Summer Study Program on Galatians with Daily Traditional Mass

Overview: Each summer brings with it a number of opportunities for further education in congenial Catholic settings. This August 12-16, the Aquinas Institute for the Study of Sacred Doctrine and the Albert the Great Center for Scholastic Studies are partnering with the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest to offer a five-day theology program studying the Epistle of St. Paul to the Galatians with the aid of St. Thomas Aquinas's superb commentary.

Guest Post: Why I Love the Work of Thomas Aquinas

       By Dr. Christopher Malloy

I was recently asked why Thomas is so crucial to theology. I replied by indicating why I love his work so much.

Above all, I love Thomas’s thought because I find so many of his judgments to be considered, grounded, and true. His dexterous precision is coupled with keen attention to things. Thus, his terminology is clear; you can grasp what he is aiming at. Such clarity I used to flee, thinking it meant shallowness. I now think it is limpidity in service of communion, relationship.

However, unlike some logical experts, Thomas attends to things and does so with a profound, searching gaze. Hence, he alights upon essential features and thus achieves lasting insights. A false generalization has exceptions. A profound observation lasts, while admitting of sundry realizations which are not exceptions. Indeed, they can more truly instantiate the insight.

I believe Thomas achieves profound observation. A friend of mine, now a nun, and I both agreed on the following image: Reading Thomas on some problem (free will, e.g.) is like having your gnarly hair combed. Another friend said that after reading Thomas’s observations, one can look at the real with him and say, “That’s what it is, isn’t it?” All those “disputed points,” all those “qualifications”, all that “hair-splitting”: In fact, it is simply a tour of the real. It is Aquinas taking you on a field hike, pointing things out. It is you, watching the real with him, and falling in love with it. It is finding God’s mind in things.

New Reprint of a Classic Work of Thomistic Theology

A Manual of Catholic Theology, Based on Scheeben's "Dogmatik." By Joseph Wilhelm, D.D., Ph.D., and Thomas B. Scannell, B.D., with a Preface by Henry Edward Cardinal Manning. Volume I: The Sources of Theological Knowledge; God; Creation and the Supernatural Order. liii + 508 pp. $24.95. (CreateSpace; Amazon) Volume II: The Fall; Redemption; Grace; The Church and the Sacraments; The Last Things. x + 566 pp. $24.95. (CreateSpace; Amazon)

One of the greatest theologians of modern times, Matthias Joseph Scheeben (1835-1888), brought out his Handbuch der katholischen Dogmatik in 7 parts from 1873 to 1887. At the end of the 19th century, this tour de force of a refined, lofty, intensely religious scholasticism was conveniently distilled by Dr. Joseph Wilhelm and Fr. Thomas Scannell into a 2-volume English handbook entitled A Manual of Catholic Theology. I am happy to announce a new reprinting of this handbook, which was prepared using freshly-scanned pages of an original copy of the work, printed on cream-colored paper with a simple red cover.

As a Thomist, theologian, and teacher, I find this manual invaluable: it is arguably the single most successful presentation of traditional scholastic theology available, if one is looking not for a mere historical overview of one set of opinions after another (the typical approach in scholarship nowadays) but an actual theological exposition, where the focus is on articulating and defending the rei veritas, the truth of things. Scheeben is thoroughly steeped in Aquinas's works as well as in the Scriptures, the Fathers, the Councils, and the wealth of scholasticism across the centuries, and writes his account in a measured, precise, and fervent manner, logical and yet poetic, satisfying to the intellect but always open to the ineffable divine mystery that lies behind and beyond the truths to which God, in His mercy, has granted us access.

Now Available: Lectures and Disputed Questions on the Letter to the Hebrews (Proceedings of the 2016 Norcia Summer Theology Program)

Hot off the press:

Praelectiones et Quaestiones Disputatae -- On St. Paul's Letter to the Hebrews. Proceedings of the 2016 AMCSS Summer Theology Program. Ed. John P. Joy. Strathcona, MN: Libri Albertini, 2017. Paperback, 140pp. $18.99 Amazon.com / £15.99 Amazon.co.uk

The Albertus Magnus Center for Scholastic Studies (AMCSS) is an organization dedicated to the promotion of sacred theology undertaken according to the mind and method of the great scholastics. The theme of the fifth annual summer theology program hosted by the AMCSS in Norcia, Italy, in cooperation with the Benedictine Monks of Norcia, was "The Transcendent Christ: On St. Paul's Letter to the Hebrews." This volume collects the lectures delivered over the course of the program as well as the culminating scholastic disputation, which involved several disputed questions, conducted at a very high level -- but with some entertaining elements, too.

Book Review: The Church of Christ by Msgr. Joseph Clifford Fenton

The Church of Christ: A Collection of Essays by Monsignor Joseph C. Fenton. Ed. with an introduction by Christian D. Washburn. Tacoma, WA: Cluny Media, 2016. 362 pp. Paperback. $24.95. Publisher's page / at Amazon.

This collection of essays from one of the greatest American theologians, Msgr. Joseph C. Fenton, makes an urgent and marvelous contribution to the renewal of Catholic theology today. The hermeneutic of rupture has been utterly disastrous. The needed renewal urged by the Second Vatican Council must be pursued once again. The thoughtful, balanced, orthodox, and acute analysis of Msgr. Fenton serves as a prime example of the kind of renewal that was and remains desirable, one in organic continuity with the great tradition, committed to the unchanging dogmas of the Church but open to new insights and corrections in matters purely speculative or hypothetical. Fenton is also clearly a man of prayer, a theologian on his knees yet one who truly practices the rigorous scientific discipline of dogmatic theology. This collection of essays is absolutely essential reading for any serious student of ecclesiology. It will serve as a corrective to the misbegotten attempts at renewal which suffer from an unwillingness to embrace all the unchanging dogmas of faith. It will also invite a return to that thoughtfulness and nuance which in fact informed pre-conciliar theology, a thoughtfulness open to legitimate development.

Haec Sancta (1415): A conciliar document condemned by the Church

Roberto de Mattei

Corrispondenza Romana

July 20, 2016

 

The Council of Constance (1414-1418) is numbered among the 21 Councils of the Church, but one of its decrees, Haec Sancta of April 6^th 1415 is considered heretical, as it asserts the supremacy of the Council over the Roman Pontiff.

At Constance, Haec Sancta was applied in the decree Frequens, (October 9th 1417,) which prescribed a Council for five years later, another after seven years and then one every ten years. With this, it attributed de facto to the Council the function of a permanent collegial body which collaborated with the Pope and de facto was superior.

Scholasticum Institute: advancing Scholastic Theology in the modern world

From the Scholasticum Institute:

In 2009 Pope Benedict XVI, a great student and admirer of St. Bonaventure, made a pastoral visit to Bagnoregio, the saint’s hometown. On that historic visit, the Pope gave a speech about St. Bonaventure in which he invited priests “to learn from this great Doctor of the Church, to deepen their knowledge of his teaching on wisdom rooted in Christ.” Since that time, there has been renewed interest in Bagnoregio as a tourist destination.

In the summer of 2016 the Scholasticum Institute, a graduate institution dedicated to the Scholastic Theology of St. Bonaventure of Bagnoregio and St. Thomas Aquinas, opened its doors in the very town where Bonaventure was raised and where Benedict XVI urged further study of the Seraphic Doctor of the Church.

Pope Sixtus V explained the importance of Scholastic Theology: “[T]here has been discovered by Our ancestors, most wise men, Scholastic Theology, which two Doctors glorious above all, the angelic Saint Thomas, and the seraphic Saint Bonaventure, most brilliant professors in this capacity…with excellent genius, assiduous study, great labors and vigils have refined and decorated, and have passed on to those who would come after…” He went on to say that “a salutary understanding and practice of this science [Scholastic Theology]… could certainly always bring the greatest assistance to the Church.” (Triumphantis Hierusalem, § 10)

The Glory of Eucharistic Theology

A Post in Honor of St. Thomas Aquinas on his Feastday

Saint Thomas has sometimes been portrayed, especially in the theological anarchy of the postconciliar period, as a hidebound medieval scholastic trapped in a rationalistic methodology, whose works lack a palpable spirituality that resonates in the hearts of modern people. As a lifelong student and teacher of Aquinas’s works, I have two reactions: first, this stance betrays a poor understanding of the enterprise of theology itself; and second, it is simply not true on the ground, if I may judge from countless experiences I have had over the past twenty-five years with students from many countries, whom I have the privilege to see coming alive in the joy of intellectual discovery and in a growing love for the Catholic faith, as they go more and more deeply into the wisdom found in Aquinas’s works.

With St. Thomas, we learn that the essential purpose of investigating a divinely revealed truth that is inaccessible to natural reason is to raise our minds to a more intense appreciation of the very mysteriousness of the mystery. In other words, we are helped to see it in all its “dark luminosity,” a mysterium tremendum et fascinans, opaque to our intellects but full of wonder and fascination. We see the mystery as mystery only when we apply our reason to the fullest extent to see the marvelousness of the miracle; more broadly, to see the supernatural, the super-rational, in its very beyondness.

The Society of Scholastics -- online courses about to start

A reader has alerted us to the online courses about to be offered by the International Society of Scholastics, which describes itself as follows:

We are an intellectual association committed to restoring the philosophic doctrines, didactic principles, and scientific synthesis of the great masters of the classical universities, the Scholastics. We hold Thomas of Aquin to be the paradigm of Scholastic scholars and we apply ourselves to renewing the great scientific tradition forged by his Commentators throughout the centuries.

With a strong emphasis on Logic, the division and subordination of the sciences, and strict methodology, we defend our attention to detail with the axiom: 'A small error in principle is a large error in conclusion.'

The society was founded in 2005 by students studying at the pontifical universities in Rome. Its Board of Advisors is comprised of Msgr. Brunero Gherardini, who has sometimes been called the last of the great theologians of the pre-Conciliar Roman School, and Msgr. Rudolf Michael Schmitz ICRSS, of the Pontifical Academy of Theology. All members are required to uphold the primacy of St. Thomas Aquinas, to adhere to the 24 Theses proposed by Fr. Guido Mattiusi SJ and endorsed by the Holy See in 1914 as embodying authentic Thomism, and to be faithful to the consensus of that Thomistic tradition whose most recent representatives were Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Santiago Ramirez and Joseph Gredt.

The website of the Society hosts Sapientis, an online course of studies based entirely on the principles of Aristotelian Thomism. The course will cover Scholastic logic, physics, psychology, ethics and metaphysics. The website also has the Lorenzelli Digital Library, a very rich resource for scholastic material in Latin and English.

Classes start on September 14, 2009.

A List of Essentials

Based on the Pontificator's list of "Essential Theological Books", here are my choices, in approximate chronological order:

1. The Didache

2. St. Ignatius (of Antioch), Letters

3. St. Athanasius, De Incarnatione

4. St. Augustine, De Civitate Dei

5. St. Gregory the Great, OSB, Sermons

6. St. Anselm, OSB, Cur Deus Homo

7. St. Thomas Aquinas, OP, Summa contra Gentiles

8. St. Thomas Aquinas, OP, Catena Aurea

9. St. Thomas Aquinas, OP, Comments on Aristotle (Metaphysics and Nicomachean Ethics)

10. St. Thomas Aquinas, OP, Summa Theologiæ

11. The Imitation of Christ

12. The Roman Catechism

13. St. Robert Bellarmine, SI, Exposition of Christian Doctrine

14. Francisco Suárez, SI, Disputationes Metaphysicæ

15. St. Teresa of Avila, OCD, Interior Castle

16. Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, Discourse on Universal History

17. St. Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort, Treaty of the True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary

18. Henri-Dominique Lacordaire, OP, Conférences de Notre-Dame de Paris

19. Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange, OP, The Three Ages of Interior Life

20. Jacques Maritain, Théonas

One other very essential work should be added, in two editions: Heinrich Denzinger's "Enchiridion Symbolorum", in pre-Vatican II and in its current (Denzinger-Schönmetzer) versions.