Community of St. John

Impassioned by the search for truth at all levels, Fr. Philippe labored incessantly for the acquisition of wisdom.  Recognizing the great autonomy of the human intellect (which he saw as an expression of the respect the Creator has for his creature), he developed, with as much precision as possible, the three wisdoms of which man is capable: philosophical, theological, and spiritual (or mystical), a distinction found in Thomas Aquinas, and more recently reiterated in Fides et Ratio, published by John Paul II in 1998.  Fr. Philippe was indeed an original thinker.  His tremendous love for Thomas Aquinas does not, as one discovers upon closer reading, inscribe him in the "good old Scholastic Tradition."  As his confrere, Aidan Nichols, O.P., from Great Britain suggest, Fr. Philippe is unclassifiable.  "Fr. Philippe," he says "extends the tradition of the 'vision' of Thomas Aquinas by creatively transforming it.  I think he will one day come to be regarded as a major inspiration in late twentieth, early twenty-first century Francophone Catholicism."  Fr. Philippe was a man interested in anyone who seeks truth, no matter how different his or her background may be.  "All seekers of truth are friends," as he liked to say.