The questions Catholics get asked — and the answers as the great seminary manuals explain them. Pohle-Preuss as the spine, Glenn's Tour of the Summa as your bridge to Aquinas, and the major encyclicals in context.
Each question opens the tract where Pohle-Preuss treats it in full.
The traditional division of Catholic theology — Apologetics first, establishing the rational grounds for Revelation, then the dogmatic tracts with Pohle-Preuss as their spine.
The rational preamble to Faith — Revelation's possibility, the motives of credibility, the testimony of Christ, and the nature and grounds of Faith itself. Drawn from Walshe's Principles of Catholic Apologetics and Wilhelm-Scannell's Manual, Vol. I.
Read tractGod's existence and attributes — the proofs from reason, divine simplicity, perfection, and unity.
Read tractOne God in three Persons — processions, relations, and missions.
Read tractGod as Creator; the angels; man's body and soul; original justice and original sin.
Read tractThe Person of Christ — the Incarnation, hypostatic union, two natures.
Read tractThe work of Christ — redemption, satisfaction, merit.
Read tractDivine motherhood, perpetual virginity, Immaculate Conception, Assumption.
Read tractActual grace, sanctifying grace, justification, and merit — the supernatural life of the soul.
Read tractThe general theology of the sacraments — matter, form, causality, effects — followed by Baptism and Confirmation.
Read tractThe Real Presence, transubstantiation, and the Mass as the perpetual re-presentation of the Sacrifice of the Cross.
Read tractContrition, confession, satisfaction, and the power of the keys.
Read tractExtreme Unction for the sick and dying, Holy Orders for the Church's ministers, and Matrimony for the Christian family.
Read tractConscience, law, sin, the virtues and vices, the Decalogue.
Read tractThe Church — her nature, marks, authority, infallibility, and the papal primacy.
Read tractDeath, judgement, heaven, hell, purgatory, the resurrection of the body.
Read tractThe purgative, illuminative, and unitive ways; prayer; perfection.
Read tractEncyclicals and conciliar documents that shaped how the Church teaches each tract. Each précis is one screen — read in five minutes, link to the full Vatican text.
Defines as dogma that the souls of the just enjoy the beatific vision immediately after death (or after purgation), and that the damned descend to hell immediately — settling the controversy over the interim state of souls before the General Judgement.
Defines the Catholic doctrine on God the Creator, on divine revelation, on faith and reason, and on the relationship between faith and science — establishing the dogmatic foundations that all subsequent theology presupposes.
Defines the dogma of papal primacy of jurisdiction over the universal Church and papal infallibility when the Pope speaks ex cathedra on matters of faith and morals.
Restores the philosophy and theology of St Thomas Aquinas as the Church's authoritative intellectual method — inaugurating the Thomistic revival within which Pohle, Tanquerey, and the entire modern manual tradition write.
The founding document of Catholic social teaching — addressing the condition of workers, the right to private property, the just wage, and the proper roles of the state, the Church, and voluntary associations.
Defines the Church as the Mystical Body of Christ — a visible, hierarchical society animated by the Holy Spirit and governed by the Pope as Vicar of Christ.
A clear path for a complete beginner.
"Theology is taught by God, teaches of God, and leads to God."— St Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica I, Prologue