00Matthew Foxhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/matthew-fox/The Pope's War: How Ratzinger's Crusade Imperiled the Church and How It Can Be Saved," where I put the past 42 years of the papacy in perspective. There I catalog his unenviable track record of killing theology and silencing 105 theologians.
History will remember Benedict for bringing back the Inquisition and emasculating the great Christ-like movement of Liberation Theology and for ignoring for decades the facts of priestly pedophilia. After all, the buck stopped at his desk as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), and he was apparently too busy to address that horrible reality since he was so preoccupied with playing the 20th century Torquemada, hounding and silencing the voices of justice, generosity, intelligence and creativity among theologians and pastoral leaders.
The Holy Spirit expects us to move beyond Imperial Religion to the essence of Jesus' teachings: Do it to the least of these and you do it to Me.
I hear people speculating whether the HBO documentary that finally laid out the horrors of Ratzinger's neglect around priestly pedophilia is what finally did Benedict in. One would hope so. That, plus the sordid news emanating from the Los Angeles diocese where he deliberately chose an Opus Dei bishop to head that largest diocese in the world. His choice revealed for all to see where his ecclesial allegiance truly lies: in a secret and fascist organization that holds power not only in the church but in great swaths of the American media, the Supreme Court and more today (for full documentation on this point, see "The Pope's War").
It's time to move from religion to spirituality.]]>Celebrating Hildegard of Bingen, Doctor of the Church, Herald of the Divine Femininetag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.19565312012-10-15T11:26:06-04:002012-12-15T05:12:01-05:00Matthew Foxhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/matthew-fox/
Why? There is not a single hint as to why in the vacuous Vatican announcement. But in my new book, "Hildegard of Bingen, A Saint for Our Times: Unleashing her Power for the 21st Century," published by Namaste Press, there are myriad reasons why Hildegard speaks to the depths of our personal and cultural needs in our times. It so happens that few of her perspectives parallel those of the misogynist Vatican of today and indeed the past 43 years.
Principal among her gifts is bringing back the Divine Feminine, which she does in many ways. She calls for Creativity and she testifies to it. She not only immersed herself in the science of her time ("all science comes from God" she says); wrote the first opera ever in the West and composed 72 songs of rich musical originality; painted 36 paintings, a number of them mandalas; but she was also a healer and author of 10 books. AND she critiqued the patriarchal powers of her day including Kings, Emperors, Popes, Abbots, Bishops, etc. She preached in churches and monasteries all over Germany and Switzerland (today's pope forbids women to preach at all).
She constantly calls for justice, as in this letter to Pope Anastasius: "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." She says the pope is surrounded by "evil men who cackle like hens and scare themselves cackling in the night" (a fine description of the Roman curia in our day as well). She says:
"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 one will dare to raise a sharp and insistent call for repentance."
She did raise such a call in her day and in ours, with the pedophile scandals and their cover-up by bishops and popes alike; her voice is a thunderous one to wake people from their denial and their fear to do what she did: raise a sharp and insistent call for repentance.
She teaches what I call "original blessing" when she says the world was created by a young Lady named Love and that all things were made in Love (the pope called my book "Original Blessing" "dangerous and deviant" but here Hildegard is speaking of the identical teaching 800 years ago).
Is it any wonder that the last chapter is called: "Is Hildegard a Trojan Horse Entering the Gates of the Vatican?" I believe in irony and I happily celebrate the irony that the current anti-woman pope (who is now attacking Catholic sisters and even the Girl Scouts!) has declared Hildegard, a nature-based mystic and a fighter for justice inside and outside the church, a herald of the Divine Feminine to a patriarchal world and church, a Doctor of the Church. Do we have the courage to listen to her?]]>Cordileone's Installation: An Ominous Day for San Franciscotag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.19488582012-10-10T15:13:03-04:002012-12-10T05:12:02-05:00Matthew Foxhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/matthew-fox/
Meanwhile, in the basement of the Catholic cathedral the Episcopal prelate of Northern
California, Bishop Marc Andrus was excluded from the event going on upstairs, apparently
because, in a letter to his diocese a week earlier, he had dared to question Catholic "theology"
that tells us homosexuality is "intrinsically evil" and rebukes all science that teaches the exact
opposite.
So much for interfaith ecumenical spirit.
But most ominous of all on this "Installation Day" is the report that outside the Cathedral was a group of hundreds of "Neocatechists" celebrating the installation of this new archbishop who is a member (as is the new archbishop of Los Angeles) of Opus Dei.
Here is where the real scary story looms.
What is the Neocatechist movement?
It is, like Opus Dei, a neo-fascist Catholic sect. I discuss the Neocatechist sect in my recent book, The Pope's War: Why Ratzinger's Secret Crusade Has Imperiled the Church and How It Can Be Saved (where I also lay bare the truths behind the hyper-secretive -- and influential -- Opus Dei sect).
The Neocatechist movement is highly secretive but boasts 1.5 million followers in 106 countries, supports 70 seminaries, and is called "the most powerful neoconservative movement in the church."
The founder, Kiko Arguello, is "the nearest thing to a televangelist that we have in Spain" and is "one of the most powerful men in the Catholic Church." After his conversion from agnosticism, like a good convert, he became more papist than the pope. Key to his catechesis is sexuality. He claims that homosexuality "is a sickness that can be cured." He rejects condoms and teaches that "25% fail." He encourages having as many children as possible -- members average five children per family. Pope John Paul II was an ardent admirer of Kiko, and the pope's personal secretary, Stanislaw Dziwisz (now a cardinal in Poland and a fierce opponent of separation of church and state, who is deeply resented there and is the same person who charged $50,000 for private Masses with the pope), is their champion.
Kiko's followers include 3,000 priests and 1,500 seminarians. They organize many "religious demonstrations" that are in fact political ones, and, like Dziwisz, they rally against the separation of church and state.
Cardileone's ardent support and fundraising for Proposition 8 is only the tip of the iceberg. The Pope's deliberate appointment of this homophobic Opus Dei bishop is not just an insult to San Francisco and its citizens and its values: It is an ultimate act in cynicism.
Since he is still in his 50s, San Francisco and environs is stuck with him probably for twenty years. In Oakland, where he was previously bishop, most clergy and Catholics are dancing in the streets that they are rid of him. In San Francisco, Good Luck. It is a time of religious darkness.
Watch the man carefully and all his Opus Dei and neo-catechumenist minions just as you keep an eye on the Opus Dei members of the Supreme Court and media.]]>Becoming Christian Mystics Againtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.8532942011-05-01T20:46:10-04:002011-07-01T05:12:01-04:00Matthew Foxhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/matthew-fox/
In the West, the modern age (meaning the 16th to mid-20th centuries) was not only ignorant of, but actually hostile to, mysticism. As Theodore Roszak has put it, "The Enlightenment held mysticism up for ridicule as the worst offense against science and reason." Still today, both education and religion are often hostile to mysticism. Fundamentalism by definition is antimystical or distorts mysticism, and much of liberal theology and religion is so academic and left-brained that it numbs and ignores the right brain, which is our mystical brain. Seminaries teach few practices to access our mysticism. This is why many find religion so boring -- it lacks the adventure and inner exploration that our souls yearn for. As St. John of the Cross said, "Launch out into the deep."
This launching into the depths -- into the deep ocean of the unconscious and of the Great Self, which is connected to all things and to the Creator -- often gets stymied by Western religious dogma, guilt trips and institutional churchiness. The mystic gets starved. Patriarchal culture by itself is unable to tap into the deep feminine aspects of Divine Wisdom and Compassion and the heart. But the mystics, male and female, do not present a one-sided reality, as Patriarchy does. The yin/yang, female/male dialectic is alive and well in the mystical tradition. God as Mother is honored along with God as Father. Through this, mystics seek wisdom, not mere knowledge.
The West remains so out of touch with its own mystical tradition that many Westerners seeking mysticism still feel they have to go East to find it. While this can work for many brave and generous individuals, it cannot work for the entire culture. Carl Jung warned us that "we westerners cannot be pirates thieving wisdom from foreign shores that it has taken them centuries to develop as if our own culture was an error outlived."
Is Western culture an "error outlived"? Or is there wisdom deep within our roots that can be accessed anew and that can give us strength and understanding at this critical time when so much is falling apart the world over, when climate change and destruction of the earth accelerates and so many species are disappearing, while our banking systems and economic belief systems, our forms of education and forms of worship, are failing?
I believe that there is great wisdom in our species and in Western spiritual traditions, but that this needs a new birth and a fresh beginning. As a Westerner I must begin where I stand within my own culture and its traditions. This is where the Christian Mystics come in. We in the West must take these insights into our hearts on a regular basis, allow them to play in the heart, and then take them into our work and citizenship and family and community. This is how all healthy and deep awakenings happen; they begin with the heart and flow out from there.
The crises we find ourselves in as a species require that as a species we shake up all our institutions -- including our religious ones -- and reinvent them. Change is necessary for our survival, and we often turn to the mystics at critical times like this. Jung said: "Only the mystics bring what is creative to religion itself." Jesus was a mystic shaking up his religion and the Roman empire; Buddha was a mystic who shook up the prevailing Hinduism of his day; Gandhi was a mystic shaking up Hinduism and challenging the British empire; and Martin Luther King Jr. shook up his tradition and America's segregationist society. The mystics walk their talk and talk (often in memorable poetic phraseology) their walk.
For instance, this being the season of Earth Day, we might listen to the 12th century Abbess Hildegard of Bingen who was an amazing musician, painter, healer, writer (she wrote 10 books), scientist and poet. She posits an erotic relationship between the Divine and nature when she says: "As the Creator loves his creation, so creation loves the creator. Creation, of course, was fashioned to be adorned, to be showered, to be gifted with the love of the creator. The entire world has been embraced by this kiss."
Fr. Bede Griffiths was an English Benedictine monk who spent 50 years in India living and building up an ashram that was Christian and, in many respects, Hindu. He wrote a number of books on the coming together of Eastern and Western mysticism. He writes:
"Perhaps this is the deepest impression left by life in India, the sense of the sacred as something pervading the whole order of nature. Every hill and tree and river is holy, and the simplest human acts of eating and drinking, still more of birth and marriage, have all retained their sacred character. ... It is there that the West need to learn form the East the sense of the 'holy,' of a transcendent mystery which is immanent in everything and which gives an ultimate meaning to life..."
Thomas Berry was an American priest in the Passionist Order who called himself a "geologian." A student of world religions and of contemporary science, he was a great ecological prophet as is clear in his books, The Dream of the Earth and The Great Work, where he warns of the work we must do to reinvent our educational, economic, political and religious systems if we are to be a sustainable species on this endangered planet. He writes:
"The human venture depends absolutely on this quality of awe and reverence and joy in the Earth and all that lives and grows upon the Earth. ... In the end the universe can only be explained in terms of celebration. It is all an exuberant expression of existence itself ... A way is opening for each person to receive the total spiritual heritage of the human community as well as the total spiritual heritage of the universe. Within this context the religious antagonisms of the past can be overcome, the particular traditions can be vitalized, and the feeling of presence to a sacred universe can appear once more to dynamize and sustain human affairs."
Deep down, each one of us is a mystic. When we tap into that energy we become alive again and we give birth. From the creativity that we release is born the prophetic vision and work that we all aspire to realize as our gift to the world. We want to serve in whatever capacity we can. Getting in touch with the mystic inside is the beginning of our deep service.