Mission Statement
 Among the various means rightly used to pursue this Wisdom, the Holy Catholic Church recommends in a special way St. Thomas Aquinas. In recommending St. Thomas, the Church does not ask that we simply study his works; she asks that we imitate his very manner as a holy theologian. St. Thomas’s radically self-emptying life, his example of heroic virtue, is the embodiment of the mysteries he treats in his writings. It is precisely in this holistic way that The Aquinas Institute seeks to approach Sacred Doctrine: as the "holy teaching" eloquently expounded and intensely lived by the Angelic Doctor.
Given the desire to draw near to the Sacred Mysteries in a systematic and principled way, as following faithfully in the footsteps of St. Thomas, it is most natural to turn one’s attention to the invaluable works of St. Thomas as a starting point for learning both the doctrine and the method, the goal and the way. The written works he left behind are thus an initiation into, as well as authentic tokens of, a life of contemplation and of sharing the fruits of contemplation. Hence, in a spirit of docility to the constant teaching of the Church, The Aquinas Institute in a particular way relies on and proposes to its students the original works of St. Thomas, studying them with great care and, as much as possible, in their complete form and in the order set forth by their author.
The science of Sacred Doctrine is, of course, in no way limited to the written works of St. Thomas Aquinas; even less is it limited to what are commonly called "Thomistic studies." The aim of The Aquinas Institute is rather to approach the whole of God’s revelation as this great saint and doctor of the Church would do. Hence, the primary focus of any class will not be the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas as such, but the mysteries of God. For the aim of Sacred Doctrine is not the work of any particular theologian: it is the reality of God Himself.
While The Aquinas Institute’s efforts are organized for all students who desire to come closer to God by an intensive study of His mysteries, we seek in a special way to assist in the sacerdotal formation of priests and seminarians, "the ministers of Christ and the dispensers of the mysteries of God" (1 Cor. 4:1).
Ite ad Thomam!
 We are now witnessing in the United States a revival of orthodox Catholic theological education. Nevertheless, as yet there is no program that has for its animating purpose the study of sacred doctrine through the careful study of the writings of the Common Doctor of the Church, St. Thomas Aquinas. Granting that many other authors and subjects are deserving of study, it seems unfortunate that the work of the greatest theologian in the Church’s history, whose writings are readily available to us in all their vastness of scope, integration of sources, power of analysis, and depth of wisdom, tends to receive a merely piecemeal or bibliographical attention. The time is ripe for an institute that dedicates itself, lovingly, joyfully, and unstintintly, to the pursuit of revealed theology in the school of the Angelic Doctor. With trust in God and invoking the prayers of our patron, we seek to do exactly this at The Aquinas Institute. Taking seriously the papal injunctions Ite ad Thomam!, we offer courses that focus on the mysteries of faith as expounded to the Church by St. Thomas in his magnificent writings.
Many people today place all the emphasis on historical periods and persons, as if the study of theology were primarily about knowing what the Fathers said, then the medievals, then the moderns, and what was characteristic of each age. Our modern historical emphasis is explained in part by the ubiquity of an evolutionary mindset, such that we believe we can understand a thing best by seeing the process of its genesis and growth. While there is much truth in that idea, a different point of view is better suited to the study of theology as a science. If a finished whole, a lucid and profound expression of sacred doctrine were available to us, then surely we should look to it for a thorough schooling in the principles and conclusions of the science.
The Summa theologiae
Although the future may hold additional possibilities, at its inception The Aquinas Institute will offer summer courses keyed to graduate-level students. Apart from exceptional programs such as the Pauline courses in the Summer of 2009, the sessions will focus on specific parts of the Summa theologiae. With an intellectual luminosity, subtlety of judgment, methodical thoroughness, and stylistic clarity uniquely his, St. Thomas offers us in the Summa theologiae an ideal instrument for meditating on the fertile principles of theology and for seeing the rich harvest of conclusions that arise out of them.
The student workload for the summer program is intended to be very intensive; it is not for the faint of heart. In order to qualify as one of the incipientes of which St. Thomas speaks in the Prologue to the Summa, an applicant must already have earned a B.A. in theology, philosophy, or the liberal arts and have some prior experience reading St. Thomas. Reading ability in Thomistic Latin is a definite plus.
How Our Program Helps Students
There are some who may object: Granting that Thomas was expert at bringing his remarkable knowledge of Scripture and the Fathers to bear on the perennial questions of Catholic theology, what about modern times—what about theology since 1273? Has not so much happened that a student will be handicapped by studying only St. Thomas, and primarily the Summa?
The Aquinas Institute is assuming that students in pursuit of an advanced degree in theology or kindred disciplines will be taking other courses in other graduate programs, to round out their education and to fulfill the requirements commonly presumed for such degrees. Our program exists precisely to fill in a notable lacuna, so that what our students acquire here will have the positive effect of enhancing and enriching the studies they have done or will go on to do elsewhere. In this way, we see our program as complementary to, not in competition with, full-time graduate degree programs in session during the academic year.
Moreover, the living teachers who take St. Thomas as their master are themselves “moderns.” The moderns are present in our classroom in the person of the teacher who brings up relevant points from authors besides St. Thomas and from the centuries after him; they are present, too, in the persons of the students, who bring to the classroom their modern ideas and difficulties. In the classroom of The Aquinas Institute, there is no fleeing from the modern, but rather a welcoming of it as the very element in which instruction takes place, yet with a well-founded confidence that St. Thomas is not trapped in his age like a fly in amber but speaks as a contemporary to men of every age. He is always relevant because his wisdom is timeless. There can be no other explanation for the Church’s constant recommendation of him as the guide for Catholic theological studies.
 There are many today who fault “Thomism” or “Thomistic methodology” for the self-destruction of Catholic theology over the past half-century. In a way they are correct, for Thomism is not St. Thomas, nor is a lifeless textbook system the same as a living master, such as St. Thomas is in medio ecclesiae, thanks to the communion of saints. The counsel of Pope Leo XIII (among many others) was that we should go to the very works of St. Thomas and steep ourselves in the living and life-giving wisdom they communicate. If St. Thomas is who and what the Church claims him to be, then the solution to our contemporary crisis is not to lessen or dilute our study of the writings he left us, but to study them with all the more zeal and docility. For St. Thomas is, as Fr. Jean-Pierre Torrell so aptly calls him, a “spiritual master”; he is a holy theologian, holy as a theologian; he is an imitator and an icon of Jesus Christ, the Word of God. We study his work because we love the same mysteries he loved, and because we know, thanks to the judgment of the Church, that God uniquely fitted him to savor and write about those mysteries for the benefit of the Mystical Body of Christ. |
