Author: Sr. Marirose Rudek
Navigating the Mysteries of our Faith: A Journey with Saint Thomas
Whenever we take the time to look up and quietly gaze at the night sky, our hearts are almost inevitably drawn to deeper questions about reality, truth, and our place in the universe. In a recent Apostolic Letter, Pope Leo XIV , spoke of “Catholic educational constellations,” (Feb., 12, 2026) stars by which we can navigate our lives with hope. Gazing upon the truth, we are able to expand our understanding of reality, and come to a more intimate relationship with God who is Truth.
While the night sky opens our hearts to wonder, a seasoned star-gazer increases our appreciation of the intricacies of the heavens. For Sister Agnes Schreck, a Dominican Sister of Saint Cecilia, studying the works of Saint Thomas Aquinas increased her delight in and understanding of God and the mysteries of the faith. As a 2024 graduate of the Master of Arts in Thomistic Studies program at PFIC, Sister Agnes found immense joy in having time set aside to ponder the deeper mysteries of the faith and some of the more theologically complex questions.
Sister Agnes remembers that one professor described studying the truths of the faith as “developing an interior monastery” wherein one becomes oriented to the truths of the faith and how they are connected to each other. The principles are easier to access because they are interwoven within and integrated into the person. By studying the mysteries of the faith through the synthesis of Scripture and the Church Fathers provided by Aquinas, she explained that one can more easily develop an interior map or orientation to these sacred truths.
The Thomistic Studies program is an intensive journey, designed over four consecutive summers, yet Sister Agnes found it deeply renewing to study alongside other religious and laity. The summer courses helped Sister to to prepare for her apostolic work as well.
Working with university students in the Netherlands, she sees that they are bolstered by an approach to faith that shows that faith is not contrary to reason. They love learning the coherency of the faith. Previously, she taught middle schoolers. She noted that middle schoolers in particular raise objections and exceptions. Through her summer studies, she could see that these questions have been perennially asked, and that the great minds in the Church have pondered these questions. “There became rooted in me a deeper peace in the beauty of the deposit of our faith and reverence for the mysteries of our faith. I had more confidence to articulate and apply the principles I had studied.” The gift of study allows us to, in turn, be able to bring to hope to others who are seeking the Truth.
Sister was delighted to study Saint Thomas more deeply not only because she is a Dominican, but also because he had a special devotion to her own patroness, Saint Agnes. She shared that, in Father Torrell’s first volume on Saint Thomas, he explains that Thomas prayed for the healing of his assistant, Father Reginald through her intercession. When Father Reginald was healed, Saint Thomas asked that each year on the Feast of Saint Agnes, there would be a celebration feast. He also carried her relics around with him.
The “interior monastery” that Sister Agnes built through her studies helps her to see the fruitfulness of asking questions and being in dialogue with the teachings of the Church. Like the constellations in the night sky, the truths synthesized by Saint Thomas Aquinas remain fixed and bright, offering a reliable map for anyone seeking to navigate the mysteries of God with both reason and wonder.
Lent Means More
It is somewhat ironic that Lent, the season in which we give things up and try to shed old habits, comes from the word for growth and lengthening. Obviously there’s a connection here between the growing length of the days during the spring season, but I think there’s also a spiritual significance to the idea of Lent as a season of growth and increase.
Sometimes, when the sun rises in the morning, the moon, if it is still out, fades to a spectral image in the sky. The moon fades not because the moon itself stops giving light, but because there is a much bigger show in town that’s got a corner on the light market. The same principle holds true in our spiritual lives. When we have an inordinate love for a lesser thing—Cheetos, Netflix, or whatever it might be—the way to love it less is not to strive to extinguish its draw upon us in a direct frontal assault. Rather, we should introduce another good into our lives that is so much better than the lesser good that it overthrows the tyranny of the lesser good by capturing all our attention and love. After all, dimming the moon doesn’t cause the sun to rise.
So the first step is to take stock of our lives and our loves. We can usually identify what we love by taking note of the things that we think about most and what we spend the most time trying to achieve. Then, we turn to the Lord more and more so that we really don’t have time for anything that might draw us away from him. By turning to him first, we let his goodness fill our mental atmosphere and put all other goods in their place.
Another truth about the sun-moon dynamic that I want to emphasize is that the moon only shines because the sun illuminates it. The same is true of the lesser goods in our life and the greatest good: God. When God comes into our lives in a dominant way, we realize that all good things are good only because of him. Ironically, the goodness that God distributes throughout creation becomes the center of our focus even though this goodness exists to lead us to him. Saint Augustine lamented that in his unlovely state of sin he “plunged into those lovely created things” which God had made, preferring the creation of God to the God of creation (Confessions, Book 10). In our confusion, we prefer to stumble by the light of the moon rather than to walk in the light of the sun.
And yet, although sinful, the disordered loves for created things that we find in ourselves are not completely unintelligible. It makes some sense that we are confused by the lesser lights for the very reason that we are meant to love the source of all light. If we can see the light of the sun in the moon, then we will never mistake the moon for the ultimate source of light again. Similarly, if we realize that all lesser goods are only good because of God, then we will never make them our ultimate end.
Lent is a time of abstinence, fasting, and almsgiving, in which we can release the baggage of the lesser goods that we have accrued. But it is more primarily and fundamentally a time of prayer and of growth in our attraction to the one goodness—Goodness Itself—that is the source of all goodness. And so Lent means more: more day, more light, more good, more God. As the days grow longer and the nights shorter, may our love for God increase and our love for other goods find their source in him.
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Originally posted on Dominicana Journal on 2/17/2026.
From Blueprints to the Summa: Building the Kingdom with Saint Thomas Aquinas
For some, the phrase “rigorous academic study” sounds intimidating; for Sister Theresa Joseph, O.P., it was an invitation. In a recent conversation with Sister Theresa Joseph (STB ’23), I was struck by her frequent emphasis on the academic intensity of the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception (PFIC). Rather than finding this daunting, Sister experienced it as life giving and life transforming. “I didn’t begin advanced studies to become an intellectual guru,” she explained, “but in order to live my religious life better.”
For Sister, the Dominican Friars’ approach elucidated that study is a formative act: when the intellect is rightly informed, it transforms the entire person. By upholding high standards, the professors didn’t just offer a grade; they offer the authentic teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas, and they ask the best from their students, a gift she grew to appreciate precisely because of the challenge it required. She also had always wanted to study the Summa, and knew that she could receive that at DHS.
Sister Theresa Joseph Anh Nguyen is a perpetually professed member of the Dominican Sisters of Mary Immaculate Province, located in Houston, TX. She recently shared her journey of studies at the PFIC, as well as where she is currently assigned. Before becoming a Dominican Sister, Sister Theresa Joseph studied architecture as an undergrad and then earned her Masters in Business Administration. She was planning on becoming a construction or project manager. However, the Lord had other plans for her, as she explained: “I became employed by the Lord, to build His kingdom one student at a time.”
While Sister had long desired to study Scripture and teach at the University, it was not something her community has typically been engaged in as an apostolate. Sister was happily satisfied teaching PK-2nd grade religion, and forming young souls in the faith. In what Sister recognizes as Divine Providence, a series of events happened during the time of the pandemic in which a variety of assignments were simply not coming to fruition, and so her Superior decided that perhaps advanced studies would be an option.
When researching institutions, the PFIC stood out as the only option offering consistent in-person classes—a priority for Sister, despite the lack of a local community in D.C. Sister elaborated on her preference for in-person classes. Drawing on her experience from teaching the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd program, she believes that students learn better when all the senses are engaged and when they have a relationship with the teacher. “Virtual programs can hinder serious learning,” she asserts, “because the absence of a personal relationship with the teacher affects how the material is received.” For her, being physically present in the classroom fostered a deeper level of commitment, exchange of ideas and a more fruitful reception of the Dominican charism.
Sister Theresa Joseph is currently writing her tesina towards an STL degree in Biblical Studies at the Catholic University of America, building on the Thomistic foundation she received at the PFIC. She is exploring the topic, “Mary and the head of her enemy.” She remembers even from her childhood seeing statues of Mary, standing on a serpent. Now, she is grappling with how Mary participates in our redemption. Is the image of her crushing the serpent’s head merely a pious devotion? Sister uses Aristotelian and Thomistic principles as building blocks to answer this question. She explained, “As Christ’s humanity serves as a conjoined instrument of His divinity in the salvation of humanity, so is Mary an instrumental cause in Christ’s redemptive work. Her Fiat at the Annunciation, her motherhood at the Incarnation, and her intercession at Cana initiates the chain of causes that moved Christ to Calvary, the place where the head of the serpent is crushed.”
One of the greatest gifts Sister took from the PFIC was a unified theological picture. Though she had taken theology courses before, she had a hard time seeing how everything connected and fit together. Studying the Summa Theologiae systematically—moving from the Trinity to creation, the human person, Christology, Sacraments, and finally to Eschatology—allowed the pieces to click into place. Now, she is eager to share this holistic vision with her future students, helping them realize their full potential as Catholics.
“My intellect was formed and my spiritual life was transformed,” she says. “I realized that what I do as a moral human person is part of God bringing me back to Him.” As Sister’s own patroness Saint Thérèse, would tell us,
All the saints have understood and in a special way perhaps those who fill the universe with the radiance of the evangelical doctrine. Was it not from prayer that St Paul, St Augustine, St John of the Cross, St Thomas Aquinas, Francis, Dominic, and so many other friends of God drew that wonderful science which has enthralled the loftiest minds?
It is first through a life of prayer and for the sake of loving God, that the intellectual studies become fruitful. This contemplation allows us to gaze on Christ, and Sister Theresa Joseph is now once again contemplating Christ with Mary, as she further engages in her tesina writing.
Sister shared that when she expressed gratitude to her Superior for the gift of further study, her Superior responded: “Study is a gift for your religious life and for the community.” The fruits of these studies are truly not just a gift for oneself, but for the hope of the world. May we all be granted the grace to learn to better appreciate the gift of contemplating the truths of our faith, through prayer and diligent study!
1 Thérèse. Story of a Soul : The Autobiography of St. Thérèse of Lisieux. Second edition. Washington, D.C.: ICS Publications, Institute of Carmelite Studies, 1976. (Ms C, 36r).
Studying in Service to the Church for the Renewal of Religious Life
In December 2025, Sister Mary Joanna Ruhland, a perpetually professed member of the Religious Sisters of Mercy of Alma, MI, successfully defended her doctoral thesis, “The Renewal of Religious Life as a Path of Deification: A Thomistic Approach.” Following her defense, Sister Mary Joanna reflected on her time at the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception (PFIC) and how the program has formed her for future service in the Church.
For consecrated religious, the decision to pursue studies often emerges from a dialogue of obedience. Sister Mary Joanna noted that her community chose the PFIC not only for its fidelity to the Magisterium but for its rigorous academic standards. A unique aspect of studying at PFIC is that the asceticism and discipline of study is integrated with living a life of grace through the sacramental life and contemplation of truth. She emphasized that the faculty views intellectual development as the “heart of the spiritual life.” This does not mean that one needs to be brilliant to be obedient in religious life, but that obedience as an expression of loving God with one’s whole heart, mind, and soul means using our God-given rational faculty to know Him and love Him as perfectly as possible. In relation to the intellectual life, Sister said, “DHS’s mission to cultivate every student’s inclination toward truth means that they are dedicated to help students recognize errors of thought that have led oneself or others away from God as First Truth. My dissertation contrasted a proposal for the renewal of religious life that inherently contained errors about the moral life, and, because religious life is the fullest expression of the moral life, about religious life. Recognizing these errors help us become more like God and in closer union with God by the perfection of our love for God. This deification prepares us to enjoy a most perfect union with God in heaven.”
She offered particular praise for the library staff, specifically Father John Martin. “As a religious, Father John Martin understands the vow of poverty that we make” she explained. “Voluntary poverty is not an obstacle to the intellectual life (which, again, is at the heart of the spiritual life). Rather, it is a particular approach to if and how we possess and use the material goods of this world; this approach is shaped by a greater good, namely, the divine good by which God blesses us, and the common life we share with others in the Church and in our religious community.” She described the staff as gracious and tireless in their willingness to help her locate necessary resources, especially when she was living in another country and didn’t have immediate access to the library.
When asked if she gained new perspectives on Catholic theology, Sister highlighted the “architectonic” nature of Aquinas’ sacred teaching. Sister elaborated: “My doctoral studies helped me understand St. Thomas Aquinas’ sacra doctrina (sacred teaching) in a new and deeper way. St. Thomas Aquinas has a comprehensive vision of human life, not just “from womb to tomb,” but from creation to eternal life. His threefold vision of nature, grace, and glory, teaches that we are created by God for a particular end or purpose (namely, to enjoy eternal life with God in glory), and that we are created with a capacity to participate in our journey to that end. St. Thomas Aquinas considers our path of growth and development in terms of nature, grace and glory. We can be progressively united to God because our nature is created with a capacity to receive the grace of God. By this grace, and with our cooperation, our love for God and others is perfected. By this perfection or development, we are prepared to, God-willing, receive the beatific vision of God in heaven. When St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that religious life is a state of perfection, he thinks of this perfection in terms of our nature’s capacity to be deified (made like and united to God), how the grace we receive from God through the sacraments, virtues and Gifts of the Holy Spirit deifies our nature, and the fulfillment of this perfection in glory.”
This Thomistic vision has prepared her for whatever service is asked of her in obedience. Sister Mary Joanna recalled that during the application process, the Doctoral committee asked why she wanted to study for a doctorate. In considering this question, she realized that knowledge is not sought for its own sake, but for service, and she wanted to make an academic contribution in service to the Church, particularly for religious life – to help develop the theology of religious life in the Church.
Her education now allows her to speak with greater clarity to people of all ages. Whether giving vocation talks, teaching seminarians, or speaking with priests or consecrated religious, she can explain how religious life fulfills the mission of the Church and use Thomistic principles to address contemporary errors. She is able to articulate the unique privilege of a woman religious: a consecration that is a “total offering” where love is purified and the bond with God is strengthened.
Ultimately, these studies have prepared Sister Mary Joanna to help others recognize God as the First Truth. “God created each of us to one day know supreme happiness by enjoying him in eternal life. He wants us to be involved in our own growth in grace and charity; we know this because God sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to give us this grace and show us the way to eternal life.” She concluded, “What greater love can we find?”
Life as God Sees It
For four thousand winters Adam lay bound, bound by death, bound in death. So the medieval English hymn Adam lay ybounden has it. Not much is known about the hymn other than the parchment it is preserved on and speculations of its provenance. That is enough for our purposes. The one who hears it is pulled backwards to the beginning of recorded time, when Man deprived himself of Paradise. Now you shall be as gods (cf. Gen 3:5). Then a brother is murdered out of envy over his proper sacrifice (cf. Gen 4:3–8). The next moment: rain pours down and the deep wells up, drowning the world (cf. Gen 7:11). And in the blink of an eye: a man from Ur hears a call from a god he knows not (cf. Gen 12:1).
Yet this is not some mere record of change or an attempted retrieval of irretrievable moments. For God, all time is as one, and every single story ever lived in its truest form is known to him. God is not the god of the dead but the living (Matt 22:32). And only in God can we truly hope to see the glimpses of the eternal bearing of every free choice—for God meant it for good (Gen 50:20). We can see the meaning of history in our lives only in faith.
In this light, then, we may know that God saw the prostitute Rahab as a woman of ill-repute and as a woman predestined to save Israel: a sinner called to repentance by grace, for Joshua saved her and her family, brought her into the children of election (Josh 6:25, cf. Matt 1:5). After all, the name Joshua (also written “Jesus” in Greek) means “God saves.” We see the blood of the immolated Lamb of God in the scapegoat, sent over to Azazel (Lev 16:21–22). With the Tent of Meeting, (Ex 40:34), we see the Lady’s womb in which the dust of human flesh was divinized. At the rising of the sun nature bespeaks the rising of the eternal Son of Justice, or the uplifted Host surrounded by the golden rays of a monstrance. These stories and symbols are not dead records, irretrievable, but living and effective, sharper than a two-edged sword (Heb 4:12).
Yet there are many who say instead that the winding path through the woods is our home and not a passage to our true destination: struggle against the gloom or make your peace with it, there is no hope to be found; only the outward beauty of fleeting things, our existence suffocated with our last breath (Wis 2:2). This world, for them, is the only true life. Is that so?
No, it is not. Another way is offered—one only traversed with a special sight that sees farther than the most powerful telescope NASA could ever produce. “By your light we see light” (Ps 36:9). Jesus Christ commended those who believed what was before their eyes in his day. And in our day, he rewards those who believe what is placed before minds and hearts: “today this Scripture has been fulfilled” (Luke 4:21). And for some, the Lord offers miracles that attest to the words of life (ST II-II, q. 178, a. 1, cf. Matt 11: 2–6). Blessed are they who see the signs and wonders. Yet, as was said to Thomas, more blessed still are those who have believed without seeing (John 20:29), for no man has seen what God plans for those who love him (1 Cor 2:9), what the human heart was shaped out of clay for: do you believe this? (John 11:8).
Why do our lives happen this way or that? Are they meaningless? No, everything is meaningful—radically so: every tree and stone is pregnant with meaning; every life is a story told or yet-to-be. We have at last, as we travel forward, a choice. In which light do we walk? The one that knows this forest as the only world? Or do we walk by a different light?
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Originally posted on Dominicana Journal on 2/10/2026.
Treasures of the Dominican House of Studies: A Look Inside the Rare Book Collection
The Dominican House of Studies houses a library that is “meant to foster serious and recollected study in the service of the Gospel.” Indeed, one can find in the library a quiet atmosphere of studiousness as students deepen their learning with scholarly diligence. The library acquires new books every month, but it also maintains a collection of rare books. Father John Martin Ruiz, O.P., head librarian, recently explained some of the special treasures that the Dominican House library holds.
“The library’s Rare Books and Special Collections consist of over 4,300 monographs, including 37 incunabula (books printed roughly between 1450-1500) and 23 manuscripts. These holdings are noncirculating. The rare book collection offers a treasure trove for research in history and in historical theology. Holdings include important works such as a comprehensive 17th-century edition of the complete biblical commentaries by Hugh of St. Cher (Hugo de Sancto Caro), a 13th-century Dominican cardinal, a copy of the Compendium theologicae veritatis, a copy of the Summa Theologica Moralis of St. Antoninus of Florence, early printed editions of Torquemada’s works, as well as other handbooks on trial procedure printed for the use of Inquisitors in Spain, and various contemporaneous Dominican theological responses to the Reformers.”
While many libraries hold rare books, we may ponder what the particular importance of preserving these artifacts might be within the Church. As the Holy See explains, “Thus, library documentation – archival and artistic – represents for the Church an irreplaceable means to put generations, which have encountered the Christian faith and life, in contact with everything that the Christian “event” has produced in history and in human thinking…To protect a book, encourage reading it, and its circulation is thus for the Church an activity very close to – if not to say one with – her evangelizing mission.” This resounds with the overall mission of the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception, through study and the cultivation of the intellectual life not for the sake of knowledge, but to contemplate truth and learn how to bring that truth to others. The Holy See cautions against considering that the holdings of ecclesial libraries be considered of minor importance or a mere luxury, because they provide for a “dialogue with humanity” between cultural heritages and Christian realities. A library where future priests are studying is especially significant as it also contributes to the formation of their awareness of the universal Church.
A few of the books in the collection are prayer books, including a beautifully illustrated liturgical manuscript from the 15th century, which once belonged to Father Edward Fenwick, the founder of the Dominican Province of Saint Joseph. Another is a prayer book from colonial Maryland. Preserving such works allows scholars to connect not just with history for its own sake, but also with the rich spiritual traditions, prayers, and beauty of our faith. As Catholics we know that tangible realities around us can convey our minds to transcendent realities. These prayer books, for example, are a reminder of the communion of saints to which we belong. “Faith is a treasure of life which is enriched by being shared (CCC, 949).”
While care must be taken to preserve the rare books collection, Father John Martin and the library staff are preparing to purchase display cases so that the books can be shared on occasion with the wider DHS community. This effort responds to the call of the Holy See to share the rich cultural heritages afforded through library collections and supports the mission of the PFIC to provide ways for students to contemplate our rich Catholic intellectual heritage.
Mass of Saint Thomas Aquinas 2026
“I pleaded and the spirit of Wisdom came to me.
I preferred her to scepter and throne,
And deemed riches nothing in comparison with her”
Towards the end of the life of St. Thomas Aquinas, he was living at the Dominican priory in Naples and was writing the questions in his famous Summa Theologiae on the Passion and Resurrection of the Lord.
As was his habit, he prayed quite early in the morning in the chapel of Saint Nicholas. The sacristan, Dominic of Caserta, was passing by, and overheard a voice coming from the crucifix: “You have spoken well of me, Thomas, what should be your reward?”—“Non nisi te, Domine — Nothing but you, Lord.”
What I love about this episode is that it helps us see the Aquinas who is not only a towering figure in the history of the Christian intellectual tradition. He is not only a genius in philosophy and theology and a sure guide for our studies.
He is above all a great saint, a man whose entire life was consecrated to Christ and who devoted all of his powers to knowing Christ better and loving him more.
Aquinas teaches us how to use our minds to encounter God. Or to put it another way, he teaches us contemplative wisdom.
What does that mean for the life of a student or a professor – for the life of a great university like the Catholic University of America?
It means that we do not only seek to know something about the highest things, about the first cause of all that is. Aquinas teaches us that the ultimate goal of our study should not be to grasp ahold of such knowledge and put it at the service of our own projects.
Rather, our goal is to know God himself – above all to know Christ and him crucified – this is the highest form of wisdom, and there is no further goal, there is nothing more to be desired than him.
Speaking for myself, my first encounter with Aquinas was in a class taught by Dr. Kevin White here at the Catholic University of America, in the year before I entered the Dominican Order.
I first recognized Aquinas’s writings as a very sophisticated system of thought (Aquinas on the passions of the soul).
But I gradually began to realize that he was describing reality.
And as I then moved into the study of metaphysics, I began to marvel at the way Aquinas was able to help me penetrate more deeply into reality – to carve reality at the joints, as Plato puts it.
I then entered the Dominican Order, not to be a Thomist, but to be a preacher of Jesus Christ in the order founded by that great vir evangelicus, St. Dominic.
As my studies progressed, I discovered that a careful training at the feet of St. Thomas is a powerful means to open the mind not only to the created reality around us, but to encounter the creator who is its source, and who has become man in order to save us.
This path is open to every human being.
But it calls for us to train our minds, even to purify them by study and also by prayer.
Even though we cannot see God face to face in this life, studying the truth – and above all, the truth about God — elevates our spirits, so that it gets some glimpse of the source of all truth, God himself.
This is very worth-while, Aquinas says: “The ability to perceive something of the highest realities, if only with feeble, limited understanding, gives the greatest joy.”1
Grace is seated in the mind, and it heals the mind, purifying it and allowing it to rise up to God. 
Beautiful passage in his John Commentary about Christ and his disciples: a. A friend desires to reveal the secrets of his heart to his friends.
In one of his homilies, Aquinas explained that we celebrate the saints with special feast days in order to honor and thank our friends in heaven, and to ask them for their special help by praying for us.
So St. Thomas Aquinas today offers you his friendship. He is like a great teacher, who not only is learned in his subject, but who cares about his students and goes the extra mile to help them – to be their friend.
So Aquinas is not only our master in the spiritual life, but also is our friend and companion on the way towards God – the journey to God that you are meant to make with your mind, as you study the truth.
He is surely pleased at what is happening at this university, and at Catholic schools around the country, which are entrusted to his heavenly patronage.
He is surely pleased at so many of you, gathered here to honor him and to learn from him.
And he surely will be pleased to intercede for us today, for this university and for all of its students, faculty, staff, friends, and benefactors. H. St. Thomas Aquinas, pray for us! Amen.
January 28, 2026
Basilica of the National Shrine, Washington D.C.
CUA University Mass
1 ScG I, ch. 8 (#49–50).
First Things Article Highlights DHS
A recent First Things article, An Anglican in the Dominican House, written by Matthew Barrett, highlights his recent visit to the Dominican House of Studies.
Was Dante a Thomist?
Dr. George Corbett thinks that most Dante scholars have been misunderstanding the Divine Comedy for a century, because of a scholarly prejudice that, in the 19th and 20th centuries, tried to suppress a major strand of interpretation of the great Italian author. Dante was not only a great poet and philosopher, but was a theologian – and, Corbett contends, he was a Thomist.
Today, most interpreters of Dante are ignorant of this tradition of Dante scholarship – and Corbett thinks it is urgent for us to recover it.
Corbett made his case at our annual Aquinas Lecture, organized for the Pontifical Faculty by our Thomistic Institute. He spoke to a capacity crowd at the Dominican House of Studies on January 20, 2026.
He has impressive academic credentials, serving as professor of theology at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, and is recognized as one of the leading contemporary Dante scholars. He has published several scholarly monographs on Dante, and most recently has edited a new translation of Dante the Theologian, by famous Dominican scholar Pierre Mandonnet, O.P. (1858-1936).
For centuries, Dante was regarded as expressing the wisdom of St. Thomas Aquinas in poetic verse. Starting in the nineteenth century, however, scholars began to reject any association of Dante with the Angelic Doctor – and this view was given classic expression by Étienne Gilson.
Corbett marshaled historical, theological, and literary evidence against Gilson’s view, to show that Dante not only knew Aquinas well, but deliberately wrote within a Thomistic framework. He recalled that both Pope Leo XIII and Pope Benedict XV explicitly regarded Dante as a disciple of Saint Thomas, situating the poet firmly within the Thomistic tradition.
As evidence, Corbett pointed out that Dante gave St. Thomas one of the most prominent places in the Divine Comedy, devoting three full cantos to the poet’s encounter with the Angelic Doctor in the Paradiso, far more space than is given to any other figure besides Beatrice, Virgil, and Dante himself. Dante even describes Aquinas’s speech as the perfect likeness of Beatrice, a striking image that underscores Thomas’s role as a supreme theological guide. Most fundamentally, Corbett argued that the very structure of the Divine Comedy—its moral, metaphysical, and theological architecture—is itself Thomistic in character.
An animated question-and-answer period followed, allowing faculty and students to pursue the implications of Corbett’s argument more deeply. The evening concluded with informal conversation over wine and cheese.
The Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception is grateful to Dr. Corbett for helping us revisit—and discover anew—the Thomism of this great Catholic poet.
