La Encíclica «Aeterni Patris», de León XIII, en el Magisterio de Juan Pablo II

Resumen

108

The author studies the teachings of John Paul II up to June 1980 which have as their subject the Encyclical Aeterni Patris and specially the Discourse of November 17 1979 in the University of St Thomas Aquinas.

The Holy Father presents the Encyclical of Leo XII as a document of outstanding importance in its time .for the application of the teachings of Vatican Council l. The present Pope reads the Encyclical in the context of Vatican Council II and in terms of the pontifical program of "fully carrying out the Council's dispositions". In this light he finds that the recent Council has taken up the principal ideas of the Magisterium of Leo XIII and recommends the personage and the doctrine and the method of St Thomas Aquinas as being especially apt to illuminate the philosophical crisis of our time. John Paul II highlights two dimensions or notes in the philosophy of being of St Thomas, which are the basis of its perennial value:

a) its openness and universalism with respect to reality as such, which makes it "most suitable" for friendly, and at the same time critical, dialogue: with contemporary trends in order to discern what there is in them that "effectively reflects that reality";

b) its radical "subjection to the truth" which man "does not fix, but only discovers in nature and which has been given to him along with being". Springing from both of these notes is the openness to the total reality and truth which has been revealed to us in Christ and which the ordinary and extraordinary Magisterium of the Church preaches.

The philosophico-theological thought of Aquinas, says Pope John Paul II; illuminates the two most decisive sectors of the Church's task today: Christology and antropology, both of which are profoundly interlinked and which have been dealt with by the Pope in his Encyclical Redemptor HoIninis.

Palabras clave

Encíclica Aeterni Patris, León XIII, Magisterio de Juan Pablo II