Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange

He was born Gontran-Marie Garrigou Lagrange on 21 February 1877 in Auch, near Toulouse, France. While studying medicine at Bordeaux he experienced what he described as a religious conversion after reading Life, Science, and Art by the Breton writer Ernest Hello (1828–85). He joined the French Dominicans and studied and taught at Le Saulchoir before moving to Rome, where he lectured at the Angelicum from 1909 until his retirement in 1960. In 1917 a special professorship in ascetical and mystical theology was created for him at the Angelicum, the first of its kind anywhere in the world.[4]

He is best known for his spiritual theology. His magnum opus in the field is The Three Ages of the Interior Life (Les Trois Ages de la Vie Interieure),[5] in which he propounded the thesis that infused contemplation and the resulting mystical life are in the normal way of holiness of Christian perfection. This influenced the section entitled "Chapter V: The Universal Call to Holiness in the Church" in the Second Vatican Council's Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen gentium.[6]

His great achievement was to synthesise the highly abstract writings of St Thomas Aquinas with the experiential writings of St. John of the Cross, attempting to show they are in perfect harmony with each other.[7]

Father Garrigou-Lagrange, the leading proponent of "strict observance Thomism", attracted wider attention when in 1946 he wrote against the Nouvelle Théologie theological movement, criticising it as Modernist.[8] He is also said to be the drafter of Pope Pius XII's 1950 encyclical Humani generis, subtitled "Concerning Some False Opinions Threatening to Undermine the Foundations of Catholic Doctrine".[9]

The Osservatore Romano of 9-10 December 1950 lists Garrigou-Lagrange among the names of the preparatory commission for the definition of the Assumption of Mary.[10]

Garrigou-Lagrange taught many eminent Catholic theologians during his academic career at the Angelicum. He also supervised the doctoral research of Marie-Dominique Chenu, who was ordained in 1919 and completed his doctorate in theology in 1920 with a dissertation entitled De contemplatione.[11] In the period between World War II and the Cold War Garrigou-Lagrange was the "torchbearer of orthodox Thomism" against Modernism.[12] In 1926 he served as the definitive consulter to Pope Pius XI in declaring John of the Cross a doctor of the church.[13]

He is commonly held to have influenced the decision in 1942 to place the privately circulated book Une école de théologie: le Saulchoir (Étiolles 1937) by Marie-Dominique Chenu, O.P., on the Vatican's "Index of Forbidden Books" as the culmination of a polemic within the Dominican Order between the Angelicum supporters of a speculative scholasticism and the French revival Thomists who were more attentive to historical hermeneutics.[14]

Garrigou-Lagrange gave the retreat in Paris which attracted Yves Congar to leave the diocesan seminary in order to join the Dominicans.[15] Later, Congar's methodology was suspected of Modernism because it seemed to derive more from religious experience than from syllogistic analysis.[16]

Garrigou-Lagrange also supervised the doctoral research of Maurice Zundel who completed his dissertation in 1927 with a dissertation entitled L'Influence du nominalisme sur la pensée chrétienne.[17]

Perhaps the most famous of his students was the future Pope John Paul II, who was supervised by Garrigou-Lagrange for his doctoral research in the mid-1940s at the Angelicum, and whose encyclical Fides et Ratio is attributed to his training under the learned Dominican.

He died on 15 February 1964 in Rome. The International Dominican Foundation (IDF) established Réginald de Rocquois Foundation in his memory at Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas where he taught most of his career, which grants annual Réginald de Rocquois scholarships.[18]

He produced 28 books and hundreds of articles. Among the most famous works are:

Commentaries on the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas

• The One God, commentary on Summa Theologica I.1-26.
• The Trinity and God the Creator, commentary on Summa Theologica I.27-119.
• Beatitude (1951), commentary on Summa Theologica I-II.1-54.
• Grace (1947), commentary on Summa Theologica I-II.109-114. scanned version.
• The Theological Virtues - Vol. 1: Faith (1948, English retranslation scheduled for 2018), commentary on Summa Theologica II-II.1-16.
• Christ the Saviour (1945), commentary on Summa Theologica III.1-26, 31-59.
• De Eucharistia (1943, English trans. scheduled for 2018)

Theological works

• Christian Perfection and Contemplation according to St Thomas Aquinas and St John of the Cross (1923)
• God, His Existence and Nature: A Thomistic Solution of Certain Agnostic Antinomies (1914)

• See also Pierre Duhem's appendix to it: "Note sure la valeur des principes de l'inertie et de la conservation de l'énergie"

• Life Everlasting
• The Sense of Mystery: Clarity and Obscurity in the Intellectual Life (trans. 2017, publ. by Emmaus Academic), French original: Le sens du mystère et le clair-obsur intellectuel (1934)
• Life Everlasting and Immensity of the Soul (1947)
• The Love of God and the Cross of Jesus (1929)
• Predestination (1936)
• The Priest in Union with Christ (1948)
• Providence (1932)
• The Three Ages of the Interior Life: Prelude of Eternal Life (1938), synthesis of Christian Perfection and Contemplation and Love of God and the Cross of Jesus (online)
• The Three Ways of the Spiritual Life (1938)
• Essenza e attualità del tomismo (1945) (in Italian)
• Principles of Catholic Apologetics, translated and rearranged by Thomas Joseph Walshe from Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange's De Revelatione (see below)

Marian works

• The Mother of the Saviour and our Interior Life (1948)

Philosophical works

• Reality: A Synthesis of Thomistic Thought Hardcover. Free Audiobook.
• Le sens commun: la philosophie de l’être et les formules dogmatiques (4th ed., 1936, English trans. scheduled for 2018)
• Le realism du principe de finalité (1932, English trans. scheduled for 2018)

Works in Latin (originals)

• De Revelatione per Ecclesiam Catholicam proposita – Theologia Fundamentalis secundum S. Thomae Doctrinam (Volume I & Volume II)

Works in Spanish (translated)

• Dios: Su existencia solución tomista de las antinomias agnósticas (Volumen I & Volumen II)
• El realismo del principio de finalidad
• El Salvador y su amor por nosotros
• El Sentido Común (Original in French: Le sens commun)
• El Sentido del Misterio
• La Madre del Salvador y nuestra vida interior
• La Predestinacion de los Santos y la Gracia
• La providencia y la confianza en Dios
• La Santificacion del Sacerdote
• La síntesis tomista
• Las tres edades de la vida interior
• La Unión del sacerdote con Cristo Sacerdote y Victima
• La vida eterna y La profundidad del alma

Other

• Works by or about Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Complete bibliography
• Nearly all his works in Latin, English, French, Italian, and Spanish are downloadable here.[19]

• Consecration and entrustment to Mary

• Garrigou-Lagrange, Réginald (2013). The Essence & Topicality of Thomism. ISBN 9781304416186.
• Nichols, Aidan (2008). Reason with piety: Garrigou-Lagrange in the service of Catholic thought. Naples, FL: Sapientia Press of Ave Maria University. ISBN 9781932589498.
• Peddicord, Richard (2004). The sacred monster of Thomism : an introduction to the life and legacy of Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange. South Bend Ind.: St. Augustine's Press. ISBN 978-1-58731-752-1.

• "A Saint in Heaven" by Fr. Thomas Crean, O.P.
• Audiobook of his Reality, digitally read at a fast pace
• Complete bibliography of all his works (in Italian)
• The Last Battle of Lagrange by Fr. Albert Kallio, O.P.
• An obituary, by his disciple, Fr Marie-Rosaire Gagnebet, O.P. (in French)