Why is Thomas Aquinas important for Catholic theology?
You could just read this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomistic The Catholic faith and its dogmas comes from the ecumenical councils and the infallible decrees of Popes not from Doctors of the Church. MHFM: This is an interesting new quote we recently came across from St. Robert Bellarmine [another Doctor of the Church] regarding St. Thomas Aquinas. St. Robert Bellarmine: “It is very credible that St. Thomas, Alexander of Hales, and other scholastic doctors had not seen the second synod of Nice [Nicea II], nor the eighth general synod… [they] were long in obscurity, and were first published in our own age, as may be known from their not being extant in the older volumes of the councils; and St. Thomas and the other ancient schoolmen never make any mention of this Nicene Synod.” (De Imag. Sanct. Lib. II. Cap. Xxij.; quoted in NPNF2, Vol. 14, p. 526) St. Robert Bellarmine says that St. Thomas Aquinas was probably unaware
