ST. DOMINIC AND THE ORDER OF PREACHERS
Archbishop Alban Goodier, SJ, once wrote: "There is a chapter in the history of Europe which seems never yet to have been adequately written. It is the chapter which should record the debt owed by Europe and all Christendom to St. Dominic and his sons, the Order of Preachers, during a period of Europe's greatest crisis. At a time when every force, spiritual as well as political, threatened to tear Christendom asunder ..St. Dominic did more than any other man of his time to keep it as one."
St. Dominic was born of a noble family in Spain around 1170. He studied at the famous schools in Palencia before his ordination to the priesthood. In 1205 he went on a royal mission to Denmark with his bishop, Diego, after which both men visited Rome and the south of France. It was in France that St. Dominic came face-to-face with the Albigensian heretics (false believers).
Albigensianism was a re-appearance of the old heresy (false belief) of Manicheism. The heretics, all former Catholics, denied the fundamental trusts of Christianity, especially the divinity of Christ. They rejected most of the Bibles as well as the seven sacraments and claimed that the human body was evil. Marriage and the begetting of children were regarded as sinful. Although they still claimed to be Christians, the Albigensians had little Christianity in their teachings.
Why did hundreds of thousand of Catholics believe these false teachings? Several reasons have been put forward: the ignorance of the laity who knew little about their faith, and this was due in large part to the ignorance of the clergy who were the products of inferior theological schools. Some illiterates were even ordained to the priesthood in those days. Some could only read the words of the Canon of the Mass. Some bishops were also unlettered. Other possible reasons was the low moral life among some of the clergy of the time. The wealth and affluent lifestyle of bishops and abbots was often a source of scandal for the laity.
In an attempt to curb the heresy, Pope Innocent III sent twelve Cistercian Abbots as missionaries into Albigensian territory but they were largely unsuccessful in bringing the people back to the Catholic fold. In 1206 the Abbots were ready to concede defeat and return home when Dominic and Diego arrived. They persuaded the abbots riot to leave and agreed to stay and help them. But within a year the Abbots had gone home and Diego was dead. Dominic was left with only a few others.
Undismayed, he determined to continue: The Albigensians insisted that one. could not preach the Gospel sincerely if he did not live as an apostle, that is, dress poorly, travel on foot, have no luggage, possess no money, and beg his daily bread; for this reason,: people would not listen to any preacher who was not "poor". To gain a hearing; St. Dominic adopted his lifestyle and moved .and preached in the region., It was very dangerous; the Albigensians hated priests, maltreated them and even murdered some. When St. Dominic was refused a place to sleep, he would calmly sleep on the side of the road.
It was while leading this dangerous life among the heretics that Dominic realised the need of a religious order especially trained for this kind of apostolate: (Generally speaking; in those days priests. were either diocesan priests working in parishes or monks in monasteries. Very few orders existed then: St. Dominic's perseverance and his magnificent courage in the face of personal danger attracted other priests to him, and thus was barn the Order of Preachers .or Dominicans. Being .,poor, the Order had no home for the first years of its existence until they were given a house in the city, of Toulouse (France).
The bishop of Toulouse, Fulk, and St Dominic both realised that if: the Order was: to survive, it must have the approval of the Pope. Together they had an audience with the Pope in Rome in: 1215, the Pope was startled by St. Dominic's request: that he grant approval for an order to be called an order of Preachers. In those days it was normally only bishops who preached on doctrinal or moral subjects. Most priests preached simple exhortation. And in those days, when a priest preached he did so not by reason of his priesthood but because he had been delegated by his bishop. Dominic was requesting permission for the members of his order to be preachers, like the bishops, an not merely exhorters. The proposal was unprecedented and radical.
If the Pope gave St. Dominic permission to start an order of preachers, it would mean that they would be preaching before worldly or heretical bishops who may be disturbed by their message. It would mean that his priests would be allowed to go about poorly-clad and begging for their food, something which would be considered by many as degrading for a priest to do.
Pope Innocent III was reluctant to give permission to such an innovation, but eventually he told Dominic to return to Toulouse and decide on which of the existing religious rules (e.g., St. Benedict, St. Augustine, St. Norbert, etc.) he would want for his order. St. Dominic returned to Toulouse and there the friars (a word meaning "brothers") chose the ancient Rule of St. Augustine: By the time Dominic returned to Rome, Innocent III had died and Honorius III had become Pope. Honorius approved the order of Preachers on December 22, 1216.
St. Dominic now did an unexpected thing: although few in numbers, he dispersed his brothers to various cities in Europe where there were centres of learning (future universities). Within four years the order had spread to the major cities of Europe.
Perhaps sensing that his end was near and the work of establishing Order not yet finished, St. Dominic notified the: various priories in Europe to send delegates to a special meeting (the first General Chapter) in Bologna, Italy, in 1220. The meeting was not called merely for routine approval. The delegates were allowed to discuss; modify, or reject their founder's suggestion. In granting this absolute freedom, Dominic was introducing a degree of democracy that was a novelty in religions orders. As a matter of fact, the delegates rejected two of Dominic's proposals. Despite these two setbacks, Dominic won approval for what has proved to be one of the finest constitutions for any religious order in the whole Church.
Today, all orders of priests preach doctrinal and moral sermons; but Dominic was the first to obtain approval from the Church for so novel an idea. Today, all priests must study philosophy and theology; but Dominic was the firs to formally dedicate his order to such study. Today, most orders elect their superiors; but it was Dominic who introduced a genuinely democratic way of doing this. He was also the first founder to exempt his priest from manual labour; they were to use their time only for study, prayer, and preaching.
St. Dominic died at the age of 51 on August 6, 1221, in the Dominican priory in Bologna, less than five years after the foundation of the Order.
By Fr. Tom McDermott, O.P.
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