St. Augustine’s Press

This is a new English translation of St. Thomas Aquinas’s Treatise on Law, found in Questions 90–108 of the First Part of the Second Part of the Summa Theologiae. In fact, it is the only free-standing English translation of the entire Treatise, which includes both a general account of law (Questions 90–92) and also specific treatments of what St. Thomas identifies as the five kinds of law: the eternal law (Question 93), the natural law (Question 94), human law (Questions 95–97), the Old Law (Questions 98–105), and the New Law (Questions 106–108). All other extant editions of Treatise on Law stop with the human law, and are thus approximately one-third the size of the full Treatise.

Overshadowed by the violent reaction and rioting throughout the world, the September 12, 2006, lecture by Pope Benedict XVI at Regensburg, Germany, at the university where he once taught, is a multifaceted and brilliant speech that addresses the very nature of man’s understanding of a free conscience, his thirst for knowledge in both reason and revelation, his understanding of the limitations of the will, and the nature of his ability to understand his neighbor. It explains the Church’s historical claims that Christ himself is Logos (as the opening of John’s Gospel proclaims), a term meaning “word,” “logic,” and “speech.” One’s faith is to be grounded in a self-limiting God, Who does not capriciously change the rules on humans but Who reveals himself to our reason as well as our hearts. A God Who respects His own creation enough to give man free will, and thus a free conscience and an ability to fail; Who leads man, through both reason and revelation, to Himself, always in peace and never in violence; Who is a God of Life, not Death.

John of St. Thomas (John Poinsot) lived from 1584 to 1644 and was one of the luminaries of the Second Scholasticism, which flourished on the Iberian Peninsula at a time when, on the continent, Thomism was virtually eclipsed. In his Cursus Philosophicus, John of St. Thomas provides a remarkable précis of the philosophy that is presupposed by theology. HisCursus Theologicusis a commentary on the Summa Theologiaein the manner of the Master’s exposition of the Sentences of Peter Lombard, that is, the pursuit of the main questions raised by the text rather than a textual commentary. Included in modern editions of theCursus Theologicusare a number of preliminary studies, among them a remarkable analysis of the Summa, part by part, treatise by treatise, in which the exquisite architecture of this masterpiece of Thomas Aquinas is magisterially displayed. This may be read as the explicatio textus, essential for reading the Cursus Theologicus. Readers of Jacques and Raissa Maritain are aware of the central role John of St. Thomas played in their grasp of Aquinas. Indeed, this was true of most of those involved in the Thomistic Revival inaugurated by Leo XIII. This translation of John of St. Thomas’s Introduction as it appears in the Solesmes edition makes available to a new generation of students of Thomas a precious handbook and guide to the Summa.

Subjects from public philosophy and natural law to spiritual healing and alienation, and building a culture of life, from contributors Deal Hudson, Robert P. George, Rev. Stephen F. Brett, SSJ, Gerald L. Campbell, Patrick Fagan, John Haas, Bernard Dobranski, and others.

On March 25, 2009, Notre Dame was embroiled in the biggest controversy to hit the campus since the performance of The Vagina Monologues. A few days earlier, Notre Dame president John Jenkins, C.S.C., had announced that the university planned to give President Barack Obama an honorary doctorate. Within hours of the announcement a storm of protest erupted which showed no sign of dying down any time soon. Citing the statement of the U.S. Catholic Bishops in 2004, “The Catholic community and Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions,” the ordinary of the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, John M. D’Arcy, announced that, for the first time in 25 years, he would not be attending graduation ceremonies at Notre Dame, because “President Obama has recently affirmed, and has now placed in public policy, his long stated unwillingness to hold human life as sacred.”

Seventeenth-century mathematician Craige attempted to determine the earliest possible date of the Apocalypse by using the most current mathematical and philosophical reasoning, but, more often than not, he was ridiculed as an eccentric and a crank.

This volume consists of the addresses delivered to the 23rd Annual Convention of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars held in September 2000. Each chapter is from a major Catholic social thinker on various aspects of the reign of Pope John Paul II.

Articles include:

“John Paul II and the Family” by Elizabeth Fox-Genovese

“John Paul II and the Public Square” by Fr. Richard John Neuhaus

“John Paul II – Witness to Hope” by George Weigel

“John Paul II – Life Issues” by Janet E. Smith

“John Paul II and Ecumenism” by Bishop J. Basil Meeking