READING ST. PAUL WITH ST. THOMAS
The Aquinas Institute’s 2009 Summer Program
(May 25 to July 30, 2009, in Lander, Wyoming)
For us, Paul is not a figure of the past. By means of his letters he continues to speak to us to the present day. And whoever enters into dialogue with him finds himself impelled towards Christ crucified and risen. (Pope Benedict XVI to the Roman Curia, December 22nd, 2008)
Program Description   In honor of the Year of St. Paul proclaimed by his Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, The Aquinas Institute devoted a full summer program to the study of Paul’s letters.In his famous 1989 Erasmus Lecture, then-Cardinal Ratzinger argued that “the debate about modern exegesis is, at heart, not a debate among historians, but a philosophical debate”—a debate about whether human reason, and therefore biblical interpretation too, is limited to “what is positive, what is empirical.” He then pointed to St. Thomas Aquinas, “who sums up the philosophical thinking of more than a millennium and a half,” as one who “made possible an open philosophy, which is able to accept the biblical phenomenon in all its radicalism.” He urged scholars to seek a new synthesis between modern biblical studies and the great traditions of patristic and medieval commentary. In this regard, one might profitably recall the words of Pope Leo XIII in his encyclical Providentissimus Deus: "The valuable work of the scholastics in Holy Scripture is seen in their theological treatises and in their Scripture commentaries; and in this respect the greatest name among them all is St. Thomas Aquinas."
The summer program “Reading St. Paul with St. Thomas” consisted of five consecutive courses dedicated to reading and discussing the commentaries of St. Thomas Aquinas on all the epistles of St. Paul, with Dr. John Mortensen, Dr. Jeremy Holmes, Dr. Peter Kwasniewski, Rev. Dr. Sebastian Walsh, O.Praem., and Mr. Marco Emerson as instructors.
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