Pope Francis has recalled the legacy of Saint Thomas Aquinas, describing him as “a man of the Church,” priest, and doctor in a letter. The Holy Father said that the Saint shared “great spiritual and human wisdom” through prayers and writings. The letter announces the appointment of Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, as the Pope’s special envoy to the celebration of the 700th anniversary of the canonization of Thomas Aquinas to be marked on 18 July at the Abbey of Fossanova, in the town of Priverno, in central Italy.
“Never having an air of superiority from his knowledge, but always edified by charity,” the Dominican friar whom contemporaries already called the “Angelic Doctor” was “full of astonishing culture,” the Pope points out in the letter, which bears the date 30 June and signature at Saint John Lateran. “He wrote many works and taught countless subjects, and was well qualified in the philosophical and theological disciplines. He manifested righteous intelligence and lucidity, and while reverently investigating the divine mysteries with reason, he contemplated them with fervent faith,” the Pope has written in a letter which is published on 11 July.