Timothy James Fox, was born in Madison, Wisconsin. In 1960, when he entered the Roman Catholic Dominican Order (the Order of Preachers), he was given the religious name of "Matthew". He received master's degrees in both philosophy and theology from the Aquinas Institute of Philosophy and Theology and later earned a Doctorate of Spiritual Theology, summa cum laude, from the Institut Catholique de Paris, studying with Marie-Dominique Chenu who named the Creation Spirituality tradition for him. It was Thomas Merton, the catholic monk, who steered Fox to study at the Institut catholique de Paris. After receiving his doctorate, Fox began teaching at a series of Catholic universities, including Loyola University in Chicago and Barat College of the Sacred Heart in Lake Forest, Il.