After Dr. Mike Sirilla, one of the first writers and contributing editors of OnePeterFive, way back in the year of Jesus Christ’s reign 2014, was my good friend Dr. Peter Kwasniewski.
I first sent an email to Dr. Kwasniewski years ago because I loved his writings on music at OnePeterFive (for example “Time to Start Your Library of Classical Music“). We corresponded on this potent topic for some time, which helped me cover this critical topic in my book on Church history.
I read some of his books, and my favourite book of his is still Ministers of Christ, because it shows the beauty and harmony between clergy and laity, and men and women – in the liturgy. This has influenced my thinking on the vital importance of the Two Swords dogma non definitum in our efforts today as lay people in our time.
After I took over as editor of OnePeterFive back in 2021, I got to edit Dr. K’s writings every week for a few years. Dr. Kwasniewski is what I would call a “true Thomist,” because, as my other friend Dr. Scott Hahn says, “You can’t be Thomistic unless you’re a mystic.”
Over the past year especially, I’ve gotten to be closer friends with Dr. K, and I can testify that he is a true Christian man because he is a man of prayer. That’s the essence of Thomism, drawing wisdom not primarily from abstract Aristotelian categories (although these are important), but primarily from perseverance in mental prayer (‘Is There Any Tradition More Important than the TLM? Yes. And it’s the “One Thing Necessary”’).
We need more “True Thomystics” and less of “Ahistorical, Aristo-Thomism” (‘Excursus on “Ahistorical Aristo-Thomism”‘). A cospicuous mark of “True Thomysticism” is imitating the “Common Doctor”: integrating all views of every school of thought into the common symphony of Catholic dialogos in one Eucharistic altar. As Fr. Tommasi wrote:
The fundamental insight of St. Thomas was to organize into a clear framework how theology of his Fathers can be put into a systematic description: theologians are like musicians borrowing numbers from math to write their symphonies. (“Is Aquinas the Universal Authority in the Church?“)
By contrast, “Ahistorical, Aristo-Thomism” seeks to punish and destroy anything that does not fit into its own opinions which are not dogma. This is an abuse of Thomism and lacks Thomysticism, the true Thomism of the Common Doctor.
Thanks be to God, we have a true Thomist in Dr. K.
Just read his academic texts, published by the aforementioned Dr. Scott Hahn over at the St. Paul Center.
One of the things that Dr. K was done in recent years is continue to imitate the Common Doctor by publishing good “Thomystic” studies which present various opinions about disputatae quaestiones. He does this at Tradition & Sanity and his print publishing at Os Justi Press.
I got to spend a little time with him recently over at the CIC: