Dr. Boyle writes on Thomas Aquinas and Thomas More and published a lost work of Thomas Aquinas. A graduate of the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto, he has received a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, the Aquinas Medal from the University of Dallas, and delivered the Aquinas Lecture at the National University of Ireland.
Other Professional Activities
- Senior Fellow, Center for Thomas More Studies, University of Dallas, 2007-present.
- Associate Editor, Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture
- Member of the editorial board of the Thomas Aquinas in Translation series for the Catholic University of America Press
- Member of the editorial board for the Theology and Law Series, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies Publications, Toronto
AB, Highest Honors, Religion and History, Oberlin College
MA, Medieval Studies, Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto
MSL [Licentiate in Mediaeval Studies], Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto
PhD, Medieval Studies, Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto
Books
The Order and Division of Divine Truth: St. Thomas Aquinas as Scholastic Master of the Sacred Page (Steubenville: Emmaus Academic, 2021). A collection of my essays on St. Thomas Aquinas
Master Thomas Aquinas and the Fullness of Life, Dallas Aquinas Lecture Series 1 (South Bend, IN.: St. Augustine’s Press, 2014).
Editor with L. E. Boyle of Thomas Aquinas, Lectura romana in primum Sententiarum Petri Lombardi (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2006).
Selected Essays
On St. Thomas More
“Thomas More’s Letter to William Gonell and the Goal of Education,” Moreana 57 (2020), 11-22.
"Thomas More as Theologian in his Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation," Moreana 52 (2015), 11-43.
“Counsel, Comfort and Conscience in More’s Letters to Fellow Prisoner Nicholas Wilson,” Moreana 46, n. 176 (2009), 49-64.
“The Reading of Scripture in Thomas More’s Dialog Concerning Heresies,” Thomas More Studies 3 (2008).
On St. Thomas Aquinas
“Introduction,” St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Romans (Steubenville: Emmaus Academic, 2020), 1-17.
“St. Thomas, Job, and the University Master,” in M. Levering, P. Roszak, and J. Vijgen eds., Reading Job with St. Thomas Aquinas (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2020), 21-41.
“Aquinas on the Procession of the Holy Spirit,” in Matthew L. Lamb, ed., Theology Needs Philosophy (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2016), 202-208.
“St. Thomas Aquinas on Creation, Processions, and the Preposition per,” Quaestiones Disputatae 6 (2015), 90-101.
“On the Relation of St. Thomas’s Commentary on Romans to the Summa theologiae,” in Reading Romans with St. Thomas Aquinas (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2012), 75-82.
“Aquinas’ lost Roman commentary: an historical detective story,” in Thomas Aquinas: Teacher and Scholar: The Aquinas Lectures at Maynooth, volume 2: 2002-2010 (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2012), pp. 71-84.
“Analogy, Necessity, and an Editor’s Anxiety,” in Reason and the Rule of Faith: Conversations in the Tradition with John Paul II (Lanham: University Press of America, 2011), 55-62.
“Thomas Aquinas and his Lectura romana in primum Sententiarum Petri Lombardi," in Mediaeval Commentaries on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, vol. 2 (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 149-73.
“St. Thomas Aquinas on the Anointing of the Sick (Extreme Unction),” in Rediscovering Aquinas and the Sacraments: Studies in Sacramental Theology (Chicago: Hillenbrand Books, 2009), 76-84.
“The Analogy of ‘Homo’ and ‘Deus’ in St. Thomas Aquinas’s Lectura romana,” Nova et Vetera 6 (2008), 663-67.
“Aquinas’ Roman Commentary on Peter Lombard,” Anuario Filosofico 39 (2006), 477-96.
Portuguese translation of above: “Commentário Romano de Tomás de Aquino a Pedro Lombardo,” in E. Alarcón, ed. Atualidade do Tomismo (Rio de Janeiro: Sétimo Selo, 2008), 21-36.
“Authorial Intention and the divisio textus,” in Reading John with St. Thomas Aquinas: Theological Exegesis and Speculative Theology (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2005), 3-8.
“The Theological Character of the Scholastic ‘Division of the Text’ with Particular Reference to the Commentaries of St. Thomas Aquinas,” in With Reverence for the Word: Medieval Scriptural Exegesis in Judaism, Christianity and Islam (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 276-83.
“St. Thomas Aquinas and the analogy of potentia generandi,” The Thomist 64 (2000), 581-92
"The Two-fold Division of St. Thomas' Christology in the tertia pars," The Thomist 60 (1995), 439-447.
"The Ordering of Trinitarian Teaching in Thomas Aquinas' Second Commentary on Lombard's Sentences," Recherches de Théologie ancienne et médiévale, Supplementa 1 (1995), 125-36.
“Thomas Aquinas and Sacred Scripture," Pro Ecclesia 4 (1995), 92-104.
“Is the tertia pars of the Summa theologiae misplaced?” in Proceedings of the PMR Conference 18 (1993-1994), 103-109.
Other
Introduction to new edition of Christopher Dawson, Medieval Essays, part of the Collected Works of Christopher Dawson (Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 2002), vii-xviii.
“True Fiction” (not my title) – an essay on the late Spanish novelist Jose Maria Gironella, Commonweal, June 20, 2003, p. 30.
"Why Wisdom Matters," Invited Plenary Address at the 11th annual National Conference of the Institute for Catholic Liberal Education, Duquesne University, July 20, 2023
“St. Thomas Aquinas, Wisdom, and the University Master,” Invited Presentation at the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception in Washington DC at a conference on the 800th Anniversary of the founding of the Order of Preachers (Dominicans). April 2, 2016
“Master Thomas Aquinas and the Fullness of Life,” Aquinas Medal Lecture, University of Dallas, January 29, 2013
“St. Thomas Aquinas and Sacred Scripture,” Annual St. Thomas Day lecture at Thomas Aquinas College, January 28, 2011
“Aquinas’ Lost Roman Commentary: An Historical Detective Story,” The Annual Aquinas Lecture, National University of Ireland, Maynooth, March 21, 2006
“Aquinas’ Roman Commentary on Peter Lombard,” Invited Plenary Address at the XLIII Navarre Philosophical Meeting, University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain, April 25-27, 2005
Aquinas Medalist, University of Dallas, 2013
National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, 1997-98
University of St. Thomas Distinguished Educator of the Year, 1995
University of St. Thomas Excellence in Advising Award, 2021