Archbishop Aguer: The Church Must Promote the Study of St. Thomas Aquinas Again

A major Thomistic revival occurred from Aeterni Patris (On the Restoration of Christian Philosophy) of Leo XIII until the Council destroyed it. It is still taught in the Traditionalist seminaries.

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By His Grace Héctor Aguer, Archbishop Emeritus of La Plata

Catholicism should take up again its promotion of Thomistic thought, especially the concepts of order, truth, and meaning – elements proper to natural wisdom, the basis of later revelation.

I have on my desk a reproduction of the portrait of St. Thomas Aquinas painted by Giotto, the contemporaneous painter of the Angelic Doctor who is famous for his numerous masterpieces. This inspires me to explain my personal relationship with the writings of St. Thomas, which presided over my intellectual formation, starting from my first contact with the Summa Theologiae. When I was a schoolboy, it was Father Julio Meinvielle who initiated me in the knowledge of the Summa through the readings he offered on Sunday mornings in his chaplaincy of the Daughters of the Divine Savior, which was on the corner of Independencia and Salta Streets in Buenos Aires. I would travel by streetcar from Mataderos to be there at 10:00.

Later, as a seminarian studying philosophy, I began a study that took into account the Aristotelian basis of Thomistic thought. I must acknowledge at this stage my dealings with Father Rafael Tello. Then I began to read the commentaries on the Ethics and Politics of the Stagirite. These endeavors also strengthened my Latin, which was always the means to accessing that literature. Later I ventured into St. Thomas’ commentaries on the Gospels and the letters of St. Paul. From this perspective, the commentaries on John and Matthew open up an understanding of Trinitarian theology. At this stage of my intellectual evolution, of course, I added to my Thomistic base some knowledge of modern authors, especially Kant, Hegel, and Bergson.

I learned the historical study of medieval philosophy from the methodology of Father Eduardo Briancesco, an expert on St. Anselm. I participated in a seminar on Anselmian moral theology (“Truth, Freedom of Will, and the Fall of the Devil”), which explored the principles of moral theology and its philosophical foundations. St. Thomas frequently quotes St. Anselm. The method consists in tirelessly interrogating the text so that it manifests its structure beyond the content of each question.

What are the benefits of studying St. Thomas? Nothing less than Christian formation and a taste for natural and supernatural wisdom. I point above all to a fundamental element: the order of the mind, the light of all life. I do not dwell on the meaning and analogical use of the concept of ordo; it is this concept that gives full meaning to human reality. Because, above all, God is order in his Trinitarian dimension, in the mystery of the redemptive Incarnation. Order is equivalent to truth and meaning, intellectual understanding, and its analogy in sensible knowledge and the foundations of life, the work of divine creation. These elements have an unsuspected relevance in the face of a fragmentary and therefore superficial culture. The patient study of Thomistic theology and its philosophical foundations can draw on Cornelio Fabro’s recovery of Aquinas’ metaphysics in his works on the notion of participation. God is the ipsum esse per se subsistens – self-subsisting being itself – and His creation is a participation of being, nature, and grace.

Catholic universities should recognize the relevance of Thomism and incorporate the reading of the Summa in their theology courses, rather than wasting time by reading current authors whose purpose is captured by secular culture.

The importance of Thomistic formation appears in confrontation with the current cultural problems in the West – with the long process of secularization from Luther’s proposals to the development of the ideology of the French Revolution. This is how we have come to the disappearance and absence of God from personal and social life. The religious prostration of the West appears, above all, in the comparison with the Islamic world, in which the religious dimension is a factor of identity. The possible need for a cultural battle arises in this context. It is not necessary for this to be explicit; the awareness that Islamism is unaware of the process experienced in the West is sufficient. In fact, it does not care that Western leaders are driven by secularism. Islam continues to present itself as the future of the world.

This perspective constitutes a challenge for the Catholic Church, even if under the leadership of the current Supreme Pontiff it is committed to interreligious dialogue, which is a triviality for Islam since it continues its aspiration to effectively be the future of humanity. It should be noted that Islam is not limited to the religious sphere but is a culture, encompassing a way of thinking and a commitment to action. In this sense Catholicism also goes beyond the religious to the whole of culture. Catholicism should take up again its promotion of Thomistic thought, especially the concepts of order, truth, and meaning – elements proper to natural wisdom, the basis of later revelation.

Pictured: St Thomas Aquinas from a panel of an altarpiece from Ascoli Piceno, Italy, by Carlo Crivelli (15th century)