Matthew Fox (b. 1940) is an internationally
acclaimed theologian who was a member of the
Dominican Order for 34 years. He holds a doctorate,
summa cum laude, in the History and Theology
of Spirituality from the Institut Catholique
de Paris. Matthew Fox is author of 29 books
that have been translated into 43 languages
including Original Blessing; The Reinvention
of Work; Creativity: Where the Divine and
the Human Meet; One River, Many Wells: Wisdom
Springing from Global Faiths; A Spirituality
Named Compassion; The Coming of the Cosmic
Christ; Prayer: A Radical Response to Life;
A New Reformation; The A.W.E. Project: Reinventing
Education, Reinventing the Human; A New Reformation;
The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors
for Awakening the Sacred Masculine. In Fall,
2010, his latest book, Christian Mystics:
365 Meditations” will appear.
Seeking
to establish a new pedagogy for learning spirituality
that was grounded in an effort to reawaken
the West to its own mystical traditions in
such figures as Hildegard of Bingen, Meister
Eckhart and the mysticism of Thomas Aquinas,
as well as interacting with contemporary scientists
who are also mystics, Fox founded the Institute
in Culture and Creation Spirituality that
operated for seven years at Mundelein College
in Chicago and twelve years at Holy Names
College in Oakland . For ten of those years
at Holy Names College Cardinal Ratzinger,
as chief Inquisitor and head of the Congregation
of Doctrine and Faith (called the Office of
the Holy Inquisition until 1965), tried to
shut the program down. Ratzinger silenced
Fox for one year in 1988 and forced him to
step down as director. Three years later he
expelled Fox from the Order thus terminating
the program at Holy Names College.
