Educators Honor Dominican Order's Tradition of Teaching

ATLANTA, GA [05/15/08]-- The Secondary Schools Department of the NCEA (National Catholic Education Association) recognized the Dominican Order for 800 years of service to the Church. NCEA honored the continuing presence of Dominican sisters and friars in education in the United States at its annual convention April 18-21,2006.

Cynthia Thomas, President of St. Mary Dominican High School, New Orleans and Jane Meyer OP, ,Head of School of St. Agnes Academy, Houston, received the award on behalf of the Dominican Order. Donna Pollard, OP, Principal St. Pius X High School, Houston was also on hand. There are 29 Dominican high schools in this country.

The citation read:

The Order of Preachers was founded by St. Dominic in the 13th century as a board-based community of friars, nuns, lay women and men untied together in a common search for truth, and a desire to bring the gospel to the lives of the ordinary people of his times. (source: Barry University website)

From their beginning, Dominicans have always been connected to schools. As soon as Dominic received papal approval for the Order of Preachers in 1216, he enrolled his friars at the Cathedral school of Toulouse. He then sent them to study theology in other university centers: Paris, Orleans, Montpellier, Bologna, Cologne and Oxford. The brethren were sent “to study, to preach and to form a prayerful contemplative community. In the first formal foundation at Toulouse, the prime concern of the Founder was to erect a cloister with a floor of cells sufficiently commodious for study and sleeping. Far from being something of an exception, study became one of the fundamental elements of the Order. Dominic, who always carried the Gospel of St. Matthew and the Epistles of Paul, urged his early followers to study the Old and New Testaments unceasingly.

Dominic established a new link between study and preaching, the one initiating the other, and both serving the salvation of souls. Faced with the urgent need to combat heresy, his ideal was to gather into evangelical communities, learned and holy Preachers who would make use of their intellectual gifts in the service of truth.” (source: Bedoulelle, OP “Study in the Life of Early Dominicans”

The tradition of study as essential to teaching and preaching has remained through these 800 years a recognized pillar of the Order of Preachers. Thousands of Dominicans teach in colleges, universities, high schools, and elementary schools. In the Spirit of Thomas Aquinas, Albert theGreat, and Catherine of Siena, these Dominican educators have found their authentic voice in the simple words of a man who urged his followers to share with others the fruits of their contemplation.

The Dominican Association of Secondary Schools (DASS) will house the plaque that was presented by NCEA. There are 29 Dominican High Schools in the US. (see the list)