Installation Address

Hear the installation address of Fr. Dominic Legge, O.P., as President of the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception at the Dominican House of Studies.

Yet Aquinas is brilliant and original not so much in the individual points that he makes.  In fact, if you read him carefully, you discover that quite often he relies heavily on his predecessors, on the great tradition in which he stands.  

Rather, in my view, Aquinas’s greatness consists especially in the breadth and power of his synthesis, which aims at understanding the whole – that is, it aims at wisdom. Aquinas achieved this synthesis through his surpassing ability to grasp the essential of the arguments of others, even those coming from quite different traditions.  

His sources range from the philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome (including the then-newly-discovered texts of Aristotle), Jewish and Muslim thinkers, and the best science of his day, to Sacred Scripture, the Church Fathers and early Church councils, and the widely-diverse views of other medieval philosophers and theologians.  

But the value of Aquinas’s synthesis is greater than the sum of its individual parts, precisely because Aquinas aims to offer an overarching and coherent account of the whole of Christian wisdom.    

One might imagine that the primary explanation of this was that this medieval Dominican friar was naturally brilliant, one of the greatest minds in history.  And I’m sure there is truth to that.

But it is also true, if you read his works and get to know his life, that, for him, the search for wisdom involved a great deal of focused and intense effort.

It included groundbreaking historical research, philosophical and theological disputations in the heart of the greatest universities of his day, frequent lecturing and teaching, commenting on major works of philosophy and theology, founding a Dominican Faculty of theology in Rome, as well as his own ambitious writing projects

At the same time, he never thought of this as a merely academic project or a scholarly exercise.  

Rather, the search for wisdom was, rather, a central and organizing theme for his life as a whole.  

And it is here that I think we find a key secret ingredient – or, perhaps better, an invisible yet powerful principle – to his wonderful success in the pursuit of wisdom.

Aquinas knew that this search required much of him, but that in the end, wisdom is a gift from above, a gift from God, a gift of grace, and a gift that calls for a whole way of life.

It is precisely to this project that this Pontifical Faculty is dedicated.  

We are gathered here in a Dominican Studium – a house of the Order, and a Theological Faculty consecrated to the study of Sacred Truth.  

We are in this beautiful chapel which, for the past 120 years, has been hallowed by prayer and worship, as generation after generation of teachers and students have stepped away from their labors of the desk, the library, and the classroom, to encounter the living Word of Wisdom in this sacred place.

Our Dominican constitutions have something important to say about the mission of such an institution. They affirm that, by our study, we are drawn into the contemplative life as we ponder the wisdom of God.  Sacred study also equips us for the doctrinal service of the Church, so that we can proclaim the Gospel to the world.

This pattern comes from St. Dominic himself.  In founding the Order, he “linked study to the ministry of salvation.” He directed the first Dominicans to the just-emerging universities, and “sent them ‘to study, preach and establish priories’ in the larger cities.”    

This is the reason why, in 1905, our province moved our Faculty from Ohio to Washington, D.C., our nation’s capital, to this Dominican House of Studies across the street from the new Catholic University of America, founded by the U.S. Bishops to elevate the intellectual life of this great nation.

On this past Saturday, friars from our Province organized the third annual Dominican Rosary Pilgrimage.

Perhaps some of you were there.  We had over 3000 people packed into the Shrine across the street. It was amazing and consoling. It was a beautiful day of pilgrimage and prayer.  Many of us heard confessions for hours.  And dozens of us could not keep up with the demand.  There were so many graces on offer.

At one point during the program, as I sat in a pew with the other friars and listened to the preacher – one of our brothers – I was powerfully moved, moved to the point of tears.

Where has this event come from?  It is obviously a work of God, a fruit of grace. It obviously, so surpasses anything that any of us could have arranged, from our own power. 

And then it struck me, thinking about this day, that this event emerged from the work of our alumni, of graduates of this faculty. It was shaped in the beginning, I think, from their prayers and their worship in this chapel. Fr. Joseph Anthony Kress and Fr. John Paul Kern and the other priests – young priest – who conceived, organized, and so excellently executed it were not very long ago student brothers here, sitting in our classes!  

Is this not the way God works? He gives new life to his Church, and through it, to the world, by means of unworthy and lowly instruments.  humble place.  A small place can have an enormous impact.  It is like a mustard seed, which looks very small, but grows into a great tree where the birds of heaven make their home.  And isn’t this the way God’s life works?

This supernatural life, once it is planted, takes root and grows with a trajectory and a beautiful dynamic of its own, in ways we might not expect.  It’s like a child who grows up and becomes something that we never imagined.  It bears new fruits that we did not foresee, and it generates new life yet again.

I feel like we, the faculty and students of the Dominican House of studies, stand in a very privileged place because we did not create this. We received it. We inherited it through no merits of our own and nothing that we did.  Now we see the way God is giving life, giving life to so many, in ways that we can’t account for, but that we get to be associated with in some small way.  

Think of all of the wonderful works and good things that we can see before our eyes that are happening around us.  Things that the recent graduates of this school are doing.
Think of:

• Godsplaining – the successful podcast of a group of our graduates
  
  
• The Thomistic Institute, which now has 106 chapters on secular campuses around the country, and 26 pending requests to start new ones.  Through the TI, our faculty is literally having a global impact, with new programs that have begun or that are now starting in Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Australia, E. Africa, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Czech Republic, Ireland, England, Scotland, and Germany.
  
  
• The Hillbilly Thomists, our bluegrass band.
  
  
• The renewal at the Angelicum, which is after all being led by one of our alumni, with the help of 11 other friars from our province.
  
  
• And new things are starting all the time.  Just this past summer, a group of student brothers began a new apostolate- a traveling parish preaching apostolate on Long Island, where we accepted a parish from the diocese just recently.

All of these things have emerged, in a sense, from this Faculty, and have been nourished from this altar here in this chapel.

Now, we are not worthy of any of this.  It obviously surpasses anything that, of our own powers, we could ever accomplish.  Nor will it be of any value unless it comes from God and leads others back to him.

What, then, is the task set before us?  Well, let me turn back to our master Saint Thomas Aquinas.

In his many works, he exhorts his students to pursue this highest wisdom, with all of their strength and with every resource of their minds.  That is, he exhorts us today, he exhorts you: pursue the wisdom of God, make it your most precious treasure, let it guide every action of your life.  Or, to put it another way, seek above all to know and to love God who is eternal Wisdom.   

St. Thomas Aquinas would tell you that this is the mind’s very purpose.  It is why God made you.  And it is the true goal of any intellectual life – and, rightly understood, of the Christian life itself.  

Indeed, St Thomas devoted himself to this. He’s our great model. Let me quote to you the beautiful and, unusually personal, words that he wrote at the beginning of his great work, the Summa Contra Gentiles.  Let us make his desire our own:

I propose it to you, professors, students, staff, and friends of the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception at the Dominican House of Studies.  I propose it as the greatest task of this institution – to speak of God and to draw others to him.  

May our patroness, the Blessed Virgin Mary, obtain this for us by her prayers, and may almighty God, who is the source of this holy inspiration, bring to completion the good work he has begun here at the Dominican House of Studies.

Fr. Dominic Legge

Dominican House of Studies

October 3, 2025

Presidential Installation Address