Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange

Gontran-Marie Garrigou Lagrange was born in Auch, near Toulouse, France on 21 February 1877. His father François Garrigou-Lagrange, was a civil servant. Lagrange was the relative of Henri Lasserre, a historian, through his mother, Cleménce Lasserre and his paternal grand-uncle was Maurice-Marie-Matthieu Garrigou. Although Lagrange's family was Catholic, the young boy didn't show signs of remarkable piety as was seen in the late nineteenth century of those who would later become saints. He went to many different schools but one of them was the lycée at Tarbes in which he studied philosophy for about a year. While studying at Tarbes, he wrote an essay on the problem of pain, in the essay he mentions the intellectual, moral and artistic advantages of suffering, but not the religious significance of suffering. Death As Garrigou began to lose energy, he was moved to the priory of Santa Sabina in Rome subsequently moved to the Fraternitè Sacerdotale Canadienne and died there on 15 February 1964. Benoît Lavaud said: ==Thought==

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 intérieure), 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. He synthesized 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. Father Garrigou-Lagrange, the leading proponent of "strict observance Thomism", attracted wider attention when in 1946 he wrote against the Nouvelle théologie theological movement, criticizing elements of it as Modernist. 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". In politics, like many neo-scholastic theologians of his time, Garrigou-Lagrange was a strong supporter of the far-right movement Action Française and he also sympathized with Vichy France. In 1941 he praised the French collaborationist regime and its Chief of State Pétain in a letter written to his former disciple Jacques Maritain: "I am entirely with the Marshal, I see him as the Father of the patrie, blessed with a good sense verging on genius, and as a truly providential man". Maritain described Garrigou-Lagrange as "valiantly fighting for Vichy," while Maritain's anti-Vichy student Yves Simon wrote of Garrigou-Lagrange, "If I did not hold the sacerdotal role in such respect I would write to him that I would hold him responsible if some misfortune comes to any of my Jewish friends". Indeed, Garrigou-Lagrange went so far as to declare in a letter that for a Catholic to support de Gaulle would be a mortal sin. However, as Matthew K. Minerd, Ph.D., states in an interview, Garrigou-Lagrange's support for the Vichy regime reflected a Catholic reaction against the French Revolution and the Republic, especially its anti-clericalism. Furthermore, in Garrigou-Lagrange's remarks on Pétain, Dr. Minerd has not found a single antisemitic statement. Garrigou-Lagrange also admitted a lack of engagement with political questions and acknowledged that politics was his weakest area. ==Influence==

''L'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. Garrigou-Lagrange taught many 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. In the period between World War II and the Cold War Garrigou-Lagrange was the "torchbearer of orthodox Thomism" against Modernism. In 1926 he served as the definitive consulter to Pope Pius XI in declaring John of the Cross a doctor of the church. 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 Librorum Prohibitorum as the culmination of a polemic within the Dominican Order between the Angelicum supporters of speculative scholasticism and the French revival Thomists who were more attentive to historical hermeneutics. Garrigou-Lagrange gave the retreat in Paris which attracted Yves Congar to leave the diocesan seminary in order to join the Dominicans. Later, Congar's methodology was suspected of Modernism because it seemed to derive more from religious experience than from syllogistic analysis. 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''. 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 Garrigou-Lagrange. Garrigou-Lagrange 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. ==Works==

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. PDF. • The Trinity and God the Creator, commentary on Summa Theologica I.27-119. PDF. • Beatitude (1951), commentary on Summa Theologica I-II.1-54. • Grace (1947), commentary on Summa Theologica I-II.109-114. PDF. • 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. PDF. • 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) scanned version. • The Priest in Union with Christ (1948) • Providence (1932) • Our Saviour and His Love for Us (1933) • 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) • On Divine Revelation: The Teaching of the Catholic Faith (trans. 2022, publ. by Emmaus Academic), Latin original: De Revelatione per Ecclesiam Catholicam proposita (final edition in 1950) • Principles of Catholic Apologetics, translated (in abridged form) 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). scanned version. ;Philosophical works • Reality: A Synthesis of Thomistic Thought PDF. ePub. Free Audiobook. • ''Le sens commun: la philosophie de l'être et les formules dogmatiques (4th ed., 1936). English translation as Thomistic Common Sense: The Philosophy of Being and the Development of Doctrine'' (2021, Emmaus Academic) • Le realism du principe de finalité (1932). English translation as The Order of Things: The Realism of the Principle of Finality (2020, Emmaus Academic) • Philosophizing in Faith: The Beginning and End of Wisdom Volume of collected, annotated, and translated articles, published by Cluny Media in 2019 ;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 • Complete bibliography • Nearly all his works in Latin, English, French, Italian, and Spanish are downloadable here. ==See also==