Friendship is a Difficult Good | Fr. Cassian Derbes, O.P.

The Thomistic Institute

Christianity, Society & Culture, Catholic Intellectual Tradition, Catholic, Philosophy, Religion & Spirituality, Thomism, Catholicism

4.8 • 729 Ratings

🗓️ 15 May 2025

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Fr. Cassian Derbes explores why friendship is a difficult but essential good, drawing on Aquinas, Aristotle, Cicero, Augustine, and Dante to show how hope, fortitude, and magnanimity help us overcome sloth and despair in pursuit of true friendship as a common good.

This lecture was given on January 18th, 2025, at Cedarbrake Catholic Retreat Center.

For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.

About the Speaker:

Fr. Cassian Derbes, O.P. is a priest of the Dominican Province of Saint Joseph. He is currently a visiting professor at the University of Notre Dame in the Mendoza College of Business. Father Cassian served recently as vice dean and professor of theology at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum) in Rome. His previous teaching positions include as adjunct professor of theology at the Pontifical College Josephinum in Ohio. Father Cassian earned his Doctorate in Sacred Theology (S.T.D.) from the Angelicum. He has a Licentiate in Sacred Theology (S.T.L.) from the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, DC, a Bachelor’s degree (B.A.) from New York University (N.Y.U.), and he is a graduate of Jesuit High School in New Orleans, Louisiana. From 2014-2020, Father Cassian served as director of an initiative at the Vatican under Pope Francis to design, implement, and teach an executive leadership development program for the Cardinals, Bishops, and senior lay officials of the Roman Curia. Father Cassian is a Missionary of Mercy, having been appointed by Pope Francis in 2015.

Keywords: Aquinas on Virtue, Aristotle, Augustine, Cicero’s De Amicitia, Common Good, Dante’s Divine Comedy, Fortitude and Magnanimity, Friendship and Hope, Sloth and Despair, Thomistic Philosophy

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Tumistic Institute podcast.
0:06.0	Our mission is to promote the Catholic intellectual tradition in the university, the church, and the wider public square.
0:12.0	The lectures on this podcast are organized by university students at Tumistic Institute chapters around the world.
0:19.0	To learn more and to attend these events, visit us at to mystic institute.org.
0:24.6	Friendship is a difficult good.
0:27.3	For St. Thomas, all human actions aim at some perceived good.
0:31.8	These goods are hierarchically ordered.
0:34.6	Lower goods are material or physical goods that fulfill basic human needs,
0:39.3	like food, shelter, or even wealth. Higher goods are spiritual, intellectual, and moral
0:45.9	goods that lead to the ultimate purpose of human life. Friendship, I'd like to argue,
0:52.0	is one of the highest goods, but it is also a difficult good to achieve and to sustain.
0:59.4	You might find that agrees with your experience.
1:03.6	One of the most beautiful treatises on friendship ever written was composed by the Roman statesman, Marcus Tullius Cicero, who wrote his
1:14.0	Deiachitia on friendship in the year 44 BC, nearly half a century before the birth of Jesus Christ.
1:23.4	Cicero is not short for words in the subject of friendship.
1:32.8	He says, it is the noblest and most delightful of all the gifts the gods have given to mankind, he says.
1:37.8	Cicero claims that friendship is what makes life worth living.
1:43.9	Full stop.
1:46.2	We need friendship all the time, Cicero says,
1:49.6	just as much as we need the proverbial prime necessities of life.
1:54.2	I'm not speaking of ordinary commonplace friendship, he says.
1:58.2	Delightful and valuable, though, they can be.
	...

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