is right to speak of a Leonine era because six popes came of age or were born
during Leo’s pontificate.^8 This allowed for a remarkably rapid and coherent
transmission of doctrine in the manner of a‘school’, or as Pius XI said, a
‘tradition’. Pius XI and Paul VI, as young priests, received their doctorates in
Thomistic philosophy at the Roman Academy of ST.
In the twenty-first year of his pontificate, John Paul II pointed out that‘Leo XIII
with his Encyclical LetterÆterni Patristook a step of historic importance for
the life of the church, since it remains to this day the one papal document of
such authority devoted entirely to philosophy’(§57). Thus he issuedFides et
ratio, revisiting the relationship between faith and philosophy.‘It is necessary’,
he wrote,‘that the mind of the believer acquire a natural, consistent and truth
knowledge of created realities—[of] the world and man himself...Still more,
reason must be able to articulate this knowledge in concept and argument’
(§66). One year later, in the Apostolic LetterInter munera, he promulgated the
revised statutes of the academy.
Finally, a third commonality: both popes had an acute appreciation of the
secunda parsof theSumma theologiae. We recall its prologue:Since, as Damascene states, man is said to be made in God's image, in so far as the
image implies‘an intelligent being endowed with free will and self-movement’:
now that we have treated of the exemplar, i.e. God, and of those things which
came forth from the power of God in accordance with His will; it remains for us
to treat of His image, i.e. man, inasmuch as he too is the principle of his actions, as
having free will and control of his actions.
Thesecunda parsconsiders actions of the human image bearer, according to
creation and redemption, and according to precept and habit. To use Wojtylan
terms, we are here in the sphere of the‘acting person’, the image bearer who
achieves perfection through hisoperationes.^9 This is why John Paul insisted
that social doctrine belongs under moral theology.^10(^8) Pius X (b. 1835), Benedict XV (b. 1854), Pius XI (b. 1857), Pius XII (b. 1876), John XXIII (b.
1881), Paul VI (b. 1897).
(^9) Within the scheme of Catholic theology,imagofalls directly under theological anthropol-
ogy (with its natural fundaments) and Christology. Similitudo(likeness, as a perfection of the
image) falls under moral and sacramental theology, both of which pertain to actions perfecting
the image—actions in conformity to grace, but not excluding perfections derived from action in
accord with the natural law.‘The service which moral theologians are called to provide at the
present time is of the utmost importance, not only for the church’s life and mission, but also for
human society and culture. Moral theologians have the task, in close and vital connection with
biblical and dogmatic theology, to highlight through their scientificreflection that dynamic
aspect which will elicit the response that man must give to the divine call which comes in the
process of his growth in love, within a community of salvation. In this way, moral theology will
acquire an inner spiritual dimension in response to the need to develop fully the“imago Dei”
present in man’(Veritatis splendor§111).
(^10) Social doctrine and human acts,Centesimus annus§54; presupposing what he calls‘a
chapter of theology’—Christian anthropology—in which revelation is applied to‘the human
person and his works’(§55).
Christian Humanism and the Crisis of Modern Times 243