Letter from the President
Dear Friend,
This is the impulse of
St. Dominic: to send his
men to the universities.
When I see all these young
men being sent out to
universities, I see the seeds for
the renewal of our culture...
This is the single greatest
success story in the Catholic
Church in America, period.
In this issue of Faith & Reason, we are
commemorating the 800th anniversary
of the founding of the Order of Preachers!
This jubilee year is a time for giving thanks
for the manifold graces that the Lord has
poured out upon the Order, as well as
through the Order for the Church and the
world, in these past eight centuries.
Yet this jubilee is not primarily a time for
looking backwards—it is about looking
ahead and discerning how best to fulfill
our original mission in our contemporary
context. The mission remains the same:
preaching for the salvation of souls. And
there is as great a need today for solid,
theologically informed preaching as there
was in St. Dominic’s time. Here at the PFIC,
we are giving the many men we are blessed
to have preparing for the priesthood the
spiritual and intellectual formation to
carry on our centuries-old mission in the
21st century!
St. Dominic Disperses the Brethren
That mission takes on a variety of
different forms. You will see in this
issue that some of our friars, like
Fr. Bill Garrott, O.P., continue to follow the
model of St. Dominic himself as itinerant
preachers, touching the lives of countless
people throughout the nation through
parish mission preaching. Many other
friars carry out the mission of the Order
in the classroom, following the example
of St. Thomas Aquinas. Friars form the
backbone of our faculty here as well as
at Providence College, while others are
teaching at universities and seminaries
throughout the country and the world.
Photo by Fr. Lawrence Lew, O.P.
Saint Dominic's Church, Washington, D.C.
Faith & Reason - Volume III, Issue II
—Bishop Robert Barron,
speaking at the PFIC
Commencement in May
0060_BLKFM_Faith & Reason_VF.indd 2-3
Perhaps the most exciting new venture
the PFIC is embarking on at this time is
the expanded outreach of our Thomistic
Institute on the campuses of secular
universities. Thanks to some very
generous gifts received for this purpose,
the Thomistic Institute is in the process of
organizing lecture series on contemporary
issues of faith and morality at schools like
Yale, Harvard, Brown, Duke, and New
York University, to name but a few! These
lectures will bring the truth of the Faith and
the wisdom of St. Thomas to environments
where the secular culture reigns supreme,
but where there is also a hunger among
students for deeper meaning in life. A
feature article in this issue will give you a
better picture of this exciting new project!
At our Commencement on May 13, Bishop
Robert Barron commented on these new
developments saying, “When I see all these
young men being sent out to universities,
I see the seeds for the renewal of our
culture.” Yes, the Order is 800 years old,
but our original mission is as urgent as
ever. Here at the PFIC, we are striving
to be faithful to the mission by preparing
our students to renew our culture at
universities and elsewhere with the Truth
of the Gospel!
Fr. John Langlois, O.P.
President
Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception
3
6/16/16 12:45 AM