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Collaboration with the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas

Collaboration with the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas

With its storied history as a hub of research in the world of Thomistic studies, the Jacques Maritain Center is proud of its ongoing collaboration with the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas. The Academy was founded in 1879 by Pope Leo XIII, with the mission to “carry out research into, to defend, and to disseminate the doctrine of the Angelic Doctor, and, taking due account of contemporary cultural traditions, ‘to develop further this part of Thomistic doctrine which deals with humanity, given that his assertions on the dignity of the human person and the use of his reason, in perfect harmony with the faith, make St. Thomas a teacher for our time’ (Inter Munera Academiarum, n. 4).” A former Maritain Center director, John O'Callaghan, and the current director, Therese Cory, are also Ordinary Members of the Academy.

The Maritain Center has co-sponsored a number of Academy plenary sessions, including “Aquinas and the Protestants” (2023), “Aquinas on Salvation” (2019), and “The Emotions in Aquinas” (2018). In addition, the Maritain Center was proud to co-sponsor the Eleventh International Thomistic Congress in Rome in 2022, which was organized under the auspices of the Academy, together with the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (the Angelicum).

Our current collaboration supports the publication of the Proceedings of the 2023 plenary session, which will appear in 2024.

A crowd of men and women in formal attire and religious habit, together with a few children, stand on stone steps before the stone arches of a medieval church. — Participants of the XI International Thomistic Congress stand before the Chiesa Madonna della Libera in Aquino (Courtesy of the Angelicum Thomistic Institute)

Audience in formal attire and religious habit sits in semicircular auditorium, listening to panel of three seated speakers, with a crucifix hanging from the stage wall. — A panel presentation at the XI International Thomistic Congress (Courtesy of the Angelicum Thomistic Institute)

A woman in the Dominican garb of a white religious habit and black veil holds a cup of coffee and speaks with a young man wearing a green polo and holding coffee and a donut. They stand outisde along a red wall lined with large yellow windows, before a crowd others also in conversation — Participants of the XI International Thomistic Congress gather to converse between sessions (Courtesy of the Angelicum Thomistic Institute)