Our History

The Fides et Ratio Institute takes as its goal the words of Jesus Christ: omnis scriba doctus profert de thesauro suo nova et vetera (Mt 13:52). In forming its students,
the Institute seeks to study philosophical and theological treasures both old and new. The old treasures include the philosophers and theologians of the past, the great thinkers and Fathers and Doctors of the Church, studied in light of and with a particular love for the one who “seems to have inherited the knowledge of them all”: Saint Thomas Aquinas. Likewise, the Institute finds new treasures in those contemporary thinkers who have sought to clarify the Angelic Doctor’s thought, to delve more deeply into his premises, and to engage the modern world with his spirit.

Among them are Cornelio Fabro and Saint John Paul the Great, whose magisterium and vision for a Catholic university guide the Institute. Located in Fossanova, where Saint Thomas Aquinas died and was first buried, the Institute seeks to make him live again by bringing his thought to its students; an alumnus of the Institute should be known by an ability to understand the past, dialogue in the present, and lay the foundations for the future all in light of the Church’s magisterium and the light of the Angelic Doctor. An early biographer of Aquinas, Bernard Gui, writes that when the monks at the monastery tried to move the saint’s body, upon opening the tomb, there came forth such a beautiful smell that it filled the whole abbey. Today, the Institute’s goal is to once again open the door to Aquinas, reveal him to the world, and allow the sweet fragrance of his teachings to fill the whole world, “a sweet-smelling incense offered by Christ to God” (2 Cor 2:15).