International Theology Commission Gets New President

Edit: On December 5, the Holy Father Addressed the International Theological Commission with a call for adequate adherence by theologians to the Church's Magisterium:

Dear friends, our meeting confirms in a significant way how much the Church needs the competent and faithful reflection of theologians on the mystery of the God of Jesus Christ and his Church. Without healthy and vigorous theological reflection the Church runs the risk of not fully expressing the harmony between faith and reason. At the same time, without the faithful living of communion with the Church and adherence to the Magisterium, which is the vital space of its existence, theology would not succeed in giving an adequate reason for the gift of faith.

Now, he's about to name a new President of this Commission to replace Father Morerod, who was named recently as a Diocesan Bishop of Lausanne in Switzerland in November, which necessitated the naming of a new President.

The new president will be a Dominican Serge-Thomas Bonino, O.P.. He is a theology professor from the University of Toulouse in France, a Dominican as the O.P. [Order of Preachers] after his name indicates.

He is a student of student of the students of Jaques Maritain, [who was a close friend of Thomas Merton, Saul Alinsky and Dorothy Day]: Father M.-M. Labourdette, who is the author of a monumental commentary on the whole of the Secunda Pars and Father M.-V. Leroy. As for his emphasis, he favors a historical critical approach to St. Thomas Aquinas vs. a more traditional route, which he is kind enough not to disparage.

We found a link at this blog, diligite iustitium, which linked to a Dutch Thomistic site, from the University of Utrecht.

 Whom do you consider to be your most important teacher in your thomistic education?

 

During my first years of Dominican religious life, I was fortunate to meet two masters in Thomism: Father M.-M. Labourdette, who is the author of a monumental commentary on the whole of the Secunda Pars and Father M.-V. Leroy, who taught dogmatic theology, but who, unfortunately, wrote very little. Both of them were profoundly marked by the friendship and the intellectual influence of ´Jacques´, that is, of Jacques Maritain. They have passed on to me and to my Dominican fellow brothers from Toulouse, the doctrinal and institutional heritage of the venerable Thomistic school of Saint-Maximin. It is, in my view, a great privilege to be able to join in this way a living doctrinal tradition. It is true that the masters of Saint-Maximin - without being hostile to it - were hardly sensitive to the historical approach to the works of Saint Thomas. While working in Fribourg (Switzerland) with Father Jean-Pierre Torrell and Professor Rudi Imbach, whose assistant I had the chance to be for one year, I become more and more convinced of the importance of the application of the historical method to saint Thomas.