Letter from the Director
Dear Friend,
The Dominican Friars are celebrating our
800th Jubilee this year. From the very
beginning, a central mission of our Order
has been preaching for the salvation of
souls at universities.
Just months after the Order of Preachers
was established and when there were
only 17 friars, St. Dominic dispersed them
to found new houses at the universities
of Europe. At first, the brothers objected,
warning that this move would scatter the
Order just when it needed to be built up.
But St. Dominic replied, “Do not oppose
me, for I know very well what I am doing.”
And he did. By his death a few years later
there were over 500 Dominican Friars
spread throughout Europe!
I recently had the privilege of baptizing
Fr. Halligan’s great-grandnephew, William
Connors Lord, at St. Dominic’s Church in
Washington, DC, where Fr. Halligan was
ordained to the priesthood. Our blessings
go out Fr. Halligan’s family, who have
been great friends of the Order and loyal
supporters of the Dominican Foundation
in our mission to restore our culture by
preaching Christ, the Truth, at our centers
of higher learning.
Today, the Dominican Province of
St. Joseph is the fastest growing men’s
religious order in the country with over 70
men in formation. This May, we ordained 11
new priests—our largest ordination class in
45 years! Today, as in 1216, we are following
the wisdom of our founder by sending
friars out preach Christ as the answer to
the burning questions of our age at our
nation’s top universities.
I would like to commemorate the passing
this March of a friar who embodied the
Dominican mission to higher education:
Fr. Raymond Ferrer Halligan spent 34 years
teaching Philosophy, Theology, and Sacred
Scripture at La Salle University before
becoming Director of the Dominican
Friars’ Guilds in New York.
BlackFriars - Volume III, Issue II
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Fr. Gabriel Gillen, O.P.
Executive Director
Dominican Foundation
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