Emmanuel Suarez of the Order of Preachers (1895–1954)

THE THOMIST A SPECULATIVE QUARTERLY REVIEW OF THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY EDITORS: THE DoMINICAN FATHERS oF THE PRoVINCE oF ST. JosEPH Publishers: The Thomist Press, Washington 17, D. C. VoL. XVII OCTOBER, 1954 No.4 EMMANUEL SUAREZ OF THE ORDER OF PREACHERS (1895-1954) T HE THOMIST has not often intruded editorially upon its readers. Although its original plan proposed a regular department of editorials, the actual development of the character of the review seemed to preclude frequent editorializing. For THE THOMIST is a speculative review, and as speculative has concerned itself with the world of ideas rather than the world of personalities. Accordingly, while writers and reviewers have assumed responsibility for their ideas and criticisms , the editors themselves have chosen to remain anonymous and have applied themselves to the judgment of ideas and criticisms insofar as they were well thought and well expressed, without editorial statement of agreement or disagreement. 422 EDITORIAL Thus in fifteen years of publication THE THOMIST has spoken as a corporate entity once with a word of introduction to its objectives, several times with words of appraisal about the attainment of those objectives. There have been as few departures in the matter of personality. Only twice has THE THOMIST offered personal tribute, once to Jacques Maritain as an outstanding Thomistic philosopher, once to the memory of Father Walter Farrell as an outstanding Thomistic theologian and one of its original editors. Now, however, since the editors are not altogether anonymous , but as proclaimed in each issue, Dominican Fathers of the Province of Saint Joseph, they deem it only fitting and proper that they should pay personal and filial tribute to the memory of their Father General recently dead. While it is true that Father Emmanuel Suarez will not be remembered primarily as an author of speculative theology and philosophy, as were several former Masters General like Cardinal Cajetan and Sylvester of Ferrara, his attainments in related fields, his brilliant work of administration and his direct encouragement and assistance to those engaged in speculation richly deserve commemoration and honor. Emmanuel Suarez was born November fifth, 1895, at Herias in the Asturias of Spain. He entered the Dominican Order as a young man of eighteen and was ordained to the priesthood in 1920. Except for a brief period of teaching philosophy, his entire career, which was to last almost thirty-five years, was devoted to legal study, teaching and administration. Having obtained his Lectorate in Theology at Salamanca, he received two doctorates in law, one in Roman Law at the Apollinaris, the other in Canon Law at the Angelico. His professorial career in law likewise began in Rome at the Angelico, and in due time his care to show the theological principles of the law won for him the Order's highest i'ntellectual distinction, the Masterate in Sacred Theology. A year later he bec~me Dean of the Canon Law faculty at the Angelicum, then later its Rector Magnificus, in which capacity he served until his election as General in 1946. During this period of teaching and academic administra- EMMANUEL SUAREZ, 1895-1954 4~8 tion, Father Suarez wrote many articles of scholarly interest and published his treatise De Remotione Parochorum. The Spanish Government honored him for his intellectual attainments with membership in the Superior Council of Scientific Investigations, and awarded him the Grand Cross of Isabel the Catholic. Even before he was make General, he had served the Holy See with devotion and fidelity in many of the Sacred Congregations , Commissions and Tribunals of Rome. His work was so highly esteemed that he was persuaded to continue even after he was charged with the heavy burden of the care of his own Order. His magnificant work as a churchman and as an agent of the Holy See, like Saint Dominic himself, ceased only with his death. This labor for the Church was not confined to any limited sphere of activity; not only was he, in virtue of his office as General of the Dominicans, Consultor to the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office, but also Consultor of the Sacred Congregations of the Council, for the Oriental Church, of the Discipline of the Sacraments and of Religious...