In this article I would like to focus attention on the unique American religious experience as it relates to Thomas Aquinas. For the ideals articulated by Aquinas and his Dominican associates in the medieval university, especially the left bank academic institutions which eventually became the University of Paris, deeply influenced the founder of the American Dominicans, Edward Dominic Fenwick.

To remember, at this time, Fenwick and the historical context in which he devoted his life is quite appropriate. For not only is this the anniversary year of the founding of the Diocese of Columbus, which has offered one hundred and twenty-five years of service to central and southern Ohio, but it is also the one hundred and seventy-fifth anniversary of the founding and dedication of the first Roman Catholic Church in Ohio: St. Joseph’s near Somerset. The person who founded and dedicated St. Joseph’s was the Dominican friar, Edward Dominic Fenwick. It is, in addition, the one hundred and twenty-fifth anniversary of the establishment of the religious community of St. Mary of the Springs where this article was first delivered in lecture form.