Exploring Thomas Aquinas

Description

2023 marked 700 years since Aquinas’ canonisation, 2024 marks the 750th anniversary of his death and 2025 the 800th anniversary of his birth.

The following essays and sermons present interpreters of Aquinas in the twentieth century who are transmitting and applying his insights.

A) Marie-Dominique Chenu (1895-1990) was an outstanding scholar of the intellectual life of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

B) Yves Congar (1904 – 1995) Congar’s theological approach was not philosophical but historical, researching the history of the forms of the church in its various periods. His influence at Vatican II led to renewal in the areas of the episcopacy, ministry, papacy, and church unity.

C) Jean-Pierre Torrell (1927 – ) is a French Dominican and a specialist in the thought of Thomas Aquinas. He has taught at universities in Montréal, Toronto, Rome, and Fribourg (Switzerland). His bibliography lists over a hundred critical texts, books, and articles.

D) Carlos-Josaphat Pinto de Oliveira (1921 – 2020 ) He is a specialist in moral theology, both individual and social. He has written studies on Aquinas’ Christian ethics and on issues in contemporary economics, on women’s rights and on theologies defending the Native Americans. His writings on Aquinas inevitably look at contemporary thought-forms in dialogue with medieval thinking.

E) Walter Principe (1922-1996) An important figure at the Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies in Toronto, he drew from the summae of the Dominican themes inspiring to the modern Christian and he composed one of the first essays on the modern field of spirituality as related to Aquinas.

Karl Rahner (1904 – 1984) drew Aquinas into dialogue with modern thinkers like Kant and Heidegger. The Jesuit wrote a doctoral dissertation on Aquinas’ epistemology that quickly became influential. An outstanding teacher at Vatican II he was particularly influential on theologians around the world after the Council in showing how traditional ideas could gain a new depth.

F) Edward Schillebeeckx (1914-2009), He has been a leader in using forms from modern philosophy (phenomenology and existentialism) to serve the expression of Christian teaching.

A commitment to relate the Christian tradition to human experience is seen in his writings on the sacraments, the structures of the church, and revelation.

Thomas F. O’Meara, O.P., is a professor emeritus of the department of theology at the University of Notre Dame, USA. His post graduate studies were in Germany at the University of Munich with Heinrich Fries and Karl Rahner. He has taught at Aquinas Institute (Dubuque, Iowa; now at St Louis, MO) from 1966 to 1979; and at the University of Notre Dame from 1981 to 2004 as the William K Warren Professor of Theology. A past president of the Catholic Theological Society of America, he has been a visiting professor at Wartburg Lutheran Seminary (Dubuque); St Joseph’s Theological Institute (Cedara, South Africa); Boston College, and St Michael’s College, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada and is author of over 15 books.