The Sexual Doctrine of Cardinal Cajetan by Dennis Doherty, O.S.B. (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 511 significant sense to animals as well as men is a question to be discussed, but apart from this point he recognizes the special moral character of struggle, and puts the matter well in saying: " Struggle against temptation means the awareness of a dichotomy in the world-good versus evil. The anguish of soul that such struggle involves is the token of the knowledge that morality is better than immorality" (p. 269), leading to the final sentence of the book, " The ability to struggle against temptation is the sign of the truly human being." University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, Indiana JoHN A. OEsTERLE The Sexual Doctrine of Cardinal Cajetan. By Dennis Doherty, 0. S. B. Regensburg: Verlag Friedrich Pustet, 1966. Pages 389. Band 12, Studien zur Geschichte der kath. Moraltheologie, Herausgegeben von Michael MUller. Giacomo de Vio Gaetano (1469-1534), known to history as Cardinal Cajetan, is remembered both as a scholar and as an important figure in the historical events of his own time. His scholarship is evidenced in his commentaries on the Bible and on certain works of Aristotle. The principal contribution which he made to theology is his commentary on Thomas Aquinas' Summa theologiae. Thoughout his life, from his entry into the Dominican Order when he took the name Thomas until his death, he wished to be the faithful exponent of the Angelic Doctor. So successful was he at this purpose that it is difficult to elaborate a doctrine of Cajetan apart from that of Aquinas. Cajetan's commentary was not only the first complete commentary on the Summa of Aquinas but it remains the magisterial commentary. Thus, it is printed in the Leonine edition of Aquinas' work and contemporary Thomists rightfully question whether an opinion can be ascribed to " thomistae communiter " if it is not taught by Cajetan. As a man of his own times, Cajetan held influential positions in his own Order, of which he was Master General, and in the Church, in which he often served as Papal Legate. He was involved in such pressing contemporary problems as the marriage dispute of Henry VIII and negotiations with Luther in Germany. Intellectually, he appears better characterized as a medieval than as a humanist. This judgment is that of Congar and it remains true in spite of several recent attempts (e. g., J. Mayer, R. Bauer, M.-H. Laurent) to make of him a humanist. Although he was devoted to the primacy of reason when there was no solution to be found in Revelation, this method was more that 51~ BOOK REVIEWS of Aquinas than of the humanists. By rejecting a method based upon a multiplication of authorities or upon an unnecessary multiplication of distinctions , he was only being faithful to Aquinas and attempting to revive Thomism from the poor state in which it was found in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Cajetan's general approach to theology was also true of his moral theology: he remained the commentator on Aquinas. His writings share the weaknesses and strengths of Aquinas. One such weakness is the negativity towards sexual pleasure which characterized Catholic moral teaching before Aquinas and found its way into his works, especially via his respect for Augustine. Yet the reader of today must be cautious about judging history in the light of present emphases on conjugal love and sexual fulilllment within marriage. A second weakness is the androcentric orientation of traditional and Thomistic moral teaching. Again, however, feminism is a social movement characteristic of the twentieth century. On the doctrinal plane both Thomas Aquinas and Cajetan understood human sexuality in a way which denied any validity to a dualistic approach . Doherty explains this well in developing two key principles of Thomistic moral theology. The first of these principles is that the pleasure proper to an action must be judged in terms of the goodness or evil of the operation. Since sexual actions are obviously in accord with man's nature, and thus are intended by the Creator, they cannot but be good; so also the pleasure associated with them must be good. Another principle of Aquinas which Cajetan explained and defended is that concupiscence is not the formal determinant of original...