New Study Closely Compares Aquinas, Innocent III, and Albert on the Roman Canon

I am pleased to inform NLM readers about an important new publication from the EOS (Editions Sankt Ottilien): The Sacramental Signification in the Rite of the Holy Mass: The Synthesis of St. Thomas Aquinas in Comparison with Pope Innocent III and St. Albert the Great by Rev. Dominik Pascal Witkowski.

Dominik Pascal Witkowski (b. 1986) is a Roman Catholic priest of the Diocese of Chur, Switzerland. He studied History and Theology at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and pursued further studies in Humanities and Social Science at the University of Edinburgh. He completed his theological formation with a Baccalaureate, Licentiate, and Doctorate in Sacred Theology (STB, STL, STD) at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum) in Rome.

This study offers a systematic and comparative account of three major medieval commentaries on the rite of the Holy Mass: St. Thomas Aquinas’ exposition in the Summa theologiæ, Pope Innocent III’s De sacro altaris mysterio, and the De mysterio missæ attributed to St. Albert the Great. At its centre stands the Roman Canon—the core of the Latin Mass tradition—whose enduring liturgical use prompted centuries of theological reflection.

Bridging perspectives of doctrine, sacraments, and liturgical exegesis, the dissertation addresses the long-standing tension between the spiritual and philological schools of interpretation. By retrieving the Thomistic doctrine of spiritual signification—grounded in sacred doctrine and operative in Scripture, sacraments, and liturgy—it proposes a theological resolution. This Thomistic ressourcement demonstrates that the spiritual sense is not a subjective imposition, but an objective content of the rites themselves—signifying the passion of Christ, the sanctification of the Church, and the final consummation of the mystical body. In doing so, it contributes to the renewal of liturgical theology and highlights Aquinas’s synthesis as a vital key for understanding the Holy Mass in the Western tradition.

Fr. Witkowski explained to me that his book develops and presents, in an objective and scholarly way, the theological relevance and the deep significance of three major medieval commentaries; it touches only remotely on the major controversies of the twentieth century. Yet, by demonstrating the antiquity and richness of the older rites (one cannot help but be struck by the remarkable identity between the 13th-century curial rite and the pre-1955 Roman Rite), Fr. Witkowski contributes something still more fundamental: a case for the intelligibility, coherence, and perfection of the tradition, based on uncontested primary sources. This is a work that strongly presents the authority, integrity, and spiritual wealth of the Roman Rite.

This classic, extensive, detailed, and systematic study of the Holy Mass is sure to be appreciated by all serious scholars and students of liturgy, for its numerous insights into the Church’s liturgical heritage, particularly the mighty anaphora that stands at the heart of nearly all Western rites and uses.

A PDF of the Table of Contents may be downloaded here.