July 15th, Feast
of St. Bonaventure
On
3 May 2010, Pope Benedict XVI spoke of the legacy of St. Bonaventure at his
customary Wednesday Audience (this was the first of three audiences which would
be dedicated to the Seraphic Doctor). The Holy Father recalled the memory of
the disciple of St. Francis with great tenderness: “Today I would like to talk
about St Bonaventure of Bagnoregio. I confide to you that in broaching this
subject I feel a certain nostalgia, for I am thinking back to my research as a
young scholar on this author who was particularly dear to me. My knowledge of
him had quite an impact on my formation.”
(See the whole text here)
Together
with St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Bonaventure has come to symbolize the Scholastic
period of theology. Sadly, Scholasticism has come under no small amount of
ridicule in recent days. Some Catholic theologians have gone so far as to claim
that the Church has moved past the “old theology” of the medieval schools and
has adopted a “new theology” for the present day. The proponents of this “new
theology” have the intention of “razing the bastions” – that is, destroying (rather,
dismissing) the traditional distinctions developed by the Scholastic doctors.
Certainly,
any true Bonaventurian (as well as any true Thomist; indeed, any true Catholic)
would abhor such a notion. Below, we reproduce selections from the Bull Triumphantis
Hierusalem (from 1588) of Pope Sixtus V, in which St. Bonaventure is officially
elevated as a Doctor of the Church. In his praise of the Seraphic Doctor, Pope
Sixtux V also promotes the Scholastic theology which St. Bonaventure so well
personified.
[The
text below is entirely from Pope Sixtus V. We apologize for the rather
difficult wording which was common to that age. We have tried to bring attention
to certain points with our emphases.]
