Saturday, February 16, 2008
FOLLOWING IN BONAVENTURE'S FOOTSTEPS
Hugh McNichol at the Pew Sitter blog writes:
Rome, Italy. February 15, 2008 – We do not frequently hear much about Saint Bonaventure. However, he is a noted Doctor of the Church and a pupil in the schools of Saint Thomas Aquinas and Saint Francis of Assisi. His writings have influenced the Scholastic age of the Church and perhaps the thoughts and pontificate of Benedict XVI. Today the ZENIT news agency announced a new translation of then Joseph Rat zinger’s treatise on Saint Bonaventure. From the early introductions, it seems the evolving papacy of Pope Benedict XVI is incorporating insights from Bonaventure into our modern Church, while at the same time emphasizing the need to develop global harmony.
If we consider the ministry of Benedict XVI since his canonical election, perhaps the phrase used to describe Saint Bonaventure by St. Francis of Assisi is most appropriate,”O buona ventura!”.The good fortune exclaimed by Francis regarding Bonaventure is indeed good fortune for the life of the Universal Church. In Bonaventurian, theology there is a great appreciation of the desire to achieve harmony and unity among disparate peoples, Christian’s contra Judaism, Platonists contra Neo-Platonist, and so on. In all of his writings and actions, Bonaventure maintained the notion that there is an evolution constantly developing in terms of human harmony. Benedict XVI it seems also advocates such a cosmology of thought.
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