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The pope intervened in the debate over the origins of the universe today by claiming that science could not explain the "ultimate meaning" of human existence.Speaking at St Mary's University College in Strawberry Hill, south-west London, Benedict told an audience of religious leaders from different faiths that the human and natural sciences provided us with an "invaluable understanding" of aspects of our existence.But he said science could not satisfy the "fundamental" question about why we exist."They cannot satisfy the deepest longings of the human heart, they cannot fully explain to us our origin and our destiny, why and for what...

After his "Outing" as a Homosexual and his denial of Church teaching on Homosexuality a letter of the Academy President followed: "With deep pain" and horror to review Professor Berger's past "opinions". Rome (Kath.net) The theologian David Berger (42) was dismissed from the faculty of Saint Thomas Aquinas in Rome. Any further activity there at the institution would be denied, in the view of "some points of Church teaching" which do not belong. This was reported by Frankfurter Rundshau. The certified theologian and special expert on the theology of St. Thomas Aquinas is primarily employed as a Gymnasium (College Preparatory...

Three Reasons for Teaching the Bible   Why teach the Bible?   In his inaugural lecture at the University of Paris, when St. Thomas Aquinas was installed as Magister in Sacra Pagina--note, as a master commentator on the Bible, not first and foremost as a philosopher--Thomas gave three primary reasons, based on a quotation from the book of Baruch: "This is the book of the commandments of God, and the law that is for ever. All that keep it shall come to life: but they that have forsaken it, to death" (Baruch 4:1) [Thomas speaking:] According to Augustine in On...

SOUTH BEND, Indiana, JAN. 29, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Prominent Catholic author, professor and cultural commentator Ralph McInerny died today at the age of 80. "I have no voice or words to speak our loss. Not yet. Not today," Joseph Bottom of First Things wrote today on the magazine's Web site. Ralph McInerny was a professor of philosophy and the Michael P. Grace Professor of Medieval Studies at the University of Notre Dame. He held degrees from St. Paul Seminary, University of Minnesota and Laval University, and had taught at the University of Notre Dame since 1955. He directed the Jacques...

In describing his conversion, Adasevic “dreamed about a beautiful field full of children and young people who were playing and laughing, from 4 to 24 years of age, but who ran away from him in fear. A man dressed in a black and white habit stared at him in silence. The dream was repeated each night and he would wake up in a cold sweat. One night he asked the man in black and white who he was. ‘My name is Thomas Aquinas,’ the man in his dream responded. Adasevic, educated in communist schools, had never heard of the Dominican...

If you happened to be in a crowded room at The Beacon Drive-In one Wednesday in late August, you would have heard a man in a suit reference Genesis Chapter 50, the book of Isaiah, and using two fish and five loaves of bread to feed thousands of people. It wasn't a sermon. It was former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a 2008 presidential contender, during a stump speech in front of a room full of Republicans. Using biblical references on the campaign trail isn't unusual, especially in the conservative core of South Carolina. Often, they can be heard when candidates...

Five alumni of Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula were ordained to the priesthood this year, bringing the total number of alumni priests to 47. The college also boasts 20 graduates who are religious brothers and sisters, and an additional 35 in seminaries preparing for the priesthood. These numbers are especially striking for a small, private college with only 2100 alumni and a maximum enrollment of 350 students. California Catholic Daily interviewed Fr. Sebastian Walshe, a TAC graduate now belonging to the Norbertine St. Michael's Abbey in Silverado, California. Father Walshe has been a Norbertine priest for two years. Does...

In "God On The Quad" Naomi Schaefer Riley reveals that some of the popular assumptions made about religious colleges — citadels of intolerant thinking, with inferior curricula and in-your-face religious zealotry — are either outdated or simply wrong. She profiles a number of individual schools including: Mormon stronghold Brigham Young University; Fundamentalist Christian Bob Jones University; Catholic Notre Dame and Thomas Aquinas College, one of the quirkiest schools mentioned; Jewish Yeshiva University, and Evangelical (Baptist) Baylor University. Unsurprisingly, the biggest issue religious colleges face is how to reconcile the seemingly incompatible nature of secularism, with its accent on post-modern, radical...

The Delusion of Darwinian Natural Law Marc D. GuerraIn a short, inconspicuous paragraph in the conclusion to the first edition of On the Origin of Species, Darwin speculates that "in the distant future … psychology will be based on a new foundation, that of the necessary acquirement of each mental power and capacity by gradation." One hundred and forty years later, Darwin's eerie prediction about the revolutionary effect of his work on human beings' self-understanding seems all too prophetic. After a century of dissemination, the once-novel theory of evolution is widely accepted as established scientific fact. Given the quasi-religious hold...