Tommaso Maria Zigliara

Tommaso Maria Zigliara, OP (29 October 1833 – 11 May 1893) was a Corsican priest of the Catholic Church, a member of the Dominicans, a theologian, philosopher and a cardinal.

Soon after ordination the young priest was appointed to teach philosophy, first in Rome, then at Corbara in his native Corsica, and later in the diocesan seminary at Viterbo while master of novices in the neighbouring convent at Gradi.

When his community was forced by the Italian Government in 1873 to give up the convent of the Minerva, Zigliara with other professors and students took refuge with the Fathers of the Holy Ghost, who had charge of the French College in Rome.

Zigliara had a role in composing papal encyclicals that supported the revival of Thomism and responded to the modernist crisis: Aeterni Patris and Rerum novarum.

He also found time to publish his "Propaedeutica ad Sacram Theologiam" and to write an extensive work on the sacraments, of which only the tracts on baptism and penance received final revision before his death.

In his own order and in some universities and seminaries, the teaching of St. Thomas had never been interrupted, but it was reserved for Zigliara to give a special impetus to the movement which has made Thomistic philosophy and theology dominant in the Catholic world.