Matthew Fox Predicts Vatican Will Crumble Like Berlin Wall
Episcopal News Service. January 17, 1996 [96-1353W]
(ENI) Matthew Fox, expelled from the Dominicans and recently ordained to the Episcopal priesthood, predicted during a lecture in Australia that the Vatican has become heretical and schismatic and is destined to crumble and fall, like the Berlin Wall. He said that he believes that Western Christianity has concentrated so much on guilt, shame and blame that people have lost their sense of being blessed by "a divine Maker." The result is a kind of "mass neurosis." According to Fox, the Roman Catholic church "is acting like a dysfunctional family. It can be compared to a situation where an alcoholic father spreads fear and exercises control of a family through his pitiful tantrums." And he said that the present papacy "shows a neurotic compulsion to have control which is disenchanting to many people, especially the young." Fox described the attempt by the Episcopal Church to try Bishop Walter Righter for breaking his ordination vows as "a real pity. I guess it shows the Anglican Church isn't perfect but at least it is dealing openly with issues," he said. "Because of its treatment of homosexuals, the Christian church is not very well qualified to speak out on homosexuality."