Servais Pinckaers, O.P.: 1925-2008

Servais Pinckaers, O.P. (1925-2008)

Some very sad news today. A brilliant Dominican moral theologian, longtime teacher at Fribourg in Switzerland, honored member of the ITC and formative contributor to the Catechism of the Catholic Church and Veritatis Splendor preparatory commissions, has passed away today....

The news this morning is that Father Servais Pinckaers, O.P., has died after a long period of debilitation. His history of Christian ethics and other writings—and especially his acute distinction between the “freedom of indifference” and the “freedom of excellence”—has had a powerful influence in Christian circles, and not only among Catholics, and certainly not only among Thomists. (RJN at First Things)

Pinckaers was one of the primary inspirations for my master's thesis ("Spiritual Spontaneity at the Heart of Morality"). You can read a decent biography of the great man here.

Also: a short Pinckaers CV, an essay of his entitled "The Place Of Philosophy In Moral Theology", and a personal note passed on from the dominicans who tended his bedside. His magnum opus is The Sources of Christian Ethics, but he also wrote a more introductory version of it: Morality: The Catholic View.

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Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat ei. Requiescat in pace. Amen.