Here in Europe we are still reeling from the shock of all the EU governments but Spain’s bowing to Trump’s demand of doubling their military expenses. Right away, Pope Leo has spoken about these events with unusual force:
How can one continue to betray peoples’ desires for peace with the false propaganda of rearmament, in the vain illusion that supremacy solves problems instead of fuelling hatred and revenge? People are beginning to realize the amount of money that ends up in the pockets of merchants of death and with which one could build hospitals and schools; instead of destroying those already built.
After decades of talk about “just war” under John Paul II and Benedict XVI we have indeed seen in recent years, starting with Francis, that the leaders of Roman Catholic Church are confronting the situation with truth. However, government leaders, especially those who use their Catholicism as an electoral platform, have and will willfully ignore the Pontiff on this point. They thrive on violence and death, even though they pretend to uphold democracy and so-called “Western values”. On the contrary, the strong desire for peace that so many are manifesting today is a natural behavior, that is, more consistent with human nature.
Neurobiologist Piero Giorgi helps us understand how violence, which is a historical invention (see yesterday’s DM), gets transmitted down from one generation to the next. Uninformed people, like myself, might be easily swayed in believing that genes are involved. After all, if the penchant for violence is so strong, and no amount of education seems to be able to eradicate it, there must be some kind of heredity going on.
But the truth — as Giorgi explains it — is that during the early childhood the new-born constructs his own brain to become a human being, that is, establishes the basic nervous circuits to walk, talk, use hands and interact empathically with other human beings. These are all human behaviors that are acquired, not learned, in this critical period.
Consequently, if children are deprived in their early stages of life of the appropriate contact with the body of their parents, and later on are taught to be competitive and suspicious of others, then a truly violent “civilization” is continually recreated. Such historical and powerful transmission has been mistaken for human nature.
Giorgi calls for a return to what has been normative for Homo sapiens for the majority of its existence as a species. It is possible— if and only if small children as raised correctly — to invert the rush toward the abyss that we are currently experiencing. Empathy, solidarity, cooperation, and spirituality may become again the normal values onto which human life is based.
This result is hard to obtain, and we may fail as a species, but — as Giorgi insists — our aim is not just a pious wish, being instead rooted in scientific evidence. The same scientific evidence which is ignored by those whose research and theories are conditioned too heavily by the political and social environment, as well as by philosophical and religious dogmas about the “corrupt nature” of humanity.
“Leo XIV blasts ‘false propaganda of rearmament’” ANSA.it/English
Piero P. Giorgi, Good News for a Nonviolent Future: A New Scientific Approach, p. 75.
Also see Matthew Fox, Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society
See also Fox, Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality
See also Fox, The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine
See also, Fox, A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice
See also Fox, Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election
Banner Image: Former child soldiers in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, where international NGOs have been demobilizing and reintegrating generations of militarized children into their families and communities.. Wikimedia Commons.
Queries for Contemplation
What are my present beliefs in the nature of humanity based on? What can be my contribution to a more critical stance on violence?
Recommended Reading
Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society
Visionary theologian and best-selling author Matthew Fox offers a new theology of evil that fundamentally changes the traditional perception of good and evil and points the way to a more enlightened treatment of ourselves, one another, and all of nature. In comparing the Eastern tradition of the 7 chakras to the Western tradition of the 7 capital sins, Fox allows us to think creatively about our capacity for personal and institutional evil and what we can do about them.
“A scholarly masterpiece embodying a better vision and depth of perception far beyond the grasp of any one single science. A breath-taking analysis.” — Diarmuid O’Murchu, author of Quantum Theology: Spiritual Implications of the New Physics
Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality
Matthew Fox lays out a whole new direction for Christianity—a direction that is in fact very ancient and very grounded in Jewish thinking (the fact that Jesus was a Jew is often neglected by Christian theology): the Four Paths of Creation Spirituality, the Vias Positiva, Negativa, Creativa and Transformativa in an extended and deeply developed way.
“Original Blessing makes available to the Christian world and to the human community a radical cure for all dark and derogatory views of the natural world wherever these may have originated.” –Thomas Berry, author, The Dream of the Earth; The Great Work; co-author, The Universe Story
The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine
To awaken what Fox calls “the sacred masculine,” he unearths ten metaphors, or archetypes, ranging from the Green Man, an ancient pagan symbol of our fundamental relationship with nature, to the Spiritual Warrior….These timeless archetypes can inspire men to pursue their higher calling to connect to their deepest selves and to reinvent the world.
“Every man on this planet should read this book — not to mention every woman who wants to understand the struggles, often unconscious, that shape the men they know.” — Rabbi Michael Lerner, author of The Left Hand of God
A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice
In A Spirituality Named Compassion, Matthew Fox delivers a profound exploration of the meaning and practice of compassion. Establishing a spirituality for the future that promises personal, social, and global healing, Fox marries mysticism with social justice, leading the way toward a gentler and more ecological spirituality and an acceptance of our interdependence which is the substratum of all compassionate activity.
“Well worth our deepest consideration…Puts compassion into its proper focus after centuries of neglect.” –The Catholic Register
Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election
Matthew Fox tells us that he had always shied away from using the term “Anti-Christ” because it was so often used to spread control and fear. However, given today’s rise of authoritarianism and forces of democracide, ecocide, and christofascism, he turns the tables in this book employing the archetype for the cause of justice, democracy, and a renewed Earth and humanity.
From the Foreword: If there was ever a time, a moment, for examining the archetype of the Antichrist, it is now…Read this book with an open mind. Good and evil are real forces in our world. ~~ Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit and Conversations with the Divine.
For immediate access to Trump & The MAGA Movement 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 images, order from Amazon HERE or IUniverse HERE.
To receive a limited-edition, full-color paperback copy, order from MatthewFox.org HERE.
Order the audiobook HERE for immediate download.
