Summaries / Resúmenes - Studia Moralia

496 REVIEWS / RECENSIONESPope, Stephen J, (ed.), The Ethics of Aquinas, Washington, D.C.:Georgetown University Press, 2002, 496 p.Full scale commentaries on classic authors such as St. ThomasAquinas belong to the past. There are no Cajetans today.Commentaries have been replaced by multi-authored and usuallyinterdisciplinary ventures when attempted at all. The last such effortthat comes to mind was the French Dominicans’ Theological Libraryedited by A.M. Henry, O.P. in 1952, a half century ago. Its two volumeson moral theology, in translation, became the standard accessto the Secunda Pars of the Summa Theologiae for teachers and studentsof St. Thomas alike. Their effect was rather eclipsed by theimpact of Vatican II and the new issues and challenges surroundingit, as well as by the storm clouds of a gathering crisis in moral theology.The present volume reflects a return and retrieval of St.Thomas in that discipline.As could be expected the editor has tried to remain within themainstream of Aquinas studies, with the text of the Summa servingas the pivot-point of reference for authors dealing with individualtracts. Two thirds of its five hundred pages are taken up with expositionsof individual tracts following the order set down by Thomashimself. This volume therefor is much more than an overview suchas is given to beginners in introductory courses to Aquinas’s ethics.The editor satisfies that need at an early stage with an essay that setsthe scene for what follows. The main bulk of this volume consists inparticular studies that try to take each tract in its integrity, underliningthe logic that makes it into a synthesis on the subject. Authorsprovide plentiful footnotes on subjects that they have not been ableto expound fully. In that sense each study is more than a status quaestionis,it is an instrument for further research in a chosen field. It isforeseeable that deeper and more detailed research will be stimulatedby the approaches that authors assume here.The publication of this volume is a tribute to present scholarshipin the United States. It is usually thought that there is too much pluralismand even fragmentation in theology to ever contemplate anysort of synthesis in current conditions. And Thomas Aquinas is noexception as is eloquently witnessed by Fergus Kerr’s After Aquinas:Versions of Thomism. How does this volume manage to navigate therapids of this confusion? The structure of the volume gives us a hint.There is a scientific apparatus provided at the beginning which