Inequality, Sex, and Flesh

Week of 5/4-9/2026:

This is a summary of the previous week’s daily meditations. Some are written by Matthew Fox (MF) and some are written by his colleague, Gianluigi Gugliermetto. (GG) …

May 4, 2026: Beyond SCOTUS: Conscience vs. Fascism (MF)

After the un-Supreme Court decimated the Voting Rights Act last week, the governor of Louisiana rushed to stop an election already in progress in order to redraw congressional lines and gerrymander more seats for white voters.

Mahatma Gandhi understood moments like this when he said, “There is a higher court than courts of justice and that is the court of conscience. It supersedes all other courts.”

In contrast, fascism is a kind of idolatry, a worship of power. Fascism and conscience are incompatible. When religious institutions support fascist movements, whether Opus Dei or “Christian nationalism,” that is not only institutional violence, but hypocrisy.

May 5, 2026: Cinco de Mayo, May Day, & Explosion of Economic Inequality (MF)

Cinco de Mayo (May 5) originally celebrated a surprising military victory in the Battle of Puebla, Mexico. The next year, Mexican Americans in California commemorated the date as a holiday and a “political and cultural moment tied to resistance and democracy.”

Meanwhile, May 1st is International Workers Day. One of the reasons workers are suffering right now is the huge disparity between the wages of workers and the CEOs. One recent article in The Guardian is titled: “CEO pay soared in 2025, 20 times faster than workers’ pay.”*

In the year 2025, billionaires were paid $2,500 per second in dividends. This means that every two hours, the average billionaire receives more in dividends than the average worker earns in an entire year.

May 6, 2026: Sex and the Church (GG)

Last week, Pope Leo, answering a journalist’s question about the blessing of same-sex partnerships that the German Catholic bishops are planning to authorize, said: “We (Rome) disagree, but the unity of the Church does not depend on sexual matters.”

This, by a Church held together, since at least the XVII century, by rules about heterosexual marriages, priestly celibacy, and nuns’ virginity. Matthew Fox has been, of course, one of the most vocal opponents of the ban on homosexuality within the Catholic Church. For generations, homosexuality was viewed as a deviation from “what is natural.” But this was based on faulty science. We must applaud the Roman Catholic German bishops for their courage.

“Newly married couple in Minnesota shortly after the federal legalization of same-sex marriage in the United States, 2015.” Photo by Bryanbope. Wikipedia

May 7, 2026: Flesh and the Church (GG)

Many church officials love power. Sex is code for power because human hierarchical relationships have a hidden sexual structure.

Consider the domination and submission dyads within the human species, as well as the blind obedience requested by the Church. Even today the repression of sexual desire is a powerful tool of power and domination within the Catholic Church.

But sex is also code for sensuality. Matthew Fox says that flesh can become a redemptive force…. When we know it, we become grateful and reverent toward our bodies, toward food, toward flowers, toward forests, toward soil, toward other animals and birds and fishes and toward other human beings.

Gratitude and Reverence heal. They redeem….

Flesh redeems because it awakens awe and

wonder and delights. Awe is redemptive.

May 8, 2026: The Universe and Flesh (GG)

When Matthew Fox talks about sexuality, or even just the human body, he places such themes within a cosmological context. He helps us connect the dots between the truth of the fleshliness of the earth and of its relation to the fleshliness of the universe and our own flesh.

Richard Hooker, an Anglican theologian of the 16th century, responded to the Puritans’ allegiance to all the “laws” of the Bible. He asks, “What is a law?” He argues that God has set many “laws” in the universe as well as in the human heart, apart from anything written in any book — even the Bible.

Matthew says about sex: None of us would be here without lust. Our parents’ lust is what brought us into this world. Lust in itself, therefore, is holy and sacred. Subversions of lust, like pedophilia, exploitation, and trafficking of the vulnerable by the powerful, should not be understood as “sins of the flesh” but rather as “sins against the flesh” inasmuch as they are offensive to the flesh.

May 9, 2026: Mother’s Day 2026 including Gaia & Colbert Birthing the Art of Laughter

A blessed Mother’s Day to all! Bringing new life into the world is an incredible act of creativity. And nourishing and caring for life is something that mothers–and all of us–are called to do. We are all mothers in some way.

As Meister Eckhart insisted, we are all mothers of God and “God is always needing to be born.” With creativity comes Joy, self-expression, and sharing.

One person who has blessed us with these qualities is Stephen Colbert. For many years, he has entertained us with his humor and presence. Laughter is one of the art forms that gets us through hard times.

Humor is a threat to fascism which wants to shut it down as part of its addiction to control. We will miss Stephen as his show ends later this month.