Catholic Theologian Fox Ordered to Return to Chicago

Controversial Roman Catholic theologian Matthew Fox has been ordered by his superiors to return from California to his home province of Chicago by today or face dismissal from his religious order.

The ultimatum was delivered in a letter about two weeks ago from the Rev. Donald Goergen, said Daniel Turner, a spokesman for Fox.

Goergen, head of the Dominican Province of St. Albert the Great, has overseen months of negotiations with Fox in an attempt to persuade him to return to Chicago, where the Midwestern province is based.

Fox, a popular speaker and lecturer, lives apart from the Dominican community and heads the Institute for Culture and Creation Spirituality in Oakland. Controversy has surrounded the priest since the mid-1980s, when the Vatican took issue with some of his theological writings and silenced him for a year.

His creation theology mixes medieval mysticism with Eastern spiritualities, American Indian religions, feminism and environmentalism. He once said the role of those who support his theology is to “re-conceive the universe as the mystical body of Christ.”

In a telephone interview this week, Goergen said his letter, dated Jan. 4, “is the final letter that needs to be sent to Matt” under church rules.

If Fox is dismissed, said Goergen, he will continue to be a priest but will not be allowed to function as one unless he came under the authority of a bishop or was accepted by another religious order.

Turner said Fox will appeal the order to Father Damian Byrne in Rome. Byrne is master general of the Order of Friars Preachers, commonly known as Dominicans.

The appeal will be made on the grounds that Fox’s move to Chicago “would effectively end his work with the Institute in Culture and Creation Spirituality and with the scientific, artistic and religious community of the Bay Area that educates him about creation spirituality,” Turner said.

Fox, in a statement issued through Turner, said: “I value my 32 years as a Dominican, and I continue to cooperate within the structures of the order, as I have my whole Dominican life.”

When the Vatican called for an investigation of Fox’s writings in 1984, the Dominican appointed three theologians from the Chicago province to review Fox’s work.

According to the province’s release, a “year of reflection” from December, 1988, to December, 1989, which followed the investigation, was intended to provide Fox time for reflection and to “reconnect himself with the communal and theological life of the province.”