Pope Francis launches three years of celebrations in honor of Thomas AquinasThe family is one of the great issues of today. However, the fact that it is a topic of enormous relevance today is no reason to think that in the past it was not an issue of great importance. So much so, that as early as the twelfth century St. Thomas Aquinas He reflected on this and left for posterity certain thoughts that may be key for the 21st century.
This is something that Lluís Clavell, former chairman of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas' texts are well known to this priest, who was also a professor of philosophy at the University of Rome. University of Navarra and Ph. Pontifical Lateran University of Rome.
Lluís Clavell is also professor of Metaphysics at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, where he was rector from 1994 to 2008. He was also a consultant to the Pontifical Council for Culture and was a member of the board of directors of the International Society Thomas Aquinas.
In this interview, the former president of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas answers Omnes' questions about the concept of the family in Aquinas' writings, the relevance of his thought and its influence today.
How does St. Thomas Aquinas define the family?
- On these more theological topics I have to confess my limits. I have always dealt with this rather from the side of philosophy, for example from the side of friendship. Aristotle devotes to this subject no less than two books of the Nicomachean Ethics. The family is the highest form of friendship, and interpersonal love between spouses is the most educational thing there is. It is not that great things have to be invented: when children see how parents love each other, they learn almost everything. St. Thomas speaks of the family as a spiritual womb. It is the place where the child grows, is formed, learns what freedom is, many things, not only how to use language.
What other lesser-known aspects of St. Thomas' thought are currently resurfacing?
- Recently, for example, at the Academy of St. Thomas in Rome, a plenary session was held in which a volume dedicated to the emotions according to St. Thomas was presented. Theologians, too, have studied this quite a bit. Perhaps it was less frequent before, because a more purely intellectual vision, centered on dogma, was followed. But it can be seen that St. Thomas, who has a lot to say about the emotions, is now also more studied.
The same happens in other aspects. For example, now there is a Thomism that is called "biblical Thomism", more focused on commentaries on the writings of Sacred Scripture and on the Psalms. St. Thomas himself also composed poetry, liturgical hymns, which we still sing today and which we like.
What then, according to St. Thomas, is the importance of the family?
- The family, on the one hand, is a sign of destitution: we are born, we need to learn to speak, to be taught... The family is a necessity. But it is also greatness, which is an aspect that some do not see. I am referring to the greatness of the family as a life project, because life is not simply about succeeding in a job.
Reading St. Thomas, we see that he captures this very well: we need family, because we are children; but at the same time it is a great thing, because animals do not really have a family. Many people discover this when they have a family disaster: it is the hardest thing that can happen to you. The family is to be able to love, and to love with a love of donation, gratuitous, reciprocal, total. St. Thomas goes so far as to say that, from this point of view, the human race is superior to the angels. Angels help us, but angels do not have children, while human beings do.
It is important to see the family not only as a need, as indigence, but as something more, a life project. Now we are frightened by the decline in the birth rate, but this means that perhaps we have put in place modules of work and triumph that look at only one part of what the human person is.
How does the vision of St. Thomas influence today's world?
- St. Thomas lived in a very remarkable period. There was the birth of the universities, and he was well acquainted with Neoplatonism and St. Augustine, but Aristotelianism reached him, as an irruption, and it also reached him through people from Arab countries or countries conquered by the Arabs, as in the case of Spain. He is a person who, together with his training in Neoplatonism, knows Aristotle well, which was not only philosophy; it was also science, biology, physics, etc.
Therefore, he is in an ideal, incredible situation, which made it possible for him to offer us something that has continued to last through the ages. It amazes me that in these years we have reflections such as that of Alistair MacIntyre on the fragmentation of knowledge. It was one of the books that had the greatest impact on me, I was living in the fragmentation of knowledge, and I was a bit aware of it, but the university helped me a lot to try to unite, to make the different kinds of knowledge communicate. Tomás tried to do it, and that is why also when you cultivate this field, you feel his help, which is something from the past, but you feel it as something very current.
For example, we will soon have a world congress on Philosophy (1-8 August, in Rome), in which the Ibero-American Network of Philosophy is also participating. It is focused on a philosophy that crosses borders, and we have been invited to have a session on St. Thomas, along with others dedicated to other great philosophers of history.
And now a curious question, what influence do you think this resurgence of Aquinas' thought has on the recent European elections?
- The family has entered a somewhat more controversial phase since the anthropological revolution of 1968, and more recently with some measures taken by European governments, including the European Parliament. The results of the European elections show that the Philosophy and Theology of St. Thomas is of great interest. Speaking now of the recent elections, a young philosopher, trained at the Complutense, in Political Science studies, has commented that a Europe that ignores the truth of the person leads to frustration. One can see in the election results that there is also a rebellion against this.
This young philosopher comments that the denial of the truth of the person among the European elites leads to a change as a reaction. There are people who interpret it only from a political point of view, but this author, who is a politician but at the same time a philosopher, believes that it is not only a political question, but also an anthropological one, there is a certain awareness in young people that it is convenient to change, to highlight things that are important to be happy and to build a better Europe. The issue of the defense of the Christian roots of Europe is there: I think it is not dead and it is done in dialogue. A philosopher well equipped with the modern and the ancient has a lot to say.
