When we began these Daily Meditations some six years ago, one way I described its purpose was that we “pray the news” and not just watch it.
This past week’s news had enough in it to render one’s prayer dizzy.
Learning that one presidential candidate praised Hitler, and was characterized by a four-star general and his chief of staff as a “fascist”; and was named a “fascist to the core” by the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who was appointed by him.
Learning of the courage of Yulia Navalnaya, who is publishing the powerful memoir of her brave husband Alexei Navalny, who was attacked numerous times by Putin and ultimately killed by him in prison.
Seeing her interviewed on television, I was struck by her courage and that of her deceased husband, and reminded of the story of other martyrs of our time. In particular, that of Sister Dorothy Stang who, like the Navalnys, knew that her life was in danger if she dared to return to the Amazon. She returned anyway out of love for the peasants and the forest, knowing that the forces eager to exploit the Amazon, multi-nationals and their hired hands, could kill her.
Learning of the passing of Gustavo Gutierrez, the Peruvian theologian who is credited with being father of “Liberation Theology.” In an essay on “Freedom and Salvation: A Political Problem,” published in 1977, Gutierrez wrote:
The God of the Bible is one who announces the Good News to the poor, and this had concrete implications: ‘The spirit of the Lord Yahweh is upon me, in that Yahweh has anointed me. He sent me to announce the good news to the poor, to bind the broken hearts, to preach liberation to the captive and freedom to the prisoner, to preach Yahweh’s year of grace…. (Isaiah 61: 1-2).’
Some “speak of God in order to oppress better the poor,” Guttieriez comments. He cites the epistle of James:
Listen my dear brothers. Didn’t God choose the poor of the world to make them rich in faith and heirs of the Kingdom of God which he promised to those who love him? You, on the other hand, have downgraded the poor. Aren’t the rich those who oppress them and drag them to court? Aren’t they the ones who blaspheme the beautiful name which has been called down upon you? (2:5-17).
This seems to speak to our current time, when a certain billionaire presidential candidate has dragged countless people to court and threatens to lock up his political opponents if he is elected. And has as a cheerleader the richest man in the world who, like himself, has been in regular communication with Putin, the killer of Navalny and invader of Ukraine.
Gutierrez invokes the teaching of Dominican missionary Bartolome de Las Casas:
Throughout his life, Father Bartolome denounced the unheard-of injustices of which the Indians were victims. In one of his last works he considered this situation to be ‘much more unjust and more cruel than that which the Jews suffered when oppressed by the Pharoah.’ Gospel preaching was in vain without the testimony of a life committed to justice.
Las Casas wrote this to the emperor: It is not true that they want to save and convert the Indians, rather they want to protect themselves in order to rob, despoil, oppress and enslave their neighbors. They do not want to save the Indians, nor preach the faith, nor do any other good.
Gutierrez comments:“To do justice is a necessary condition for salvation and for preaching salvation.”*
*Gustavo Gutierrez and Richard Shaull, Liberation and Change, pp. 91, 62.
See Matthew Fox, Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth.
And Fox, “Native Teachings: Spirituality with Power,” “Liberation Theology and Creation Spirituality,” in Fox, Wrestling with the Prophets, pp. 115-122, 155-164.
And Fox, Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election.
To read the transcript of Matthew Fox’s video meditation, click HERE.
Banner Image: “The Slave Hunter,” depicting the capture of indigenous peoples for Spanish and Portuguese colonizers. Painting by Agostino Brunias (1730-96). Wikimedia Commons.
Queries for Contemplation
How are you praying the news these days? What are you learning in the process?
Recommended Reading
Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth
Fox’s spirituality weds the healing and liberation found in North American Creation Spirituality and in South American Liberation Theology. Creation Spirituality challenges readers of every religious and political persuasion to unite in a new vision through which we learn to honor the earth and the people who inhabit it as the gift of a good and just Creator.
“A watershed theological work that offers a common ground for religious seekers and activists of all stripes.” — Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Practice.
“I am reading Liberating Gifts for the People of the Earth by Matt Fox. He is one that fills my heart and mind for new life in spite of so much that is violent in our world.” ~ Sister Dorothy Stang.
Wrestling with the Prophets: Essays on Creation Spirituality and Everyday Life
In one of his foundational works, Fox engages with some of history’s greatest mystics, philosophers, and prophets in profound and hard-hitting essays on such varied topics as Eco-Spirituality, AIDS, homosexuality, spiritual feminism, environmental revolution, Native American spirituality, Christian mysticism, Art and Spirituality, Art as Meditation, Interfaith or Deep Ecumenism and more.
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.
9 thoughts on “Praying the News: Navalny, Stang, Gutierrez, Trumpian Fascism”
The ‘faithful’ are not made ‘dizzy in prayer’. The truth in prayer is our stronghold. With Christ at our side, whom should we fear?
To do justice is not to fight the powers to be, rather to be and act as the Divine Power which we have inherited. – BB.
In praying the news, I weep and are numb and aghast at man’s inhumanity to man.
Clinging desperately to hope, I pray to the magnum mysterium, the wisdom, the gift giving Creator, to guide us and sustain us as we work to “ re/create the face of the earth” in truth, justice, love and compassion.
There is plenty to ponder in the news, but I agree, when one is focused on the love of God and trying to live in that Love, the chaff doesn’t have the power to sway. Prayers that we Americans – and our brothers and sisters around the world – might come to see God’s Light is my fervent prayer. God brings Light and Love, brings solutions that honor God and teach humility, increases connection with others. It seems so clear, one can simply pray for the Light to reach into all hearts, that all hearts might open to receive the Grace that brings the Light in ~ Thank you for this space, Matthew, and for leading us in deeper thought about God and our world.
I am praying for Our SOURCE~CREATOR’S SPIRIT of DIVINE LOVE – Truth, Peace, Justice, Healing, Forgiveness, Strength, Transformation, Creativity, Beauty, Joy, Compassion, Diverse Wholeness~ONENESS… to continue growing in the hearts and lives of Our sisters & brothers, All physical and non-physical spiritual beings, in All spiritual dimensions in the Sacred Evolving Process of the ETERNAL PRESENT MOMENT… Cosmic Christ Consciousness….
I learn so much from your meditations, Rev Fox. There are in the world so many dualities of dark forces and those of light yet each contain traces of the other. It’s a mystery to me. Thank you for bringing the good news to light for us.
Saturday morning I prayed the news by joining in solidarity my neighbors at a rally on the green of a neighboring town flooded with Trump signs. I held my sign for Harris for two hours and watched the cars going by, lots honking in support and many making obscene gestures to me! yelling obscenities at me! One group of enraged men frightened me as they went by hanging out of the car windows attacking us with their words and gestures.
It was hard to stay.
To hold my center of love and light, to pray. I responded with a the peace sign.
Plans are to meet again next Saturday. I can’t go. Once is enough.
My praying of the news is to unite myself with the power of the Holy Spirit and all the angels and the saints and ancestors, to pray for Divine assistance in our time of great need. Unite in solidarity with all those being attacked by unspeakable actions and words. Those so much more vulnerable than I am in my small granny flat on the edge of the sea. Matthew your book on the Antichrist helps me to understand what we are up against. Gratitude.
Wonderful and informative. Love hearing it!
Thank you Matthew!
Kristal Parks
I have been praying the news with my voice, my feet, and my hands. I’ve written postcards, participated in a night of phone banking, and posted relentlessly on Facebook about all the Republicans and from Trump’s first administration who are supporting Kamala. However, for the past three weekends, my main prayers have been canvassing door to door to Democrats and independents encouraging them to vote, inviting them to have a plan as to how they are going to vote because studies show that when you have a specific plan you are more likely to vote. I’m following Michelle Obama chants “Do something” and your encouragement Matthew. I so appreciate those who cannot canvas or write postcards, but who talk to their families about why to vote for Kamala and Dems up and down the ballot. What have I learned? I’ve learned that there are lots and lots of Democrats in my little Republican high-desert town of Prescott, Arizona.
I pray to maintain perspective in this current crisis of the unashamed manifestation of evil, that prides itself on the use of power to keep people down. I have done a phone bank and will do another tomorrow evening and have written some letters for Vote Forward to encourage people to vote. This is not the first time in history that evil seems to prevail. Whatever the result of this election, I fear violence. I pray for all the leaders and followers, the ones I like and the ones that give me shivers, because I believe we are all beloved by God. With Jim Finley, I believe that God does not protect us from harm but sustains us through and through and through it all. In these parlous times, I think we are called to dig deep into the faith that has fueled the godly works of those like Sister Dorothy and Gutierrez and Yulia–and so many others including the Rev..Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Most of us are not facing the deadly danger that they have. In my old age, while I don’t read the bible literally, there are some comforting verses, that remind me also that people have suffered through hard times always. Isaiah 44:8 starts off, Do not fear or be afraid; have I not told you from of old and declared it…..?And John 14:27 …..Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.