"In his own day, St. Thomas was controversial for synthesizing Aristotle with the Catholic faith. His writings were condemned by the Church for almost a hundred years, or for some long period of time, and he is an example of how to be creative in one's theology. Just like today, people are afraid when Catholics engage in New Age spirituality. I grew up in a time when all we did was study Thomas, and the Church was closed to the outside world. Fortunately, that has changed a little bit. Let St. Thomas be our example."
This homily was given by a Jesuit who seems to have forgotten St. Ignatius' rule for thinking with the Church: "Even if it seems to me to be white, I will believe it to be black if the hierarchical Church thus determines it"
This pernicious use of St. Thomas refuted forthwith:
1.St. Thomas' writings were never censored by Rome.
2.At first, several propositions were censored by the Archbishop of Paris, and then only two of the theses were fairly attributed to St. Thomas.
3. Later, when St. Thomas writings were forbidden by the local Bishops of Paris and Canterbury, it was, in both cases, at the urging of disgruntled theologians on the faculty, e.g. Franciscans at Paris.
4. St. Thomas did not just read Aristotle and absorb it uncritically, but refuted many things Aristotle thought to be the case.
5. St. Thomas is known to have said, before he died, "I submit all my writings to the better judgment of the Church"
6. His family eventually went bankrupt due to its staunch fidelity to the Papacy in the controversies between the papacy and Frederick.
7. St. Thomas writes: "Accordingly, certain doctors seem to have differed either in matters the holding of which in this or that way is of no consequence, so far as faith is concerned, or even in matters of faith, which were not as yet defined by the Church; although if anyone were obstinately to deny them after they had been defined by the authority of the universal Church, he would be deemed a heretic. This authority resides chiefly in the Sovereign Pontiff. ST II-II,q.11.a2,ad3
8. Concerning New Age spirituality, the Soveriegn Pontiff John Paul II laments the many Catholics who are "unaware of the incomaptibility between these ideas with the Church's faith" Address to U.S. Bishops, May 28, 1993