The Last of the Fathers

A contextual portrait of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, along with Pope Pius XII’s encyclical letter on the Doctor of the Church. Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, a dominant figure in the history of the Catholic Church and the last of the Church Fathers, died in his monastery in Burgundy on August 20, 1153. In commemoration of the eighth centenary of his death, Pope Pius XII issued one of his most significant encyclical letters— Doctor Mellifluus —which Thomas Merton presents here, together with an introd