Aquinas as authority? - Seven centuries of problems and perspectives

From Thursday December 14 until Saturday December 16, some fifty scholars from all over the world gathered for the second conference of the Thomas Instituut in Leusden, in the neighbourhood of Utrecht. People came from the United States, Russia, Poland, the United Kingdom, Canada, Italy, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands.

Working in a friendly and inspiring atmosphere, lectures were given by Prof. Dr. Fergus Kerr OP, Prof. dr. Karl-Heinz zur Mühlen, Prof. dr. John Inglis, Prof. Dr. Otto Hermann Pesch, Prof. dr. Herwi Rikhof, Dr. Paul van Geest, Dr. Harm Goris and Dr. Carlo Leget.

Papers were presented by Dr. Misthooni Boose, Dr. Henk Schoot, Peter van Veldhuijsen, Dr. Dmitry Shmonin, Dr. Emmanuel Tourpe, Mauricio Narváez, Dr. John Bowlin, David Liberto, Julien Lambinet, Dr. David Twetten, Dr. Tadeausz Bartos OP, Dr. Wayne Hankey, Dr. Antoon Vos, Dr. Graham McAleer and Dr. Brian Johnstone CSsR.

Apart from the philosophical and theological contributions there was a lecture on the way the thought of Aquinas has been depicted in the so called 'Spanish chapel' of the Santa Maria Novella in Florence, and there was an organ recital presenting the way texts of Aquinas have been transformed into music by the 20th century French composer Olivier Messiaen.

Looking back on a successful and inspiring event, a small committee is now preparing the proceedings of the congress that will be published in 2001.