Dear Friends and Benefactors,
We are in the middle of three anniversaries which commemorate the life, death and canonization of St. Thomas Aquinas. July 18, 2023 marked 700 years since his canonization; March 7, 2024 is 750 years since his death at the Cistercian abbey of Fossanova and January 28, 2025 will celebrate 800 years since his birth at Roccasecca, near Naples. Not only is he the patron of our seminary, but the leading light of the Church, whose teaching has been the primary source for all theological and philosophical studies as well as spiritual doctrine and Scripture study. He is special to us and to the restoration of the Church.
We can go further and say that St. Thomas is the master in every department of truth. He studies closely the two lights by which we know truth: supernatural faith and reason. Rather than denying either one, he shows how each has its rightful area of operation in the pursuit of truth. He demonstrates the wonderful harmony between the philosophizing of reason and the truths of the Faith. Faith knows God, revealing Himself directly and without error. Reason gives us the ability to know God indirectly through created nature. In the end, God is the source of both and there must necessarily be a perfect harmony between the two: truth must agree with truth. But where there is harmony, there is order and hierarchy. Reason may have its domain, but it is not independent of the sure knowledge of Revelation, but rather at its service to explain it and also be corrected by it. Employing Faith and reason, St. Thomas climbs to the highest peaks of the knowledge of God and then from that angle looks upon created things.
The Pontiffs, from the time of John XXII, the Pope of St. Thomas’ canonization, and especially those whom we can call the anti-liberal Popes of the 19th and early 20th century, have given to him a unique place as teacher. Indeed, since his time, every council of the Church until Vatican Council II has faithfully employed his doctrine. We must omit the Second Vatican Council even though he is referenced at moments. We cannot say that the thought of the Council is Thomistic in a meaningful sense.
Pope Leo XIII points out “the chief and special glory of Thomas, one which he has shared with none of the Catholic Doctors, is that the Fathers of Trent made it part of the order of the conclave to lay upon the altar, together with sacred Scripture and the decrees of the supreme Pontiffs, the “Summa” of Thomas Aquinas, whence to seek counsel, reason, and inspiration.” Pope St. Pius X said that the greatest achievement of Pope Leo XIII was his restoration of the doctrine of St. Thomas. The principles of the Angelic Doctor are for all times and suited to protect the truth and destroy the errors of all times – hence his title of Universal Doctor. St. Thomas is the teacher of reality, and his doctrine is a powerful defense against all false ideologies, i.e. those not founded in reality.
I take as an example a current and disastrous event in the Church, the Synod on Synodality and the so-called Synodal Process which it seeks to implement. Its goal is to change the very nature of the Church. The Church is the society, both human and divine, founded by Christ. Its principal purpose, among the charges left to it by Our Lord, is the preservation and teaching of revealed truth. It is, in its very nature, hierarchical, under the visible representative of Christ, the Pope. But now, the Synod declares that this structure needs change. There is not to be a teaching from above – it chastises the effort to teach and convince others – but rather, a “listening” to what is below in the experiences of people.
Modernist Rome has embraced an evolutionary principle against which the likes of Pope St. Pius X warned and guarded the Church. For centuries, men have tried to find ways to escape the true nature of things - reality. At first there was a denial that anything beyond the senses could be known. Consequently, the transcendent God could not be known. Then there was the denial that the very nature of things we can sense could be known. Now, there is the idea that all things are evolving and there is no stable thing to know. This constant evolution and lack of stability result in man’s unbound freedom.
The Church which institutionally accepted to conform itself to the world with its motive principle of aggiornamento has accepted that it itself can change and must change. The language of the Synod in its enormous body of documents (the volume of which reminds one of a Council of the Church) is one of movement. ‘Change’, ‘journey’, ‘walking together’ are found everywhere. The Synod says that it doesn’t know where it is going, but clearly it knows what it wants to destroy: the Church as founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ. It aims a deadly blow at the authority of the Church and authority within the Church, claiming that each baptized person is co-responsible for the mission of the Church.
It is no wonder that the Synod has little use for the thought of St. Thomas. Although he does not have a specific treatise on the Church itself, his writings are rich in material to expose and fight against the destructive nature of the synodal spirit and prove the reality of the Church: it is the Mystical Body of Christ, wielding a complete and infallible doctrinal authority to teach men what they need to save their immortal souls. Further, the fullness of this power resides in the Sovereign Pontiff, who is the Vicar of Christ. The portion of the Church's work that takes place in time must take account of the concrete practical circumstances of particular periods, but the ultimate goal and measure of the Church's work is eternity. St. Thomas understood the delicate balance between time and eternity, between principles and practice. How sad he would be to see that the Church is willfully relinquishing its authority to lead men to eternal salvation and is increasingly concerning itself with purely secular, temporal, practical considerations that will become outdated by the time of the next Synod.
Although we might be unable to match the brilliance of St. Thomas' intellect, we can nevertheless strive to emulate its humility. He taught that humility is simply conformity with reality - both natural and supernatural. What a lack of humble conformity with reality we see in theology today. Whereas St. Thomas grounded all of his theology in the contemplation of God, the synodal "listening" Church seeks to ground it in the experiences and opinions of weak, wounded humanity. Further, this is done in the name of "charity" and "accompaniment". What sort of charity is it that refuses to elevate men's minds to God but instead leaves them to save themselves according to their own opinions and authority? How far the Church has come from the spirit of St. Thomas! A famous and beautiful expression of that spirit is shown during the incident in which, while writing on the Passion and Resurrection of Our Lord, St. Thomas, kneeling before a crucifix, was lifted up from the floor and told by Our Lord, "Thomas, thou hast written well of Me. What reward wilt thou have?" Our saint answered, "Lord, only Thee." Let us pray for this spirit of St. Thomas, both for ourselves and the Church.
I wish you a Blessed Lent and a Joyful Easter!
In the Hearts of Jesus and Mary,
Fr. Michael Goldade