Utah has seen two waves of Dominican friars

Friday, Apr. 10, 2015

The Dominican Order (Order of Preachers) was founded by Saint Dominic in 1216, at a time when the Church in Western Europe was widely perceived to have become so wealthy and bureaucratized that it was largely indifferent to the spiritual needs of common people. To fulfill those needs, various heretical groups had arisen, and St. Dominic’s particular concern was to evangelize those who had fallen under the influence of one of those groups, the Albigensians.  The motto of the order was Veritas (Truth), and in their quest to discover and promulgate that Truth, the Dominicans developed four charisms that became characteristic of the Dominican life: study, prayer, preaching and community life. As the focus of the order widened beyond just the war with the Albigensians, it developed great university professors and theologians like Saint Albert the Great and Saint Thomas Aquinas, mystics like Saint Catherine of Siena, and missionaries like Bartolome de las Casas.

Eventually the Dominicans found their way to Utah, where, since the 1940s, they have been a vital part of pastoral care in the Diocese of Salt Lake City.

The Dominicans arrived in Utah in two waves: the 1940s and the 1980s. The first wave of Dominicans included five priests, the most well-known of whom was Father Joseph H. Valine, who helped finance his ministry by selling doughnuts and was recognized for his work by Catholic Extension’s Lumen Christi award in 1988. From the early 1940s to the early 1950s those Dominicans established several parishes, mostly in rural communities, including Saint Thomas Aquinas in Logan, Saint Henry in Brigham City, Saint Elizabeth in Richfield and Saint Bridget in Milford. Eventually only Fr. Valine was left. He became one of the first “roving apostles” to central and southern Utah, covering missions and parishes like Saint John Bosco in Delta and Saint Christopher in Kanab. In more recent times, that roving ministry has been taken up by diocesan priests the likes of Monsignors Michael Winterer and Robert Bussen.

The second wave of Dominicans, which began in 1981, focused their ministries on the Newman Center at the University of Utah and its associated parish, Saint Catherine of Siena. Although a Newman ministry had been at the university as early as 1922, the need for such a ministry became increasingly acute after World War II when the university itself began to expand both in size and in academic quality.  

At about that time, Monsignor William E. Vaughn, chaplain of the Newman Club, learned that the Episcopal diocese wanted to sell its Emery House, a student center across University Street from the President’s Circle. Our diocese, with help from the Catholic Church Extension Society, was able to purchase it. A powerful Catholic ministry right on the university campus was now possible.

At about that time, the Western Province of Dominicans, headquartered in Oakland, Calif., began specializing in Newman Center ministries. Learning of that, Bishop Joseph L. Federal in 1971 applied to the Dominicans to send friars to take over our Newman Center so he could reassign his overtaxed diocesan priests to parish ministries. Although the province liked the idea, it had no friars it could spare at that time.

Ten years later, Bishop William K. Weigand tried again, and by then the province was able to provide three friars: Fathers Thomas McGreevy, Francis Wilks and Ricardo Garcia, who established a Dominican presence that has continued to the present day.  

Also in 1981, Bishop Weigand created a new parish, St. Catherine of Siena, affiliated with the Newman Center. Later, the parish chapel was greatly expanded and remodeled and a rectory purchased across the alley from the church. Today St. Catherine of Siena is one of the most active parishes in the diocese, with many charitable and social outreach programs. Not the least of their endeavors is the annual Aquinas Lecture, which brings in speakers of international repute and draws large crowds from across the diocese. During the 1990s, after a faltering start, a thriving chapter of lay Dominicans put down roots at St. Catherine Parish. (See story, below left.)

The Dominican friars rotate throughout the various parishes and Newman Centers in the Western Province, and there have never been more than several of them in Utah at a given time. But those friars with their distinctive white habits and their lay auxiliaries have been a powerful force in the ministries of the Diocese of Salt Lake City.