Saint Thomas Aquinas and the True Notion of “Common Good”, by Robert Lazu Kmita, PhD

By Robert Lazu Kmita, PhD, OnePeterFive, May 18, 2026

Robert Lazu Kmita is a novelist, essayist, and columnist with a PhD in Philosophy. His first novel, The Island without Seasons, was published in 2023. He is also the author and coordinator of numerous books (including an Encyclopedia of J.R.R. Tolkien’s World – in Romanian).
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When I found out that Michael Novak had tried to turn the Angelic Doctor into a precursor of Liberalism,[1] I was deeply astonished. Fortunately, such a misguided attempt received (at least) two solid replies: one from Dr. Kenneth R. Craycraft, Jr.,[2] and another from the French historian Pierre Manent.[3] Although both are perfectly clear, the latter was even radical, stating categorically that it is impossible to turn Saint Thomas into a “proto-liberal.”

On the other hand, remembering that even modern Thomists like Jacques Maritain and Yves R. Simon have wandered from the straight path of the texts, I calmed down somewhat. Although such exotic ideas (to put it delicately) can scandalize any connoisseur of the texts, they nonetheless prove the harmful nature of Modernism: even the minds of the most brilliant theoreticians are severely tested by the legion of errors and heresies of our times. …

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