That's really what
the Vatican has done: they fired all their Theologians, and they destroyed
Liberation Theology, which was the most vibrant and justice-oriented movement
on the planet after the Civil Rights Movement.
They replaced the heroic Bishops, including people like Oscar Romero, who
was actually martyred for his work with the poor in El Salvador, they replaced
him with an Opus Dei Bishop; and they've done this all over South America. Opus Dei is a Radical, Fascist, Right-wing
Catholic movement begun by a Fascist Priest, Escriva, who actually praised
Hitler. And Ratzinger and John Paul II
rushed him into canonization! They made
a saint of him faster than anyone in the history of the church, and they destroyed
the whole process of canonization to do it.
They did away with the Devil's Advocate tradition, where you have
someone there representing the "shadow side" of the guy -- they had none of
that. Anyway, the guy is leaving a very
dirty footprint behind.
Rob Kall:
OK. Well let me slow you down and
get you to give a little more details on a couple of things you said. You described him as "Bringing back the
Inquisition." What do mean by that?
Matthew Fox:
That he fired all the Theologians, and he hounded them; like in my case,
he expelled me from the Dominican Order, of which I'd been a member for 34
years, and he silenced me for a year, and then expelled me three years after
that. Father Boff, the most read theologian in Latin America, he hounded him,
silenced him, and then, Boff quit the Franciscans, of which he was a member for
many years. The most read Catholic
Theologian in Germany was a psychologist Priest, Eugene Drewermann; and he
hounded him, and kicked him out of the Priesthood. So, that's what the Inquisition means, you're
not free to think! They spread
fear. The three of us were the most read
Theologians on our Continent, and all of us were expelled, one way or the
other; and so they spread fear to other Catholic thinkers. You know: "Don't think too much, and just
stay in line."
In addition, by
pushing Opus Dei and these Right-wing groups that are all about obedience and
not about Theology, they are sending a message that "The Pope knows everything,
and it's all about just obeying what the Pope and the Curia has to say." So, what do you get then, with a dumbed-down
church? You get the Cardinal Law's, you
get the cardinal Mahony's, you get the sexual crisis, the pedophile crisis,
because you don't have men of conscience and intellect overseeing things. You have people that don't know what to do
when they here there's a pedophile Priest, they just hide it under the
rug. Obviously that's no way to go.
Rob Kall:
Now, I call my radio show The Bottom Up Radio Show because I believe
that we're in the middle of a transition from a more top down world to a more
bottom up world, and I've long thought that the hierarchy in the Catholic
Church is one of the most top down organizations in human history.
Matthew Fox:
Absolutely. Unfortunately, that's
what Pope John XXIII, in calling the Second Vatican Council in the early 60s,
was trying to alter. For example, the
Council defined the Church as the people of God, not as hierarchy, not as "top
down." But all that was taken away under
John Paul II, and Benedict XVI. In fact,
Benedict actually uses the phrase "The people of the Church," and by Church of
course he means the hierarchy, so he totally changed the language. So, this effort to try to bring a horizontal
dimension to our Catholicism, which really was a big part of the Second Vatican
Council, and certainly a big part of Base Communities and Liberation Theology,
and the other movements after the Council, all this has been stuffed by the
last two Popes.
And frankly that's
what I say in my book on the Pope's war, that these two Pope's actually are in
Schism. They're in Schism because they
have destroyed the basic teachings of Vatican II; and in the Catholic
tradition, and Ecumenical Council trumps a Pope, a Pope does not trump a
Council. When there were three Popes in
the 14th century all claiming their infallible rights, if you will,
they called a Council. The Council
deposed all three and chose a new one.
And so, Councils trump Popes, Popes don't trump Councils, but what has
happened the last forty [40] years is that these two Popes, Ratzinger and John
Paul II, working together, have trumped the Council. Therefore, they're in Schism; and people who
are still attempting to live out the teachings of Justice and also horizontal
Catholicism, they're not in Schism, they're trying to live the reality. Of course, now they're coming /
Rob Kall:
When you say "Schism," what does that mean? It's a word you hear but, what does it.. ?
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