St. Thomas Aquinas Summary

All things have a common origin, a common beginning. In his Quinque viæ, St. Thomas Aquinas discussed about the existence of a higher divine being in the form of five points: the unmoved mover; the first cause; the argument from contingency; the argument from degree; and the “argument from design” idea.
In a similar fashion for all Ryanites, specifically, the Catholic school students and alumni of the continental United States of America, their very existence as students of American Catholic Education can be traced back to a common origin, a common place: the sandy beaches of St. Augustine, Florida, in the year 1606. At the time, the Spanish missionaries from the Order of Saint Francis (aka “Franciscans”), had no idea that they were sowing the seeds of what will later become the American Catholic School System.
In their case, the Canadian Catholic School System dates back to 1616, when missionaries from a French reformed branch of the Franciscan Order called the “Les Frères mineurs récollets” (aka “The Recollects”; simply referred to in French as “Les Récollets”) set out to do what exactly their Spanish counterparts had done in modern day Florida. However, when the French and Indian War was won by the British, the Canadian Catholic School System fell into disarray for the next thirty years. The same cannot be said for their American counterpart, however; for the independence of the Thirteen Colonies from the British crown ensured a much better fate for the American Catholic School System, firmly under the shadow of the United States of