Thomas Aquinas College's Chapel Cornerstone to be Blessed by Pope Benedict XVI in Rome
(September 3, 2008)
 SANTA
PAULA, Calif.—On Wednesday, September 3, 2008, the cornerstone
of Thomas Aquinas College’s newest building, Our Lady of the
Most Holy Trinity Chapel, was blessed by Pope Benedict XVI at the
Vatican. In attendance were the chairman of the board of governors,
Maria Grant; her husband and the executive director of the Dan Murphy
Foundation, Richard Grant; members of the board of governors and
their spouses; and president of the college Dr. Thomas Dillon. The
blessing occurred just after the Holy Father’s Wednesday audience
at St. Peter’s Basilica. It extended also to a cylindrical
module (to be inserted in the cornerstone) that contained lists
of benefactors to Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity Chapel—more
than 2,300 to date—as well as the names of students, faculty,
alumni, governors and other friends and benefactors of the college.
Transportation and handling of the 765-pound limestone cornerstone,
quarried in Indiana, was under the direction of Excel, a division
of DHL; a generous donation from one of the college’s benefactors
covered related charges.
 Says
Dr. Dillon, “It was a singular honor to present our chapel’s
cornerstone to His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, and we are most grateful
for his blessing. Having been blessed by Pope Benedict, on the feast
day of Pope St. Gregory and at a site under which rest the very
bones our first pope, this cornerstone will serve as a sign of our
resolve to be always faithful to the Chair of Peter and the Magisterium
of the Church.
 Dr.
Dillon adds, “To have had Pope John Paul II’s blessing
on this chapel project as it began, and now our present Holy Father’s
blessing as it nears completion, is a special grace. As a token
of our gratitude to Pope Benedict, I have sent him a spiritual bouquet
with thousands and thousands of prayers pledged for him from our
students, faculty, and alumni. In addition, marble renderings of
the coats of arms of both pontiffs will be inlaid in the multi-colored
marble of the main aisle of the Chapel, one at each end.”
 In
the evening following the blessing of the cornerstone, a dinner
celebration with members of the board of governors was held at Residenzia
Paulo VI. Guests of honor at the dinner were: Cardinal Francis Arinze,
Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline
of the Sacraments; Cardinal Francis Stafford, Apostolic Penitentiary;
and Archbishop Raymond Burke who had just moved to Rome from St.
Louis, Missouri, to take up his new post as prefect of the Apostolic
Signatura.
The cornerstone will be installed in Our Lady of the Most Holy
Trinity Chapel on October 27, 2008. The cost of this unique building—traditional
in design, but modern in materials and techniques—is $23 million.
Please visit the college’s website to view design drawings,
current photos, and a “virtual tour” DVD, here.
ABOUT THOMAS AQUINAS COLLEGE: Ranked the #5 “Best Value”
in the country for 2008 and 2009 among all private institutions
in the United States by The Princeton Review, Thomas Aquinas College
is a four-year Catholic liberal arts college with a fully-integrated
curriculum composed exclusively of the Great Books, the seminal
works in the major disciplines by the great thinkers who have helped
shape Western civilization. There are no textbooks, no lectures
and no electives. Instead, under the guidance of faculty members
and using only the Socratic method of dialogue in classes of no
more than 20, students read and discuss the original works of authors
such as Euclid, Dante, Galileo, Descartes, the American Founding
Fathers, Adam Smith, Shakespeare, Copernicus, Kepler, Newton, Einstein,
Aristotle, Plato, St. Augustine, and of course, St. Thomas Aquinas.
Graduates consistently excel in the many world-class institutions
at which they pursue graduate degrees in fields such as law, medicine,
business, theology and education. They have distinguished themselves
serving as lawyers, doctors, business owners, priests, military
service men and women, educators, journalists and college presidents.
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