Does the Catholic Church rank the cardinal virtues?
Upvote:1
Yes, prudence is #1.
The rest flow from it, knowing what is right and choosing to do it is the basis for the other 3 virtues.
This what is taught in the 8th Grade Faith and Life series textbooks distributed by Ignatius Press. I don't know what catechetical reference there is for it and I don't have the textbook any more. But it expands on how the cardinal virtues relate to specific gifts of the Holy Spirit.
The Cardinal virtues and the Theological virtues aren't explained in the text as being interconnected in that way. I think you find their comingling in the gifts of the Holy Spirit more than anything. The Cardinal virtues are ranked by St. Paul and I've heard that the greatest is love because that's what will still be there I Heaven, so it is greater because it is eternal.
Upvote:8
From the Recapitulatio of Fr. Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P.'s De Virtutibus Theologicis (p. 20), a commentary on St. Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologica II-II, he gives the following categorization of the virtues (virtutes), following the organization of St. Thomas's treatment of the virtues in his Summa:
Here's a rough translation:
- The Virtues
- Theological (regarding the end)
- in the will
- virtue uniting us to God according to the beloved itself: CHARITY
- virtue tending to God desired by us: HOPE
- in the intellect
- virtue knowing God according to the authority of God revealing: FAITH
- in the will
- Cardinal (regarding the means)
- in the reason
- regarding the right direction of the acts of the moral virtues: PRUDENCE
- in the appetite
- rational
- regarding the operations toward another, rendering according to strict duty: JUSTICE
- sensitive
- regarding the passions
- withdrawing from it what reason dictates (for fear): FORTITUDE
- impelling toward something against reason (for sensual desires): TEMPERANCE
- regarding the passions
- rational
- in the reason
- Theological (regarding the end)
Prudence is indeed first among the cardinal virtues because it it deals with the "right direction of the acts of the moral virtues." Thomistic thought holds that "The will follows, does not precede, the intellect" (Thesis 21 of the 24 Thomistic Theses.)
St. Thomas Aquinas also wrote a Disputed Questions on the Virtues, and he distinguished three types of virtues—intellectual, moral, and theological—in Summa I-II q. 57.
The intellectual virtues are divided as follows (cf. Reality: A Synthesis of Thomistic Thought ch. 47 art. 2 "Classification of the Virtues"):
- Intellectual Virtues
- Speculative Order
- Wisdom
- Science (knowledge)
- Understanding
- Practical Order
- Prudence
- Art
- Speculative Order
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