Letters

Aquinas (letter)

Michael Casanova

Contents - Sep 2001 - Buy a copy now Editorial: A letter from the Publisher - Peter Westmore Archbishop Hart's reception at St Patrick's Cathedral, Melbourne - Homily - Archbishop Denis Hart News: The Church Around the World The John Paul II Cultural Centre opens in Washington DC - Alex Sidhu Successful Thomas More Centre Winter School in Brisbane - Sidney Rofe Ballarat Thomas More Centre Winter School report Feminism's broad agenda within the Catholic Church - Donna Steichen Commission for Australian Catholic Women: Executive members' feminist views - Richard Egan Why today's secular culture is anti-Catholic - James Hitchcock Kenneth Bruce Dowding, Australian Catholic hero: his brother's tribute - Rev Keith Dowding Letters: Celibacy (letter) - Mrs A.M. Tilburg Letters: More on Marins (letter) - Peter Finlayson Letters: BECs (letter) - Marie Kennedy Letters: Charter (letter) - Rev A.T. Fitzpatrick Letters: Adelaide protest (letter) - Pauline Pascoe Letters: Feminists (letter) - Margaret Jones Letters: Formidable mind (letter) - Mrs V. Mulligan Letters: Aquinas (letter) - Michael Casanova Letters: Fatima Family Apostolate (letter) - Margaret Grace Letters: Church teachings (letter) - Gerry Keane Letters: Mind of the Church (letter) - Mrs Carol V. Phillips Letters: God's word (letter) - Vic Hall Books: 'The Book of Marriage', edited by Dana Mack and David Blankenhorn - Bill Muehlenberg (reviewer) Books: 'The Holocaust, Never To Be Forgotten', Avery Dulles SJ, Rabbi Leon Klenicki - Anthony Cappello (reviewer) Books: 'Padre Pio: In My Own Words', ed. Anthony F. Chiffolo - Mary-Jane Donnellan (reviewer) Books: 'Teens and Relationships', 'Teen Life and Christ', by Jerry Shepherd - Mary-Jane Donnellan (reviewer) Books: 'Lamentations Of The Father', by Ian Frazier - Mary-Jane Donnellan (reviewer) Reflection: Saint Catherine of Siena: how to receive the Eucharist more worthily - Sr Mary Jeremiah OP

Thanks to Valentine Gallagher in the August AD2000 for his praise of St Thomas Aquinas. We see in his letter that St Thomas is valued by Leo XIII (last century), by the old Canon Law (1918) and by John Paul II (1979). But what of today where we have a new Code of Canon Law and a Pope who has written much since 1979?

St Thomas is as important as ever. The updated Code of Canon Law (1983) says that seminarians are to study theology "with St. Thomas in particular as their teacher" (Can. 252 §3). And in John Paul's Fides et Ratio, which has apparently been quoted against St Thomas, the word "Thomas" is used 18 times and "Angelic Doctor" (another name for the saint) six times.

What is happening then, if the Church on the one hand says it "has no philosophy as her own", yet on the other, praises St Thomas so much? Let John Paul II himself give the answer in Fides et Ratio, 78. "It should be clear in the light of these reflections why the Magisterium has repeatedly acclaimed the merits of Saint Thomas' thought and made him the guide and model for theological studies. This has not been in order to take a position on properly philosophical questions nor to demand adherence to particular theses. The Magisterium's intention has always been to show how Saint Thomas is an authentic model for all who seek the truth. In his thinking, the demands of reason and the power of faith found the most elevated synthesis ever attained by human thought, for he could defend the radical newness introduced by Revelation without ever demeaning the venture proper to reason."

Before positioning oneself on one side or the other about the Church's attitude to Thomistic Philosophy, why not read Fides et Ratio's references to Thomas? Why does John Paul II speak so highly of Aquinas?

MICHAEL CASANOVA
Werribee, Vic

Reprinted from AD2000 Vol 14 No 8 (September 2001), p. 14