Confessions: The Making of a Postdenominational Priest

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Summary: Confessions: The Making of a Post-Denominational Priest
Review: Great sadness is the first response that I have when I contemplate the works of Matthew Fox and writers like him. Those people who are truly not representative of the Catholic faith that has been handed down from God himself through Jesus. Jesus established the church upon Peter. To denounce the Pope is to attack Peter, Jesus, and God. Ask yourself, why has the Catholic faith survived these and other attacks like these throughout the years? The answer is because God is protecting His Church on earth. People with there own worldly agendas of hijacking the one true Church have proven through time that schisms are only harmful to people and their spirituality. Look at Luther, and the way he ushered in secularism as the main thought process with no Christian basis for the worlds governments. What a wonderful trend!? How sad it is that disadents can not fade into the protestant masses with no guiding source of truth like the Vatican and John Paul II. It is only because they can not control these establishments that now they try to tear them down. God Bless the true Roman Catholic believers who will not be swayed.

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Summary: Confessions: The Making of a Post-Denominational Priest
Review: If ever a 'guru' was utterly taken in by his own self-righteousness then Matthew Fox is the man. A strange gobbledygook mixture of gaia gnosticism and pseudo-platonism couched in terms hijacked from christian theology, Fox hardly misses a page to vent against the Vatican (which excommunicated him after he was expelled by the Dominican order) whilst prattling on about his stunning insights into the Mystery Of It All. More humility and less vitriol would have kept this book from being so tedious -- and probably kept Fox faithful to the Truth.

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Summary: Thought-provoking but far too self-involved.
Review: Much of what Matt Fox has to offer is contained in the first and last chapters. His thought and theology and philosophy are peppered throughtout the entire book and it is not hard to read. But the seemingly endless accounts of adulation get quite heavy. I find the title perhaps a bit off the mark. He has a great deal to offer in his personal story, the soaring heights and the times of disappointment and even despair. It would be more enlightening to read what HE felt and thought, and less of what his admirers said and wrote about him.

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Summary: Beware of "devout Catholics" who review this book.
Review: Of course anyone claiming to be a "devout Catholic" will not like Matthew Fox and his view of the Vatican! Fox is an amazing theologian who thoughtfully and decisively rips Christianity free of patriarchy. Of course he would be ex-communicated, he was too threatening to the mysogonistic powers that be in the Roman church. People who understand and appreciate Fox's liberating theology will enjoy this insight into his life as a priest. Status quo Roman Catholics shouldn't bother.

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Summary: Self-promotion
Review: Perhaps the best line in the book is the quote by a lawyer advising Fox, who tells him not to worry because "One day the Vatican will come tumbling down like the Berlin Wall."For that line alone the book is worth the price of admission, but there's much much more.

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Summary: Thankful bystander
Review: The following is more a suggestion to the author and to the publisher, should they consider a new edition, than a review of the first one (1996). Yet I trust that its content may motivate some undecided Catholics to dare to read this amazing book.
After living such a committed and dedicated life as a Dominican priest for 34 years, the author Matthew Fox could not but come through it more tempered, more mature, and more clear minded than he has proved himself to be in this revealing autobiography. I salute his rare courage and his generosity and honesty in allowing us, his readers, to share in not only his joyous moments but also in his most trying ones. Given the value to me of the genuine gift I have received from reading this book, I am moved to dare suggest that should the publisher ever consider reprinting it, the author should consider relocating to its chronological position the material of the first chapter having to do with his becoming an Episcopal priest. In my view, there are many undecided readers who in the end would be most thankful to the author for presenting the events leading to his heart-wrenching decision but that upon learning so early in the book that a former Catholic priest has in their view turned his back to the Church to join another Christian denomination, they would not be willing to proceed any further in order to discover why he came to do so. I can appreciate the genuine scruple the author might have had at the idea of 'leading' readers that otherwise 'would have never wanted to know' to the discovery that indeed "the Emperor has no cloths!". In this respect, the author should accept the fact that any Catholic reader picking up a book with that specific title will be expecting the author to deliver on his implied promise 'to unravel the truth before God'. In short, that becomes where the author's sole responsibility lies, instead of in the use of "at your own risks" preliminaries to shoo away hesitant readers, and Matthew Fox has risen to that challenge most honestly. In my view, by choosing to start his book the way he did, Matthew Fox has unwittingly voiced a "sorry but it's my fault"-type of response too often heard from victims of 'psychological abuse', the latter being too valid a literal statement with regards to the behavior of his former ecclesiastical family. (May 2004)