“Beware the man of one book,” says the gray gym shirt. Its warning is printed beneath a reproduction of Botticelli’s painting of St. Thomas Aquinas.

Dr. Henry McCord, played by actor Tim Daly, is wearing the Aquinas T-shirt during a scene in the eighth episode of the sixth season of Madam Secretary.

This great show, which I wrote about earlier this year, has now finished its run. As I was watching Episode 8, I knew only two more episodes were to air. To my delight, in all three of the final episodes, Henry exceeded my expectations.

You have to understand that I am a philosophy professor who also teaches Greek and Latin. Rarely do I see a television show endorsing my favourite things, either verbally or even on T-shirts.

But not only does Henry wear that wonderful Aquinas shirt, he also gives a great speech in Episode 8 about virtue ethics.

“Most of us think of ethics as the rules of moral behaviour: you are what you do. But I teach a more theological approach, called virtue ethics. Virtue ethics says that who we are is not determined by the actions we take, but why we take them,” says Henry.

He ends his speech by recommending Plato’s four key virtues of wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice.

I don’t want to quibble unnecessarily, since I am happy to hear even this much on television. Aquinas spends an unusually large chunk of his Summa Theologiae talking about the four cardinal virtues. But it should be said that virtue ethics is not so much a theological approach as it is a philosophical approach.

It can be taught without being overtly theological. In other words, it is a moral theory that is accessible to anyone who wants to fully actualize their reasoning power. No explicit theological presuppositions are required.

Yet, as Aquinas recognized, it is the philosophical approach that best harmonizes with the truths about the human person emphasized by the Catholic faith.

To explain virtue ethics most accurately, Henry should say, “Who we are is not determined simply by the actions we take, but especially by why we take them.”

In other words, the intention of someone who acts is a primary determinant of the moral quality (good or bad) of their action. But intention is not the sole determinant, which Henry’s original wording could be misinterpreted to mean.

In Episode 9, Henry teaches his wife the complete Latin sentence from which people take the shorter saying “carpe diem” (usually translated as “seize the day”): “carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero” (which could be translated as: “embrace the day, trusting in the future as little as possible”).

This is not necessarily an endorsement of Epicurean YOLO (“you only live once”) hedonism. It could also be interpreted as wise counsel to adopt a philosophical mindset that makes the most of the present moment.

In other words, happiness is actually available in the present moment, at least if we intentionally choose to embrace it.

In Episode 10, the last of the season and of the entire series, Henry gets to finish telling a hilarious Aquinas joke that we heard him start to tell (but never finish) earlier on in the series.

Much to the satisfaction of the Henry fans in the audience, he chooses to finish telling it in the unexpected context of his speech at his daughter’s wedding. I only have space to offer you its tantalizing beginning: “Thomas Aquinas walks into a bar …”

I should mention that we possess no text where Aquinas says, “Beware the man of one book.” The Latin words usually attributed to Aquinas are “hominem unius libri timeo,” which literally means, “I am afraid of the person of one book.”

But those Latin words, falsely credited to Aquinas, are only traceable back to the 17th century. When used there, they mean that a specialist who is expert in one book is a most formidable intellectual opponent.

However, whenever the phrase is used today (as on Henry’s T-shirt), it is usually quoted by book lovers to condemn people who don’t read much more than a single book.

In the spirit of Aquinas, I would like to reconcile and harmonize the two apparently opposed meanings. I think Aquinas would say: “You should embrace today, by seizing the moment to focus intensely on one good book. Over a whole year, such focus adds up to formidable learning.”

For a formidable 2020, I offer you below a list of 10 good books mentioned in the pages of The B.C. Catholic that were published in 2019.