Memorial of Saint Dominic, priest
(Jeremiah 31:31-34; Matthew 16:13-23)
A few months ago someone wrote on public media that she knew
little about St. Dominic, the founder of the Order of Preachers, the “Dominicans”.
Not only she but many others have
hardly heard of St. Dominic. But almost
everybody has heard about St. Francis, Dominic’s contemporary and founder of
the Order of Friars Minor, the “Franciscans”. It is only reasonable because the life of
Dominic was hardly as spectacular as that of Francis. Dominic never took off his clothes in public,
as Francis did, to protest his father’s dislike for him becoming a vowed
religious. Nor did Dominic debate the
Sultan of Egypt or initiate the custom of a creche to celebrate Christmas. Dominic was only a Spanish priest with a dream
to evangelize the world and the organizational ability to do so.
Dominic’s dream was born when he met members of the
Albigensian religious sect in southern France.
These men and women were scandalized by the dissolute lives of many
clerics. Their outrage made them think
that most things spiritual were good and most things material were bad. They left behind belief in the sacraments and
the authority of the bishops. Feeling
pity that they abandoned the sure road to eternal life, Dominic desired to
establish a clerical order to preach to them the goodness of creation. With the pope’s approval, he sent out the
band of men he had gathered not only to France but also to other parts of Europe. In time the Dominican movement reached the
corners of the earth preaching that the Son of God became human to save men and
women from death because of their sins.
It is said that St. Dominic lives in each of his friars so
that if one praises a friar, the praise rebounds to Dominic. A Dominican who distinguished himself in
colonial Latin America was Antonio de Montesinos. He arrived in what is now the Dominican
Republic along with a handful of other friars around 1510. These friars noted how the colonists were
mistreating the indigenous population working in their plantations. They discussed how to respond and elected
Antonio de Montesinos to preach a sermon defending the indigenous. On December 21, 1511, Fr. Antonio climbed the
to the pulpit of the Dominican church in the city of Santo Domingo and chastised
the Spanish for their abuse. “Are these
not men,” Montesinos preached. “Are they not human beings like you? Are you not obliged to love them like
yourselves?”
Today we should raise the same questions about the
unborn. Both fetuses forming in their
mothers’ wombs and embryos frozen in laboratories possess human composition and
should be treated with respect and care. Dominicans in name of their founder
St. Dominic have united with popes, bishops, and people of goodwill to denounce
abortion and the freezing of embryos. For
them all human life is sacred because God took on human flesh in Jesus Christ.
