Pope Francis addressed a message October 25, 2024, to Archbishop Vincenzo Zani, Librarian and Archivist of the Holy Roman Church, for the exhibit “The Book and the Spirit.”
On display at the Vatican Apostolic Library from October 25 to December 14, the exhibition celebrates the 750th anniversary of the deaths of St. Bonaventure of Bagnoregio (1217/1221-1274) and St. Thomas Aquinas (1224/1226-1274).
The exhibit features numerous documents relating to the lives of the two saints, and has a special link to the Vatican Library itself: The Library was inaugurated by Sixtus IV in 1475 to mark the 200th anniversary of the death of these masters of theology.
St. Thomas and St. Bonaventure are depicted together in a fresco by Ghirlandaio in the decoration of the Library, “among the great ancient and Christian authors,” the Pope noted in his message.
The two theologians are “luminaries” for an approach to knowledge, and in particular to theology, "in which intellectual depth and spiritual life, science and wisdom, humility and charity, interpenetrate and mutually enrich one other, in the willingness not to keep the fruits of speculation for oneself, but to share them with generous pastoral and missionary zeal."
Pope Francis affirms that "the Doctor Communise and the Doctor Seraphicus constitute valuable 'company' for every pilgrim walking towards Christ, tracing a path described by the former as a 'way' of intelligence enlightened by faith, by the second as an 'itinerary' of the mind, which from contemplation of creation rises towards God."
He echoes the words of Benedict XVI, himself the author of a thesis on the “seraphic doctor,” who described him as "a good, affable, devout and compassionate man, full of virtue, beloved of God and human beings alike...."
Francis notes that these two “giants of the faith,” in the run-up to the Jubilee 2025:
... teach us to look to eternal happiness as the supreme fruit of wisdom, science and charity, spurring us to make ourselves pilgrims in the faith, so that “the witness of believers [may] be for our world a leaven of authentic hope,” a flame that illuminates by tracing a path.
Welcoming the international cooperation involved in putting together the exhibition, Francis mentions the various institutions involved, including the French Embassy to the Holy See, the Centre Saint-Louis, the Leonine Commission, the Pontifical Universities Angelicum, Antonianum and Gregorian, as well as the University of Paris-Sorbonne, where St. Thomas and St. Bonaventure “were trained as masters of theology."
