from Alec Vidler's excellent A Variety of Catholic Modernists:

Laberthonnière to von Hügel (1 April 1924), pp. 85-6:
{The Catholic Encyclopedia says Laberthonnière was "a severe critic of Church authority and of Scholastic philosophy (but not of St. Thomas Aquinas)".}

I was astonished (he wrote) to find St. Thomas figuring among those to whom you express your spiritual gratitude…To me—I say it to you in all simplicity—he appears to stand doctrinally for a radical anti-Christianity. In place of the Gospel's God of love he put an egocentric God. In the final reckoning he accepts predestination in its most brutal form. His metaphysic justifies the Inquisition and slavery. In a word he is the theologian par excellence of theocracy. For him the Church consists essentially in the ecclesiastical organization regarded as a domination that is to be exercised under the direction and to the advantage of the theologians…I have found that Buchez had a way of characterizing him that seems to me perfectly just. In St. Thomas, says Buchez, all the questions are asked in Christian language, but all the answers are given with a pagan meaning. And in fact—and this is what in the end irritates me against him most—he jealously retains the letter of the Christian tradition, but always in discarding its spirit…

Mignot to Loisy, 3 January 1896 (p. 98):

All the evidence shows that Our Lord's knowledge which was not infinite had a limit. Why want to ascribe to Our Lord a knowledge which he declared he did not have? He knew at least as well as the theologians what to believe about the extent of his knowledge. But we are always up against the same system of a priorisme, the "inferential theology".

Mignot to Hébert (19 March 1886):

How right you are to see only words in the scholastic metaphysic! They are a prioristes…They invent a definition out of nothing, then they finish by believing in its objective truth…

Mignot to von Hügel (27 February 1898):

I really do not understand the general craze for the scholasticism of St. Thomas. It is absurd! What can philosophical arguments and affirmations that are a priori or often wrongly deduced have to do with purely critical and historical inquiries?

What's interesting is that there is a common thread all the way back from these "paleo-Modernists" to today's neo-Modernists, for example:

I had difficulties in penetrating the thought of Thomas Aquinas, whose crystal-clear logic seemed to be too closed in on itself, too impersonal and ready-made. … [Arnold Wilmsen] presented us with a rigid, neo-scholastic Thomism that was simply too far afield from my own questions.

(source)
Discussing the Vatican II draft "On The Sources of Revelation" (translated here), which Ratzinger harshly criticized (Ratzinger Reader pp. 258 ff.), he says:

It is true that the [council] docuмents bore only weak traces of the biblical and patristic renewal of the last decades, so that they gave an impression of rigidity and narrowness through their excessive dependency on scholastic theology. … By "sources of revelation", what was meant was Scripture and tradition; their relationship to one another and to the Magisterium had been dealt with solidly in the forms of post-Tridentine scholasticism according to the custom of the textbooks then in use. In the meantime, the historical-critical method of biblical interpretation had made itself at home in Catholic theology.

(source)

Quote from: Neil Obstat

You are playing with fire if you start to study the writings of Modernists or "paleo-Modernists" before first studying the sound philosophy from which they departed.

What "sound philosophy"?

The sound philosophy to which I refer is that which has been handed down to us faithfully through the ages and which St. Thomas Aquinas helped to preserve and to further develop.  He was not so much a philosopher himself as he was a secretary, a chronicler, a historian of philosophia perennis, the treasure of wisdom from the greatest minds in the history of the Church.  

Grace builds on nature.  The Church took what was naturally good from ancient cultures, such as the Greeks and Aristotle, and through the centuries developed it.  St. Thomas lived at a time when new ancient manuscripts came to light, and together with contemporaries such as Duns Scotus, a clearer vision of God's revelation through nature was made possible.  

It is this very thing that erstwhile Fr. Ratzinger complained about, as you have mentioned here, Geremia.

My warning is to be careful not to pay attention to that which Ratzinger did in his youth, because it will perhaps do the same to you that it did to him.  Modernism is very slick and very deceptive.

One of its symptoms is, that you don't know that you're infected.

Magisterial docuмents have approved St. Thomas's theology and philosophy. Pope Leo XIII quoted Pope Innocent VI in his encyclical Æterni Patris on St. Thomas Aquinas:

Quote from: Pope Innocent VI, quoted in Pope Leo XIII's encyclical Æterni Patris

His teaching above that of others, the canonical writings alone excepted, enjoys such a precision of language, an order of matters, a truth of conclusions, that those who hold to it are never found swerving from the path of truth, and he who dare assail it will always be suspected of error.

Since Modernists reject St. Thomas, they are at the very least suspect of error.

As Pope St. Pius X wrote in Pascendi:

Quote

Further let professors remember that they cannot set St. Thomas aside, especially in metaphysical questions, without grave detriment.

All this is true.  My caution is in regards to the FOUR quotes you have in the OP where you offer for discussion the writings of "paleo-Modernists" and their ilk, who attempt to undermine the reputation of St. Thomas and his doctrine.

Fr. Ratzinger was not respectful at all of Thomistic Phil. or Thomism (somewhat misnomers because St. Thomas was not really a philosopher as much as he was a chronicler of sound philosophy and a great student thereof), and his enduring disrespect has perpetuated the unclean spirit of Vat.II through his work under the great deception of JPII, and then his own stint as pope (2005-2013) and now as the first-ever "Pope-Emeritus" (Benedict).

I don't suppose there is much chance that you would succuмb to this yourself, Geremia, but it is possible, so I wanted to warn you.  You should study the available courses in philosophia perennis first, before you delve into any critique or research of the dangerous material.  

But this warning is mostly for other readers who might see this thread, because I know they are out there.  Some have already identified themselves on this forum.  It is human nature to want to skip preparations and go right into the thick of battle.  But without the proper study in advance the wiles and snares of the devil are all over this material that you have started to quote in the OP.  

Most all of the prominent exponents of 'evolution' today are atheists because they read as teenagers the books of key figures who promoted it, and thereby they became atheist.  In ages past, atheism was universally regarded as foolhardy or intellectual insanity.  But the demigods Charlie have laid the groundwork for future generations to park their thinking caps in the RED ZONE with impunity, and without fear of reprimand from the 'authorities' of academia today, who are largely corrupted.  This is how Ratzinger got his education, and why to him, the study of St. Thomas was too repulsive and "closed-minded."

This is the essential problem in discussing topics such as Catholic doctrine with atheists today -- they cannot comprehend your words because of the deficiency in their basic modes of thinking.  

Don't let that corruption into your mind in the first place and you can save yourself from the pernicious consequences.  


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Quote from: Neil Obstat

My warning is to be careful not to pay attention to that which Ratzinger [paid attention to] in his youth, because it will perhaps do the same [thing] to you that it did to him.

What makes you think he's changed since his youth?

Where did I say he has "changed?"

Quote from: Neil Obstat

St. Thomas was not really a philosopher as much as he was a chronicler of sound philosophy and a great student thereof

He certainly wasn't a philosopher in the modern sense of inventing everything anew from the ground-up, as modern "philosophers" have done and failed.

This is true.  Modern 'philosophers' take pride in re-inventing the wheel, so to speak.  That isn't what makes a philosopher great in the objective sense.

St. Thomas wasn't a philosopher in the classical sense, either, properly speaking.  His achievement was in collecting and grouping and categorizing.  The Summa is a monumental example of consistency and organization.  Earlier great philosophers used organization too, but did not develop it into an entire system like the Summa, that is, as far as we know.  Many great books of the past have been lost due to mostly the barbarous destruction of invading armies, some of whom were Mohammedans.

This doesn't take anything away from the Angelic Doctor.  He made no claim of being 'a philosopher', while he referred to and quoted others, who he readily acknowledged as being so.  Whenever he says "The Philosopher," he refers to Aristotle (btw, not Plato).  Aristotle was a pagan.  But his philosophy was sound, in a natural way, although it was a bit weak regarding physical reality and the explanation of how and why things move.

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