Magister in Sacra Theologia
“The way to do this is to deepen our appreciation of our Dominican tradition of prayer and study in common life,” observes Brother Anthony Akinwale, OP, who received the degree of Master of Sacred Theology[1] from the Order of Preachers in 2023, in the following interview granted to the Ordo Praedicatorum media.
What does it mean to you to receive the degree of Master of Sacred Theology from the Master of the Order?
In a way, it was a surprise. I know I was nominated by our Provincial Chapter in 2009, but I never asked why the dossier did not seem to be moving forward. It was none of my business to ask. I received the joyful news one evening in February 2023, while lecturing to African Dominican nuns in Nairobi, Kenya. It was a surprise that was also an invitation to reflection. The timing of the news and the monastic environment in which I received it provided an opportunity to consider the significance of the conferral of the degree. Three things came to my mind that afternoon.
First of all, I received the news while I was teaching. For me that means that in this new role I am called to continue teaching in the Order, in the Church and in the world. I am called to intensify my efforts to put the intellect that God has given me at the service of the Order’s preaching and teaching mission, and to move forward, despite the challenges. I wrote my doctoral thesis on the theology of the passion of Christ in St Thomas Aquinas. Since then, I have learned that the way of teaching is the way of the cross, and the way of the cross is the way of discipleship, the way of learning. This means that I must continue to learn, that I must continue to search for veritas in the way of the cross.
Secondly, I received the news in a monastery of Dominican contemplative nuns, which, for me, is a precious and privileged place of contemplation. Reflecting on this led me to a deeper understanding of the meaning of teaching as a Dominican: to teach is to share with others the fruit of one’s own contemplation of veritas, of Truth.
I feel obliged to mention a third meaning: honour. It is an honour to have received this title from the Master of the Order. As novices, while we were studying the Book of Constitutions, our Novice Master, Brother Chukwubuikem Okpechi, OP – a man who loves Dominican life and invited us novices to love it – carefully explained to us that this is the highest academic title conferred by the Order. It is given to brothers who are recognized for having made great contributions to the intellectual apostolate of the Order. I never imagined that one day I would be awarded this title. I am very grateful to the Master of the Order, to my Master of Novices and to the many other masters who have contributed to my intellectual formation.
This honour is also a challenge. A call to duty. It reminds me of what my mother liked to say to me. “Anthony,” she used to say, “much is expected from the one to whom much is given.” In this case, it means that the Order expects more from me. And the Order is entitled to do so. I hope and pray that I can live up to the Order’s expectations. And not only those of the Order, but also those of the Church, the academy and society. Because, after all is said and done, a Master of Sacred Theology is called to be a servant of veritas. The words of St. Augustine of Hippo come to mind. This is one of my favourite quotes from the Bishop of Hippo, himself a Master: “Praepositi sumus, et servi sumus. Praesumus, sed si prosumus” (De Diversis, serm. 9, 3; 35, 6.). One is a Master in Sacred Theology only if one is at the service of the Truth.
In your opinion, what is the Order’s current theological mission in the Church and the world?
A lot is happening in the Church and in the world. The plate of humanity is full. However, humanity is hungry. What a paradox! There is a hunger for truth, there is a hunger for goodness, there is a hunger for love. At the bottom of all this is the hunger for God. This often goes unnoticed. It is a hunger for supreme fulfilment, which can only be found in God. Yet, as I have often said, God is marginalised and maligned. He is marginalised by people who think that supreme fulfilment is to be found in great economic success and material abundance. And he is maligned by those who want to instrumentalise God in the quest to maximise power for the sake of maximum profit and maximum pleasure. The current theological mission of the Order, in my opinion, is to speak the true story of God to the world. What then is this true story?
The true story of God is: “God is love” (1 John 4:16). He is true love. I can testify that it was in some of the most difficult periods of my life that I experienced this love powerfully. I am particularly moved by one of the most beautiful Yoruba liturgical songs, “Ife l’Olorun” (God is love), composed by Father Thomas Makanjuola Ilesanmi just after the Second Vatican Council.
God told us the story of his love in his crucified Son. I do not believe that our theological contribution to the Church and to the world should be any different from what the Apostle Paul said: “We preach Christ crucified.” It is the story of the paschal mystery, of a God who came to us as a friend, while we were at war with him, whose love was betrayed and wounded on the cross, whose wounded love triumphed in the end, for the salvation of those who wounded him.
Telling this story to a sceptical world is a difficult mission, as it was in the time of Paul and the early Christians. We Dominicans, given our devotion to study, will need to understand the philosophies and languages of our time. We need to understand the philosophies in order to organise our thoughts. We need to understand the languages of our time in order to communicate effectively. We must be in a relentless search for the right philosophy and the right language to proclaim salvation in Christ crucified. We have not only devotion to study, but devotion to study and prayer. Therefore, we must pray for wisdom and courage to be able to speak to the world: a world of many religions, a world in which scepticism and superstitions have become religion, a world in which hostility and indifference towards religion have also become a religion. To be Dominicans in the world of our time means that we must pray for the courage and wisdom to say what Peter said to the house of Israel: “There is no other name under heaven given to men by which we may attain salvation” (Acts of the Apostles 4:12).
How is the synodal journey taking place in Africa?
First of all, let me say that synodality is not alien to Africa. Co-responsibility, which is one of the main intentions of the Synod on Synodality, is not new to Africa. I was born in a parish where I grew up seeing the co-responsibility of priests and lay faithful. After my ordination to the priesthood in 1987, I worked in the Diocese of Sokoto in north-western Nigeria, a diocese established through the heroic pastoral initiatives of American and Nigerian Dominican friars and sisters working in synergy with the lay faithful. Years later, at the golden jubilee of the diocese, I had the privilege of co-authoring with Emmanuel Akubor the book Sowing in the Desert: History and Pastoral Challenges of Sokoto Diocese. In the course of researching for the book, I was able to see the symphony and synergy of Dominican friars, sisters and lay faithful building a diocese in the heart of Islam. Without denying that there are cases of clericalism, I must say that I have seen what St John Newman called a conspiratio pastorum ac fidelium.
The growth of Christianity in Nigeria and much of Africa would have been unthinkable without this conspiratio of the missionary era, which continues today. We have many cases of parishes established through the initiatives of lay faithful. It would have been impossible to transmit the faith without the wise, exemplary and heroic pedagogy of lay catechists.
I have just presented a paper at a seminar for African delegates attending the second session of the Synod. The seminar was organised in Nairobi by the Symposium of the Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar. Bishops, priests and lay people participated. The discussions were open and frank. The central question was: How can we be a synodal and missionary Church? There is agreement on one thing: the Church must be welcoming, but not at the price of sacrificing the content of the Gospel received, preserved and handed down by the apostles. For me, the depth and quality of the discussions were edifying. The Catholic Bishops of Nigeria also gave me the task of synthesising all the contributions from the various dioceses, provinces, seminaries and theological faculties in the country. Reading them was quite enriching for me.
Some Africans believe that the agenda of the Synod originated in the global North and perceive a lack of preparedness to listen to Africa. For my part, I believe that the global Church will be greatly enriched if there is listening on all sides. There is a need for the Church in the global North to listen to the Church in the global South and vice versa. The former is tempted to capitulate to secularism, while the latter is, in some places like the far north of Nigeria, threatened by radical Islam, and, in many other places in Africa, challenged by a Pentecostalism which appeals to the emotions, apart from reason, in matters of faith.
What aspects of theological reflection are necessary for the formation of future Dominican theologians in Nigeria and, more generally, in Africa?
I believe that if we are to theologise as Dominicans, what is needed on the part of every Dominican on every continent is that we learn to appropriate the Dominican tradition of prayer and study – the symbiosis of spiritual and intellectual formation – for the pastoral task of preaching and teaching. For us as Africans, I have always believed in reading the writings of St Thomas and other saints of our Order in light of our African experience. There seems to be an unexamined assumption by some, and this is not unique to Africans, that St Thomas belongs to a past that has nothing to say to the present. However, we must be like the wise scribe who draws from his repository things old and new.
The intellectual synthesis of St Thomas is needed today, as aptly described by the title of a recent publication, a collaboration between the Dominican University of Ibadan and the Thomistic Institute of the Angelicum: Thomas Aquinas in Twenty-First Century Global Thought. In a global and multicultural world, we must recover the dialogue between St Thomas and African philosophies. In this regard, the establishment of the Centre for Dialogue in Africa at the Dominican University of Ibadan by the Master of the Order presents a locus theologicus, an opportunity that has the potential to enrich our theological reflection among the recently erected ecclesiastical faculty of theology at this same university.
In saying this, I bear in mind that, in today’s universities, STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) courses have been given an imposing, perhaps I should say imperial, status. We are in what I call a stemocratic university regime. But the resources of our Dominican intellectual and mystical tradition of Dominic, Thomas, Catherine of Siena and others offer today’s technocratic mentality a much-needed sapiential root, without which humanity may be rapidly running down the road to self-annihilation. It is my hope that the formation of future Dominicans in Africa will result in an African appropriation of the Dominican tradition. We do not have to Westernise ourselves to be Dominicans. To paraphrase what Pope St. Paul VI said to Africans in Kampala, Uganda, in 1969, at the inauguration of the S.E.C.A.M. (Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar), we can and must be Africans and Dominicans.
To return to my answer to an earlier question, in our theological reflection as Dominicans in Africa and elsewhere, we must tell the story of a God who is love. This God is, as St Thomas teaches, the subiectum theologiae (Summa theologiae, q. 1 art. 7). Our task is to learn to tell God’s story to our African audience and, ultimately, to a global audience. Our theology must be attentive to God’s Word and to the situation in which its recipients live. How do we tell the story of a God who is love in the midst of human anguish? This is the formidable task ahead of us, but we have the Paraclete at our side: the Spirit of truth.
Would you like to add anything?
The greatest contribution a Dominican can make to the Church and to the world is simply to be a Dominican. There is a spiritual and doctrinal vacuum in our world. It is not that Dominicans are the only ones who can fill it. It is not that Dominicans have nothing to learn from others. It would be intellectually arrogant to think otherwise. But I think it is true that, thanks to Divine Providence which gave the Church a farsighted preacher like Blessed Father Dominic, the Dominican is uniquely prepared and placed to fill this void. The way to do this is to deepen our appreciation of our Dominican tradition of prayer and study in common life.
I must conclude by adding a word of gratitude from the depths of my heart to those whom I have had the privilege of teaching. In teaching them, they have taught me. I have learned much more from them than I learned while studying for higher degrees. They have taught me to be of service to the Truth. As I watch them excel, I thank God for their gifts to the Order, to the Church and to the world.
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Brother Anthony Alaba Akinwale, OP, was born in Ebute Metta, Lagos, Nigeria, on 10 June 1962. He made his first profession in the Order of Preachers on 27 September 1981. He studied philosophy at the Seminary of Ss Peter and Paul, Ibadan, Nigeria, and theology at the Faculté de Théologie Catholique in Kinshasa, Congo. He was ordained a priest on 20 December 1987. After ordination, he worked in the Catholic Diocese of Sokoto. He continued his studies at the Collège Dominicain de Philosophie et de Théologie in Ottawa, Canada, where he obtained his MA and BA in theology in 1991, and then at Boston College, USA, where he earned a PhD in 1996. He was the first Dean of Studies at the Dominican Institute, Ibadan (1996 to 2000), and then became its president from 2004 to 2016. From 2017 to 2022 he served as Vice Chancellor of the newly established Dominican University of Ibadan. In 2022 he held the Val McInnes Chair at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas – Angelicum, Rome. In addition, he served as President of the Catholic Theological Association of Nigeria from 2001 to 2004 and as an expert witness at the Symposium of the Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar and the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria. He has been a member of the Academic Council of Studio Gilsoniana, a journal of the International Etienne Gilson Society and the Polish Society of Thomas Aquinas since 2018. He is currently the Deputy Vice Chancellor of Augustine University, Ilara-Epe, Lagos State, Nigeria.
[1] The Master in Sacred Theology is an honorary degree granted by the Master of the Order, following the recommendation of the General Council in accordance with certain requirements for the granting of this degree. The title dates back to 1303, when the Pope of the time, Benedict XI, a Dominican, created this degree so that the Order of Preachers could grant the faculty of teaching theology. Today it is exclusively an honorary title, but it is the highest recognition of excellence in the sacred sciences within the Order of Preachers.
