The Catholic intellectual tradition is home to some of the greatest minds in human history. It has produced men and women of faith who have applied their intelligence and learning to the deepest questions that haunt the human spirit: questions about  the ultimate mystery of God, questions about life’s meaning and purpose, questions about what constitutes human happiness and what contributes to a rich, full life, as well as questions about our obligations to the source of all life and to those with whom we share life in this world. It is a tradition of inquiry that, at its best, has refused to divorce right thinking from right living, theory from practice, reason from faith, theology from spirituality, or pursuing the truth from seeing the beautiful and doing the good. In short, the Catholic heritage is a wisdom tradition.

St. Francis could be tough on those whose book learning became a source of pride in themselves and a source of power over others. He questioned whether those who know more necessarily know better. He was certain that those who know more are not necessarily better people. But he was no less certain that wisdom is a virtue. Indeed, in his Salutation of the Virtues, “Queen Wisdom” comes first, along with what he considered to be her twin sister: “holy pure Simplicity.”(St. Francis of Assisi, Salutation of the Virtues, 1)  For Francis, the surest signs  of the wise person are humility, personal integrity, lack of pretension and a preference for right action over mere words when sharing one’s learning with others. St. Bonaventure captured the sapient nature of the Franciscan tradition when he wrote: “[Let no one] believe that reading is sufficient without emotion, speculation without devotion, investigation without wonder, observation without joy, work without piety, knowledge without love, understanding without humility, study without divine grace, reflection without divinely inspired wisdom.” (St. Bonaventure, The Soul’s Journey Into God, Prologue 4)