[The Angelic Doctor meets the theologian of the body]
Cardinals, scholars ponder St. Thomas Aquinas and John Paul II
CWN – July 03, 2012
Over 50 scholars and prelates, including 10 cardinals, gathered at the Vatican from June 29 to July 1 for the twelfth plenary session of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas. The topic of the meeting was “The Thomistic Legacy in Blessed John Paul II and His Refounding of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas.”
Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, who spoke on “Work and the Human Subject,” recalled in an interview with Vatican Radio that the Pontiff worked to revive interest in St. Thomas, who “remains the primary thinker in our history who brings together faith and reason.”
“One of the ways he did that,” Cardinal George continued, “was to use phenomenology in a way similar to the way Aquinas used Aristotle. That is, faith in conversation with philosophical studies comes to develop theologies that change from time to time. Faith remains the same, but theologies can be different.”
Other speakers at the meeting included Cardinal Raymond Burke (“The Importance of St. Thomas’ Metaphysics in the Training of Priests”), Cardinal Angelo Sodano (“The Vocation to Participate in Christ’s Ministry”), Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re (“Prayer and Action in Blessed John Paul II”), and Archbishop J. Augustine Di Noia (“The Crisis of Truth in Seminaries and Universities”).
Additional sources for this story: See www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=14799
Pondering… How about Phenomenology and St. Thomas? The Doctor teaches that God imprinted His image in man so that we intuitively grasp fundamentals, that we can receive His Light to truly know the God Who made us. Phenom’s teach a rather banal concept of learning only through experiential means … I’ve tried to follow their logic, but failed.
Or how about Personalism and St. Thomas? Pope John Paul II ever emphasized the dignity of man, but St. Thomas would have us fallen, and our dignity restored only in Christ.
Or how about the gratuity of the supernatural, i.e., the rehabilitation of de Lubac and St. Thomas? Nuff said. Or maybe sex and St. Thomas, e.g., Theology of the Body? Or Evolution and St. Thomas?
There’s a lot to ponder.
Here’s what I really wanted to say, by Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P.:
cfnews.org/gg-newtheo.htm
(hat tip: obscurus on the di Noia thread)
“The Thomistic Legacy in Blessed John Paul II” – There isn’t any ‘Thomistic Legacy of JPII
He lived and died in his own world invented by him. St. Thomas had a clear focus on reality and the objective order established by God. JP II lived a purely subjective and sentimental world which he tried to systematize with his new theology, new liturgy, new code, new Catechism, etc. . . leading to a religion foreign to the one established by Christ. – The problem is these Cardinal’s and bishops want to try to make it seem as though it was nothing but a part and parcel of the same Thomistic patrimony – nothing could be further from the truth or reality – Have they not figured out why so many Catholics have apostatized from the faith since the introduction of their conciliar religion? Or do they still think we are in the spring time ?