Saint Thomas (Aquinas)

Ralph McInerny

Ralph M. McInerny

Brings together sermons, commentary responses to criticism, and substantial extracts from the "Summa Theologiae," arranged chronologically.

Selected Writings

Duns Scotus and Medieval Christianity

A Theory of Practice

Aquinas on Human Action

Five centuries ago, a Mexican peasant named Juan Diego was visited by the Virgin Mary. As a lasting sign of her presence, Diego’s cloak was marked with the image of the Holy Mother surrounded by roses—and it remains one of the most revered and priceless relics in Mexican religious culture. But now the Virgin’s Cloak has been stolen. Retired CIA agent Vincent Traeger has a history with the Vatican, and is tasked to recover the Cloak. From the border-hunting Minutemen to longtime foes of the Church, the motives are as varied as the suspects. But Traeger soon realizes that the truth is hidden within a conspiracy that could bring a country—and a faith—to its knees.

The Rosary Chronicles

Relic of Time

Retired CIA operative Vincent Traeger spent years working undercover in Rome. Now he is going back to solve a mystery. The Vatican’s Secretary of State has been brutally murdered along with a prefect of the Vatican Library. Traeger suspects that a Cold War adversary may be involved. But there is more than deadly politics at work. The answers can only be found within the story of the Lady of Fatima: the image of the Blessed Mary who appeared to three peasant children in 1917—and predicted a pope’s assassination. Fighting an unseen enemy in a world of religious fervor, deception, and blood, and shadowed by a powerful billionaire whose devotion to God may mask the devil’s work, Traeger must navigate a treacherous maze through history, faith, and his own past if he is ever to discover the astonishing truth.

The Third Revelation

This lively and highly accessible introduction to the thought of Thomas Aquinas focuses on his philosophy while making clear its openness to theology as reflection on Revelation. Introduces students this great philosopher of the middle ages in one short book. Brings together alternative approaches to Aquinas’ thought. Uses key texts to describe the trajectory of Aquinas’ philosophy and the legacy it left behind. This is the first title in a new Polity series, Classic Thinkers.

Aquinas

The Seventh Station

Father Dowling is a dedicated parish priest who happens to have a knack for unraveling the mysteries of the real world as well as those of heaven, but the latest puzzle to catch his attention---the disappearance of Wallace Flanagan---doesn't seem to be a mystery so much as a dirty little secret. By all appearances, Flanagan, the heir to a lucrative concrete business, skipped town with his mistress more than ten years ago, although no one talks about that out of respect for his abandoned wife. But appearances go right out the window when his mangled---and recently live---body is found wedged into one of his father's cement mixers. If Flanagan's unexpected return and immediate death aren't enough to shake a few skeletons from their closets, childhood friends and lifelong enemies have started trickling home to Fox River, Illinouis, a town outside of Chicago. All of them had a stake in his disappearance, but which one would murder a man who was already all but dead? And would kill again to keep a dead man's secrets? A collision between the past and present dislodges some hard and hidden truths that Father Dowling must uncover if he's going to catch a killer in Ralph McInerny's The Widow's Mate, an absorbing and suspenseful mystery that is sure to please Father Dowling's many fans.

The Widow's Mate

Heavyweight Notre Dame professor Roger Knight and his p.i. brother Philip investigate a baffling puzzle when some extremely rare literary documents go missing in the fifth installment of this smart academic mystery series. Complicating matters for the brothers are the impending nuptials of some dear friends, Larry Morton and Nancy Beatty, which hit a snag. When Larry was an undergraduate at Notre Dame he made a prudent but overly optimistic reservation to marry his freshman sweetheart, Dolores Torre, in the popular campus rectory six years in the distant future. Their relationship didn't last, and now Larry wants to use the reservation to marry Nancy. Unfortunately, his old girlfriend Dolores has a similar plan. When both Larry and Dolores try to claim the forgotten reservation on the appointed date for their very separate marriages, pandemonium ensues. Dolores's new fiance, Dudley, is a man with a troubling secret past that may come back to haunt all of them. When a woman winds up strangled to death, both weddings are suddenly on hold until everyone can figure out what's going on. What is Dudley's connection with the missing documents, and how could such a white-collar, academic crime lead to a grisly murder? Between the two of them, Roger and Phil Knight can handle many tough questions-but this particular puzzle is bound to prove quite a challenge in this intelligent, witty mystery from one of the genre's masters.

Emerald Aisle

When someone steals the church offering box and some of her food, Mrs. Murkin and Father Dowling track the culprit's footprints through the snow and discover a body in a pool of blood

A Father Dowling Mystery

Thicker Than Water

A series of pranks that initially seem to be just college high-jinks at Notre Dame, become increasingly serious, leading to the murder of a scholar, who claimed that the university sits on stolen Native American lands.

A Mystery Set at the University of Notre Dame

The Book of Kills

St. Thomas Aquinas enables the reader to appreciate both Thomas's continuity with earlier thought and his creative independence. After a useful account of the life and work of St. Thomas, McInerny shows how the thoughts of Aristotle, Boethius, and Augustine and Pseudo-Dionysius were assimilated into the personal wisdom of St. Thomas. He also offers a helpful study of the distinctive features of Aquinas's Christian theology.

St. Thomas Aquinas

In this book, renowned philosopher Ralph McInerny sets out to review what Thomas meant by the phrase and to defend a robust understanding of Thomas's teaching on the subject.

Thomism and the God of the Philosophers

Praeambula Fidei

McInerny revisits the basics of Thomas's teachings and offers a brief, intelligible, and persuasive summary.

The Moral Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas

Ethica Thomistica

A Novel

Rogerson at Bay

The discovery of the mangled body of Wallace Flanagan in one of his father's cement mixers sends Father Dowling on an investigation into the secret past of the victim, the heir to a lucrative concrete business, who supposedly had left town with his mistress more than a decade earlier. 10,000 first printing.

Thomism is solidly based on the assumption that we know the world first through our senses and then through concepts formed on the basis of our sense experience. In this informally discursive introduction to St. Thomas Aquinas, Ralph McInerny shows how this basic assumption contrasts with dominant modern alternative views and is developed by Thomas into a coherent view of ourselves, of knowledge, and of God. McInerny first places Thomism in context within philosophical inquiry, discussing the relationship between philosophy and theology, and between modern and classical views of philosophy. He then describes the challenges Thomas faced with the introduction of Aristotle’s works into the Christian West. The reader is subsequently guided through such key concepts as art, nature, causes, and motion and shown how Thomas used these concepts to resolve the problems presented by Aristotle. Each chapter is tied to a specific Thomistic text, providing a sample from a number of Thomas’s works.

A Handbook for Peeping Thomists

A First Glance at St. Thomas Aquinas

Romance novelist Rosa Subiaco has a habit of kidnapping men from mall parking lots and killing them. On night, she pick up an elderly Alzheimer's vicitm, unaware that the Powerball ticket in his pocket is worth'millions.

An Egidio Manfredi Mystery

Sub Rosa

Father Dowling, respected by all, is well-known for being willing to lend a helping hand whenever he can. So it's no surprise when Stanley Collins shows up at the St. Hilary rectory to confide in Father Dowling about the troubled marriage of one of the church's parishioners. Dowling promises to do his best to find a way to help, but it soon becomes too late. One of the parties involved is viciously killed in a hit and run car accident. Is it murder? Dowling knows there is good reason to suspect it might be, but when his friend, Detective Phil Keegan, labels it an accident, Dowling 's hands are tied. It's a question of ethics. Unable to break Collins's confidence, he can only keep tabs on the investigation from afar. While searching for the truth, Dowling must protect the secrets of his parishioners at all costs. In Requiem for a Realtor, the charming Father Dowling returns once again, tangled in a web of deceit that will intrigue and delight his dedicated fans in a complex, satisfying mystery from Ralph McInerny.

Requiem for a Realtor

In this study of the relationship between Boethius and Thomas Aquinas, Ralph McInerny dispels the notion that Aquinas misunderstood the early philosopher and argues instead that he learned from Boethius, assimilated his ideas, and proved to be a reliable interpreter of his thought. McInerny makes his point that ""Boethius taught what Thomassays he taught"" through a careful analysis of Aquinas's commentary on the De trinitate and De hebdomadibus of Boethius. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: RALPh McineRny was Michael P. Grace Professor of Medieval Studies in the department of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. He cofounded Crisis magazine and was author of several books published by CUA Press, namely, the bestselling Ethica Thomistica, The Question of Christian Ethics, Aquinas on Human Action, and Praeambula Fidei. PRAISE FOR THE ORIGINAL EDITION: ""McInerny's point is that it is Boethius who has been misunderstood, and not by Thomas. The case is well argued. . . . One must praise the method of the study: the arguments come from the texts of Boethius and Thomas, not the other way around, and the Latin is there to consult. . . . McInerny's study builds to a strong and interesting conclusion.""--Journal of the History of Philosophy ""Some of the leading historians of medieval philosophy have tended either to neglect Boethius's influence or to condemn his 'logicism' as an unfortunate element in the development of philosophy in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. McInerny aims at correcting this bias. . . . This book is an important contribution to the history of medievalphilosophy.""--Speculum

Ralph McInerny

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