Census of North American Doctoral Dissertations on Medieval Philosophy

The website In Medias PHIL, Robert Pasnau’s medieval philosophy blog, has a recent post that lists philosophy doctoral dissertations on medieval topics currently in progress at North American universities. Nearly half of them (32 out of 68 listed dissertations) contain Aquinas’s name in their respective titles. Other medieval philosophers whose names appear more than once include: Avicenna (4), Ockham (3), Anselm (2), Augustine (2), and Albert the Great (2). Pasnau promises a future survey of European dissertations in progress. 

Happy Feast of St. Thomas

Today, March 7, is the traditional date of the feast of St. Thomas Aquinas. It is the date of his death in 1274 at the abbey of Fossanova in Italy, where he was taken after becoming ill en route to the second Council of Lyons. The feast is still observed on March 7 in the so-called Extraordinary Form of the Roman rite, i.e., the Mass according to the 1962 Missal.

January 28, the date of the transfer of Aquinas’s relics to the Dominican church in Toulouse in 1369, is the day on which his feast is observed in the so-called Ordinary Form of the Roman rite, i.e., the Mass according to the 1969 Missal.

Aquinas Lecture at DSPT Berkeley

The 23rd Annual Aquinas Lecture at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in Berkeley, CA, will be delivered by Fr. Augustine Thompson, OP, DSPT Professor of History, on Wednesday, February 27, at 7:30 pm PST (10:30 pm EST). Entitled “Baptismal Theology and Practice in the Age of St. Thomas Aquinas,” the lecture will examine new discoveries about the liturgical and social significance of baptism in the cities of thirteenth-century Italy and will compare these developments to the development of the theology of baptism from the twelfth century to Thomas Aquinas in the late thirteenth. The lecture will be live-streamed.

Benedict Ashley, O.P.

Fr Ashley has died.

There are obituaries for Fr. Ashley here: http://communio.stblogs.org/2013/02/benedict-ashley-op-rip.html and here: http://www.op.org/en/content/fr-benedict-m-ashley-op-goes-home-peace

There is a biographical essay here:

http://www.ordopraedicatorum.org/2011/07/11/cloth-bound-a-biographical-essay-on-fr-benedict-ashley-o-p/

I am sure that more will come out. 

Article on Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas meeting in Houston

Last month Tom Osborne announced on Thomistica.net that his institution (Center for Thomistic Studies at UST, Houston), together with the John Paul II Forum, would be hosting a meeting of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas in the Fall. Catholic Education Daily has an informative article on the event.