Honorary Dominicans for a Day
National Catholic Register, 6 August 2021
The charism of the founder of the Order of Preachers, who died Aug. 6, 1221, has something for every missionary disciple today.
My mentor, the late Father Richard John Neuhaus, was proud to be known as an “honorary Dominican.” He went further, once telling a Dominican audience that, “Had I entered the Church 30 years earlier than I did, I might have been a real Dominican — if, that is, you would have had me.”
I might say the same. Not a convert like Father Richard, I suppose the Dominicans would have been a possibility for me. But I very much doubt that they — or any other religious community — would have had me. The secular priesthood is more congenial for a struggling worldling, but if I had to join an order, I would, with Father Richard, be a Dominican.
On the 800th anniversary of St. Dominic’s death on Aug. 6, 1221, we might all call ourselves for the day “honorary Dominicans.” (His feast day is Aug. 8, to avoid being perpetually displaced by the Transfiguration.) The charism of St. Dominic has something for every missionary disciple today.
Dominic, born in 1170, traveled in Europe as a young priest. There he confronted two realities, as explained by Benedict XVI in his catechesis on St. Dominic in 2010.
“[There were] people who were not yet evangelized on the northern boundaries of the European continent, and [there was a] religious schism that undermined Christian life in the south of France where certain heretical groups were creating a disturbance and distancing people from the truth of the faith,” Benedict said.
Dominic thus founded his Order of Preachers with a twofold mission, according to Benedict: “Missionary action for those who did not know the light of the Gospel and the work of the re-evangelization of Christian communities became the apostolic goals that Dominic resolved to pursue.”
For this task of missionary preaching, Dominic put a heavy emphasis on theological formation, particularly on biblical study. Hence, as Benedict said, “he did not hesitate to send them to the universities of the time, even though a fair number of clerics viewed these cultural institutions with diffidence.”
The early Dominicans were not alone in having scholars; the early Franciscans boast two doctors of the Church, St. Bonaventure and St. Anthony of Padua. Yet Dominic gave higher studies a special emphasis, precisely to be an evangelical force in the world of culture-shaping thought. That Dominican charism continues to the present day, as the Order of Preachers operates a vast array of intellectual apostolates.
The Dominican motto “Veritas” (Truth) arose at a time when there were fierce controversies about the truth about God, about salvation, about the Church. Today that motto is more provocative still, when the very idea of truth is contested. The battle for the reality of truth is engaged far beyond the university campus today.
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