Catholic Review Online: New center aims to reintroduce St. Thomas Aquinas to modern world

The Catholic Review posted a story by David Gibson of Catholic News Service on the Dominican House of studies in D.C.

The Dominican house is a landmark of Michigan Avenue in northeast Washington, adjacent to The Catholic University of America. When construction of the new building commenced, some surely wondered whether plans to attach it directly to the Dominicans’ much older building could succeed without damaging the property’s overall beauty and balance.

But the architects succeeded well at blending the exteriors of the old and new. They excelled at perhaps an even higher level on the interior where one encounters inviting, contemporary classrooms and a library whose grand, impressive windows not only allow the sunlight in, but marvelously frame the view across the road of university buildings and lawns, and the famed Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.

The new center houses the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception, conducted by the friars of the Dominican order’s eastern U.S. Province of St. Joseph. Future Dominican priests, other seminarians and laypeople study there. Before many years, the center hopes to award theology doctorates.

“Our renewed emphasis upon Thomism, evangelization and the dialogue between faith and contemporary culture sets us apart,” said Dominican Father Steven Boguslawski, president of the pontifical faculty. Its “renewed mission,” he said, focuses on an “open Thomism,” entailing dialogue with both contemporary and historical theology.

[...]

Father White, in his first year of graduate-level teaching, said he feels “mildly intimidated” by the newly opened wing at the Dominican house. “It’s a wonderful new setting in which to teach,” he said, but it impresses upon him “the duty not to take for granted” what he has been given.

It would not be “as exciting,” however, were it not for the new vocations the Dominican province is welcoming nowadays – eight to 12 annually, Father White said. “You have to feel like something is happening that’s coming from the Holy Spirit.”

Father White noted that many new entrants “are very educated” before they arrive in the order and “want to engage the culture intellectually.” So “we need to give them something to challenge them,” he said.

There is great interest on this site in Thomism and the Dominican Order. This is a great article for those not aware of the Dominican House.