As a result of the virtues and vices of Aquinas’ doctrine of revelation, the Church must progress cautiously with prayerful caution when it looks to the medieval theologian’s discourse on faith, reason, and revelation. Sadly, the Catholic Church is laden with the negative effects of Aquinas’ teachings. The thirteenth and fourteenth centuries witnessed the rapid growth of the heresy known as Mysticism. Feminine works such as Marguerite Porte’s The Mirror of Simple Souls employed Aquinas’ discourse of the beatific vision, teaching that through deep contemplation, starvation, and self-denial one could be so illuminated by the Holy Spirit that a woman could experience sexual gratification with God. Less extreme works, although still anti-Biblical such as The Cloud of Unknowing, taught that through contemplation one must completely reject oneself and all modes of the Church in order to allow the Spirit to illumine and eventually absorb one’s consciousness into the Divine Essence.
Apart from the Mystic’s writings on contemplation, the Church itself placed a tremendous emphasis on Aquinas’ hierarchy of intellects. His works were used to justify papal infallibility as well as the equality of Church tradition with Scripture. Today, the Catholic Church continues to labor under poor theology as Catholics are taught that mediation through an ordained priest is required to know God and His essence. Most Catholics remain ignorant of the Word, its teachings, and therefore, of Jesus Christ.
Pat - don't necessarily agree with you on the last statement on your assessment about Catholics :). I would say most Catholics are about as cognizant of what a relationship with Christ looks like as much as most other Christian denominations' congregations. Most of the priests that I have heard in my lifetime only really say that a priest's mediation is required for the Sacraments (Baptism, Communion, Confession/Reconciliation, Marriage, Last Rites, etc), not a relationship with Christ himself, and in fact encourage the congregation to read their Bibles and pray to God on a daily basis.
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