The Dominicans and the Pope: Papal Teaching Authority in the Medieval and Early Modern Thomist Tradition (review)

The three chapters of this somewhat slight yet very dense volume are composed of conferences hosted by Professor Horst in 2002 at the Conway Lectures, given at the University of Notre Dame's Medieval Institute. The theme of these lectures corresponds to the themes that occupied a central part of Horst's life as a researcher: the meaning and the limits of pontifical ecclesiology, in particular the question of infallibility, and the role of the Dominican tradition in establishing and strengthening it. Nearly all of his articles are crucial to laying the groundwork for this study, which spans from the thirteenth century, with St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Albert the Great, to the nineteenth century, with Cardinal Guidi and his famous statement blamed by Pius IX at the First Vatican Council. The sixteenth century also received a great deal of Horst's attention. For this reason, the argument made in these pages regarding the medieval period up until the middle of the sixteenth century becomes of particular interest.

The first chapter examines Thomas Aquinas on papal teaching authority. If we consider the works of St. Thomas chronologically, the contexts in which his reflection on pontifical power emerged become quite evident. There is, first, that pertaining to the controversy between secular clergy and mendicant friars, since the mission and the status of the latter were granted by papal authority. It is interesting to notice that, in this debate, unlike St. Bonaventure's defense of the Franciscan Order, Thomas's justification draws neither from the privileges granted to the Dominican Order by the papacy nor from the authority of its founding figure, Saint Dominic. It is the exact opposite for Bonaventure and St. Francis, to such an extent that the Franciscan minister general becomes confronted by the poverty debate.

We know that St. Thomas had no designs on establishing an ecclesiology, but there are nonetheless some noticeable elements of one in the Summa Theologiae. For example, in IIa IIae, q. 1, a. 10, he examines the question of whether the pope could represent a new symbol of faith. Thomas considers this a valid possibility, particularly when an interpretation of ancient creeds is needed in addressing heresies and when it is not possible to convene a new council. Neither the question of a conflict between the pope and the council nor the hypothesis of a heretical pope was raised.

We have to wait until the following century before the emergence of these problems is discussed, and this is the subject of the second chapter, "The Medieval Thomist Discussion." Theologians were required to define their own positions in terms of those by Pope John XXII in his battle against the Spiritual Franciscans and in particular in his determination of the question of whether Christ and the Apostles had had any possessions. One of the elements introduced by the Thomists is the conceptual separation between, on the one hand, the person of the pope (sedens) and the papal seat (sedes) and, on the other, the cathedra. According to Hervaeus Natalis, "The distinction between the pope as a 'private' and a 'public' person is crucial" (32). Horst does not discuss the much-talked-about "private" opinion of John XXII on "Particular Judgment," most likely because this does not pertain to the domain of ecclesiology. For the same reason, he explicitly asserts that his analysis does not consider Durandus de San Porciano's views on poverty (31). By more closely analyzing the ideas of Cardinal John Torquemada, rather than other Dominican friars espousing a pontifical ecclesiology, like John Quidort of Paris, the author informs us that he favors more mainstream views: "All the Dominicans presented here, like the vast majority of the theologians of their...