"All Catholics who give themselves to higher studies should be disciples of Saint Thomas." (Pope Pius XI)

The world today offers many illusions, false philosophies and ideologies, which breed both intellectual and spiritual blindness. Young people flock to universities to be educated, but what, in the end, do they receive?

If one should examine the evils which afflict our age, he would easily discover that the fruitful cause both of those which we now suffer and those which we greatly fear is depraved knowledge of human and divine things. Such knowledge, long poured out from the schools of the philosophers, has crept into every level of society, and it has been received with the common applause of very many. Since it is natural for man to follow reason as the guide of his actions, if the understanding go wrong in anything, his will easily follows. This is the way that perverse ideas, residing in the mind, influence human actions and pervert them. On the contrary, if the mind be healthy and strongly grounded in solid and true principles, many benefits would accrue to both the public and private good. (Pope Leo XIII)

The original purpose of education was to free the mind from ignorance, and this was done mainly by studying what are called the liberal arts (derived from the Latin verb liberare "to free"). The Church, as both mother and teacher, has made these arts her own. Her teachings, illumined by the light of divine wisdom, built up over the centuries, offer the mind a light by which to see through the prevailing darkness.

Nowhere is this teaching more evident than in the clear and systematic doctrine of Saint Thomas Aquinas, a Dominican friar who died in the year 1274, and who has been called the greatest thinker of all time; his writings are as relevant today as they were centuries ago. Since the time of his death, the Church has consistently called upon her children to take Saint Thomas as their leader and guide in education; he has been called the Angelic Doctor, not only for the purity of his life, but also for the clarity and depth of his thought. The first principles offered by Saint Thomas allow our minds to see reality as it has been created and ordered by God; they are based upon how things really are, and they lead our minds to see things as they really are.

Only a sound philosophy can help . . . to develop a reflective awareness of the fundamental relationship that exists between the human spirit and truth, that truth which is revealed to us fully in Jesus Christ. Nor must one underestimate the importance of philosophy as a guarantee of that "certainty of truth" which is the only firm basis for a total giving of oneself to Jesus and to the Church. (Pope John Paul II)

No matter what one eventually studies, therefore, whether it be theology, literature or science, one should be grounded in these principles. It should be said that one would be hard pressed to find any such teaching at most modern universities: Saint Thomas is being forgotten, as the world chases after new fads and philosophies with itching ears. Let us read what two Popes have said, one at the end of the last century, the other at the end of our own, on the importance of Thomistic (or what is also termed scholastic) philosophy: Leo XIII in 1879 wrote:

While, therefore, We hold that every word of wisdom, every useful thing by whomsoever discovered or planned, ought to be received with a willing and grateful mind, We exhort you, venerable brethren, in all earnestness to restore the golden wisdom of St. Thomas, and to spread it far and wide for the defense and beauty of the Catholic faith, for the good of society, and for the advantage of all the sciences.

To this we may add the words of our own Holy Father, John Paul II:

If it has been necessary from time to time to intervene on this question, to reiterate the value of the Angelic Doctor's insights and insist on the study of his thought, this has been because the Magisterium's directives have not always been followed with the readiness one would wish. In the years after the Second Vatican Council, many Catholic faculties were in some ways impoverished by a diminished sense of the importance of the study not just of Scholastic philosophy but more generally of the study of philosophy itself.

Our Lady Seat of Wisdom Academy offers as a beginning measure a one-year foundation program in the study of the Church's teaching, taking Saint Thomas as our inspiration and guide. We offer courses in Christian doctrine and philosophy, explicated in the light of the teachings of Saint Thomas Aquinas, logic, to train the mind to reason properly, Latin (still the Church's official tongue), the history of the Church, Scripture and apologetics, magisterial thought, as well as Gregorian chant and lives of the saints. We hope to develop this foundational year into a full four-year program; in the interim the fundamental principles offered by the present curriculum will stand students in good stead not only in their future academic endeavors, but in every aspect of their lives.

Saint Thomas was the light of the Church more than any other teacher; the man who studies his writings even for one year will profit more thereby than another who during his whole lifetime concentrates on the teachings of other teachers.
(Pope John XXII, as quoted by Pius XI)