The Primacy of Sts. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas

I recall a former professor of mine, who was very fond of both St. Augustine of Hippo and St. Thomas Aquinas, recollecting with some disdain his interactions with Catholicism when conducting his doctoral studies at a Jesuit university. He agreed with J. Pelikan (former Lutheran scholar who later converted to Eastern Orthodoxy) that Roman Catholicism is an "enigma" or "riddle." In the context of my professor's particular comments this had to do with what he experienced prior to, during, and after the Second Vatican Council, with respect to attitudes toward his intellectual hero--St. Thomas Aquinas. He noted that the academic climate prior to the Council was very amenable to St. Thomas Aquinas. In fact, studies centered on St. Thomas seemed to be all the rage in the 1940's, 50's and early 60's. However, with the closing of Vatican II in 1965, it seemed to my professor that St. Thomas was the proverbial 'baby' thrown out with the pre-conciliar 'bathwater.' All of a sudden in 1965, so it seemed to him at the time, St. Thomas was 'out' and phenomenology was 'in.' This contributed, needless to say, to my professor's belief in the enigma or "riddle" of Roman Catholicism.

No doubt, something to this effect did occur. It cannot be denied that interest in St. Thomas Aquinas, to say nothing of St. Augustine, has waned in the post-conciliar years. However, the following stats are truly remarkable to consider, given the widespread misconception that Sts. Augustine and (especially) Thomas Aquinas are 'out' for the contemporary Catholic Church. What follows below is taken from an appendix to a book called The Doctors of the Church by Bernard McGinn. It is particularly instructive to note the sheer numbers of references of the two (to my mind) greatest of the 33 overall doctors of the Church. I will list how often both of them are cited in the two most recent collections of official teachings of the Catholic Church: Vatican II and the official Catechism. Then I will cite the next two most often cited doctors of the Church, and you will see the wide gulf that separates Sts. Augustine and Thomas from all other scholars of the Catholic Church's rich heritage. And I mean, from all others.

Number of citations in Vatican II (1962-65) and the recent (1994, 2000) Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC):

__________________Vatican II__CCC
St. Augustine_____________522___87
St. Thomas Aquinas________ 734 ___61

Pope Gregory the Great______128____6
St. Ambrose______________111____21

After Gregory the Great and Ambrose the numbers only fall dramatically lower in terms of others who are referenced. Look at the enormous disparity that exists between Augustine and Thomas Aquinas on the one hand and (basically) everyone else on the other, both in Vatican II itself and in the Catechism that came as a result of the Council. So, it seems to me that irrespective of whatever certain theologians in Jesuit institutions did subsequent to the Council, the idea that 'the days of Sts. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas are over' is a terrible myth whose time has long passed from relevance. It needs to be moved to its proper place of obscurity within the history of Catholicism--somewhere near other misguided ideas like that Mary is the third person of the Trinity or that the Catholic Church encourages its members to not read the Bible, etc. Wherever it is that these ideas go (maybe limbo, since apparently babies are no longer thought to go there?), this idea surely needs to go there too.