In mild of the Friday ambush staged by the present occupant of the White Home and his henchman towards Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy within the Oval Workplace, I invite you to meditate on Aquinas’ knowledge set forth up entrance on web page ix of my latest ebook on Christ and antichrist. It strikes me as amazingly prescient. Aquinas’ phrases are in italics; I underline a couple of of his phrases and provide mine in brackets.
The disregard of the frequent good is larger underneath an oligarchy than underneath a democracy.
However worst of all is a tyranny the place the benefit of 1 man is sought.
The rule of a tyrant is worst.
Safety is banished and all the pieces is unsure when persons are reduce off from regulation and rely upon the desire, I’d even say the greed, of one other.
The tyrant oppresses the our bodies of his topics, however what’s extra damnable, he threatens their non secular development, for he’s set on his personal energy, not their progress.
He’s suspicious of any dignity that they could possess that may prejudice his personal iniquitous domination.
A tyrant is extra scared of a great individual [Zelenskyy?] than of a nasty individual [Putin?], for he dreads their unusual advantage.
Fearful lest they develop sturdy and so stout of coronary heart as now not to brook his depraved despotism however resolve in companionship to benefit from the fruits of peace, a tyrant is constrained to destroy good individuals’s confidence in each other, lest they collect collectively to throw off his yoke.
Subsequently, he sows discord amongst them, and encourages dissensions and litigation. [Trump is now suing and threatening to sue news outlets he disagrees with.]
Relating to the position of Greed and Avarice, which is such an indicator of the brand new regime and its leaders, Aquinas makes the next pertinent observations:
Avarice offers rise to insensibility to compassion, as a result of one’s coronary heart will not be softened by compassion to help the needy with one’s riches. [Cf the disassembly of USAID for example and the current Congress’s attacks on SNAP and Medicaid and Musk’s attacks on Social Security which he calls a “ponzi scam.”]
It additionally offers rise to restlessness by hindering one with extreme anxiousness and care, for ‘an avaricious man shall not be glad with cash’ (Ecclesiastes 5:9).
The avaricious in buying different individuals’s good generally make use of power, which pertains to violence.
Typically deceit.
After which if they’ve recourse to phrases, it’s falsehood if or not it’s mere phrases.
Perjury in the event that they verify their assertion by oath. [For example, taking an oath to uphold the laws of the Constitution but doing the opposite.]
If they’ve recourse to deeds and the deceit impacts issues, we’ve fraud.
There’s ample perception and knowledge right here to meditate lengthy and arduous on what’s going on in our authorities at present. Republican Congress individuals and senators who will not be standing up for democracy residence or overseas match this invoice. And people who watched the Vance/Trump assault on President Zelenskyy with obvious satisfaction.
Matthew Fox, Trump & The MAGA Motion as Anti-Christ, p. ix.
And Fox, Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Remodeling Evil in Soul and Society, pp. 301, 306.
And Fox, Sheer Pleasure: Conversations with Thomas Aquinas on Creation Spirituality, pp. 493ff.
And Fox, A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Consciousness with Social Justice.
And Fox, Creation Spirituality: Liberating Items for the Peoples of the Earth.
See Fox, “Character and Chakra Growth,” in Fox, The A.W.E. Undertaking: Reinventing Schooling, Reinventing the Human, pp. 138-145.
Banner Picture: The deep roots of oligarchy in U.S. authorities: “The Bosses of the Senate.” Cartoon by Joseph Keppler, revealed in Puck on 1/23/1889, reproduced on the U.S. Senate web site. Company pursuits are proven as big cash luggage looming over tiny senators. The “individuals’s entrance” is barred. Galleries stand empty whereas particular pursuits function under the motto: “That is the Senate of the Monopolists, by the Monopolists and for the Monopolists!” Wikimedia Commons
Queries for Contemplation
Why do you suppose Aquinas talks concerning the “unusual advantage” of excellent those that frightens tyrants and their enablers? I purposely current Aquinas’s teachings right here in a poem-like construction as a result of every sentence strikes me as deserving of meditation, contemplation and response to the hazards of our time. Which strains do you suppose are most crucial to our consciousness and motion at present?
Really useful Studying
Trump & The MAGA Motion as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election
Matthew Fox tells us that he had all the time shied away from utilizing the time period “Anti-Christ” as a result of it was so usually used to unfold management and worry. Nevertheless, given at present’s rise of authoritarianism and forces of democracide, ecocide, and christofascism, he turns the tables on this ebook using the archetype for the reason for justice, democracy, and a renewed Earth and humanity.
From the Foreword: If there was ever a time, a second, for analyzing the archetype of the Antichrist, it’s now…Learn this ebook with an open thoughts. Good and evil are actual forces in our world. ~~ Caroline Myss, writer of Anatomy of the Spirit and Conversations with the Divine.
For speedy entry to Trump & The MAGA Motion as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election, order the e-book with 10 full-color prints from Amazon HERE.
To get a print-on-demand paperback copy with black & white photographs, order from Amazon HERE or IUniverse HERE.
To obtain a limited-edition, full-color paperback copy, order from MatthewFox.org HERE.
Order the audiobook HERE for speedy obtain.
Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Remodeling Evil in Soul and Society
Visionary theologian and best-selling writer Matthew Fox affords a brand new theology of evil that basically modifications the standard notion of excellent and evil and factors the way in which to a extra enlightened remedy of ourselves, each other, and all of nature. In evaluating the Japanese custom of the 7 chakras to the Western custom of the 7 capital sins, Fox permits us to suppose creatively about our capability for private and institutional evil and what we will do about them.
“A scholarly masterpiece embodying a greater imaginative and prescient and depth of notion far past the grasp of anybody single science. A breath-taking evaluation.” — Diarmuid O’Murchu, writer of Quantum Theology: Religious Implications of the New Physics
Sheer Pleasure: Conversations with Thomas Aquinas on Creation Spirituality
Matthew Fox renders Thomas Aquinas accessible by interviewing him and thus descholasticizing him. He additionally translated lots of his works resembling Biblical commentaries by no means earlier than in English (or Italian or German of French). He offers Aquinas a discussion board in order that he may be heard in our personal time. He presents Thomas Aquinas totally in his personal phrases, however in a kind designed to permit late Twentieth-century minds and hearts to listen to him in a contemporary approach.
“The instructing of Aquinas comes by means of will a fullness and an perception that has by no means been current in English earlier than and [with] a significant message for the world at present.” ~ Fr. Bede Griffiths (Afterword).
Foreword by Rupert Sheldrake
A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Consciousness with Social Justice
In A Spirituality Named Compassion, Matthew Fox delivers a profound exploration of the that means and observe of compassion. Establishing a spirituality for the longer term that guarantees private, social, and international therapeutic, Fox marries mysticism with social justice, main the way in which towards a gentler and extra ecological spirituality and an acceptance of our interdependence which is the substratum of all compassionate exercise.
“Nicely price our deepest consideration…Places compassion into its correct focus after centuries of neglect.” –The Catholic Register
Creation Spirituality: Liberating Items for the Peoples of the Earth
Fox’s spirituality weds the therapeutic and liberation present in North American Creation Spirituality and in South American Liberation Theology. Creation Spirituality challenges readers of each non secular and political persuasion to unite in a brand new imaginative and prescient by means of which we be taught to honor the earth and the individuals who inhabit it because the reward of a great and simply Creator.
“A watershed theological work that provides a typical floor for non secular seekers and activists of all stripes.” — Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Observe.
“I’m studying Liberating Items for the Folks of the Earth by Matt Fox. He’s one which fills my coronary heart and thoughts for brand spanking new life despite a lot that’s violent in our world.” ~ Sister Dorothy Stang.
The A.W.E. Undertaking reminds us that awe is the suitable response to the unfathomable marvel that’s creation… A.W.E. can also be the acronym for Fox’s proposed fashion of studying – an strategy to stability the three R’s. This strategy to studying, eldering, and mentoring is clever sufficient to honor the teachings of the Ancestors, to nurture Knowledge in addition to imparting data, and to Educate by means of Fox’s 10 C’s. The ten C’s are the core of the A.W.E. philosophy and means of training, and embody: compassion, contemplation, and creativity. The A.W.E. Undertaking does for the huge topic of “studying” what Fox’s Reinvention of Work did for vocation and Authentic Blessing did for theology. Included within the ebook is a dvd of the ten C’s put to 10 video raps created and carried out by Professor Pitt.
“An awe-based imaginative and prescient of instructional renewal.” — Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Observe.
