ILLUMINATING mankind’s path toward salvation, the “hounds of God” continue to bear the torch of truth on their mouths since their father, St. Dominic de Guzman, founded the Order of Preachers in 1216.
According to Fr. Roy Rodriguez O.P., provincial promoter of vocations of the Dominicans in the Philippines, ignorance is the origin of sin, and teaching the truth is the only way to liberate mankind from error.
“Dominicans handle a number of schools in the country to instill the value of truth to those who enter our institutions,” Rodriguez told the Varsitarian. “In this regard, every Dominican must have the capacity to pursue the truth.”
The Dominicans are usually represented as “hounds,” an allusion to the dream of St. Dominic’s mother when she was heavy with Dominic of a hound that carried a torch in its mouth which served as a light for the whole world. The light signified the preaching of enlightened truth, so that the Dominicans have been called “hounds of truth.”
In the UST Central Seminary, those who intend to become a Dominican priest should accomplish the necessary documents and pass an IQ test, acquiring at least a rating of 110. After passing the requirements, the applicants will undergo a series of interviews to determine their motivation and decisiveness in entering the religious life.
After successfully passing the interviews, an applicant must undergo three stages of formation, namely the pre-novitiate, novitiate, and post-novitiate.
Usually lasting for three years, the pre-novitiate level prepares aspirants for Dominican formation at the St. Albert the Great Convent in Calamba, Laguna. However, college-degree holders may only stay for a year in this phase.
Meanwhile, the novitiate is a period of solitude and reflection at Our Lady of the Rosary Convent in Manaoag, Pangasinan, where the novices deepen their Christian understanding centered on the Paschal Mystery (suffering, death, and ressurection of Jesus Christ) in the context of Dominican traditions. A canonical novitiate year and several formative activities which may be held outside the novitiate house comprise this stage.
Lastly, the post-novitiate stage is the culmination of a Dominican seminarian’s life, where he is to take up philosophical and theological studies at the Sto. Domingo Convent, Quezon City.
After these stages, the Order determines the ordination for clerical formation or solemn profession of a Dominican brother.
Indeed, preserving the Dominican tradition deeply embedded on preaching the truth entails diligent and careful study of the Scriptures, wrote Helen Graham, a member of the Maryknoll Sisters of Saint Dominic and a teacher of theology in the Philippines for 30 years, in the book Building Bridges: Dominicans Doing Theology Together (published jointly by the Dominican Publication of Dublin, Ireland and the UST Publishing House of Manila).
“There is no way one can preach meaningfully on the liturgical readings without being deeply embedded in truth,” Graham wrote.
Because of the great reputation that the Order of Preachers has gained over the centuries, even different congregations and secular brothers prefer to have Dominicans as their mentors.
“Secular seminarians as well as religious brothers, who are considered as the cream of the crop by their respective superiors, are sent to our seminary to be taught by Dominicans,” Rodriguez said.
No conflict
Today, there are two provinces of the Order of Preachers in the Philippines, the Dominican Province of the Philippines and the Province of the Holy Rosary (the latter is commonly known as the Spanish Dominican Province).
“Although the Order is structurally dichotomized in the Philippines, conflicts do not rise among them,” Fr. Richard Ang, O.P., faculty secretary of the Ecclesiastical Faculties, said.
“There may be two provinces in the Philippines, but both still follow the general rule of the Dominican Order,” Ang told the Varsitarian.
It was the Province of the Holy Rosary which pioneered in the evangelization of the Filipinos. The first Dominicans in the country were Spaniards, and they first arrived as a group in 1587, one of the first missionary orders in the apostolate in the Philippines, although a Dominican, Fray Domingo Salazar, who was later to become the first bishop of Manila, had arrived with the first batch of Jesuit missionaries in 1581.
The first Dominican friars then divided the country into “vicariates.” They pioneered the missions in the North and founded several prestigious schools such as UST and Letran.
However, the province had to abandon its mission after the revolution broke out in 1898. Most of the responsibilities of the province were handed to the secular priests and other congregations.
Despite the departure of most of the members of the province, the Order managed to continue its apostolic duties in northern Luzon, in Manila, and in some educational institutions in the country.
After the foundation of the Philippine Dominican province in 1973, many territories under the supervision of the Spanish province were entrusted to the new prefecture. The Spaniards retained control of the parishes of Our Lady of the Rosary in Itbayat, Batanes, Sanctuario del Santo Cristo in San Juan, and Our Lady of the Holy Rosary in Binondo.
At present, the Dominican Province of the Philippines, which handles 10 convents, eight parishes, and six schools, wields its apostolic clout over the rest of the country, along with Indonesia and Sri Lanka, under the supervision of Fr. Edmund Nantes, O.P., Philippine prior provincial. The Philippine Dominican administrative office is at Santo Domingo Church in Quezon City, a landmark in Metro Manila.
The Province of the Holy Rosary, which is the mother province of both Provinces of the Queen of Martyrs in Vietnam and the Dominican Province in the Philippines, is under the administration of Rev. Eladio Neira Zamora, O.P., vicar provincial, together with 14 priests, four clerical brothers, and two Filipino members in foreign missions. At present the province holds office at the Convento De la Santa Cruz in San Juan.
Among the parishes under the Philippine province are St. Bartholomew Parish in Calayan Islands, St. Vincent Ferrer Parish in Camiguin Islands, St. Joseph Parish and Sto. Tomas Parish in Isabela, Our Lady of the Holy Rosary Parish in Pangasinan, San Lorenzo Ruiz and Companion Martyrs Parish in Navotas, Santissimo Rosario Parish in Manila, and Sto. Domingo Parish in Quezon City.
Catholic schools which enjoy Dominican patronage are Angelicum College in Quezon City, Colegio de San Juan De Letran in Manila, Laguna, and Bataan, Aquinas University in Legazpi, Albay, and Angelicum School in Iloilo City, Our Lady of Manaoag College in Pangasinan, and the University of Santo Tomas in Manila.
In his book Beginnings of the Filipino Dominicans, Fr. Rolando V. de la Rosa, O.P. attributed the emergence of the Philippine province to the Filipinization of different sectors of the society after the war in 1945.
“It is but natural that we (Dominican missionaries) have to leave the Philippines sooner or later, whether it be due to the imposition of the nationalist government, or to the establishment of an indigenous Dominican Province of the Philippines,” Fr. Silvestre Sancho O.P., vicar provincial in 1951, said in de la Rosa’s book.
In 1969, Thomasians staged several demonstrations for the transfer of UST administration to the Filipino Dominicans. Heeding the students’ sentiments, Filipino Dominicans assigned to the University wrote a position paper, demanding the appointment of native priests to administrative positions. This led to the formation of a Filipino Dominican committee that would later supervise the creation of a local Dominican province.
The committee was chaired by Fr. Leonard Legaspi, O.P., who became the first Filipino rector of UST in 1968, with Fr. Manuel Piñon, O.P. and Fr. Efren Rivera, O.P. as vice-chairman and secretary, respectively. The other committee members were Fr. Lamberto Pasion, O.P. and Fr. Jaime Cura, O.P.
The efforts of the committee led to a series of consultations with Filipino Dominicans supported by the Provincial Chapter in Avila, Spain in 1969. As a result, the Philippine vicariate was established and later became the Dominican Province of the Philippines after deliberations from the Filipino-Spanish preparatory commission.
Dominican Province of the Philippines, the 41st province of the Order of Preachers, was formally inaugurated on October 4, 1970.
Of the 130 bishops in the Philippines according to the 2006-2007 Catholic Directory, two are Dominicans – Most Rev. Leonardo Zamora Legaspi, O.P. of Caceres, and Rt. Rev. Msgr. Mario De Leon Baltazar, O.P., prelate emeritus of Batanes-Babuyanes. Also, 125 priests – 122 Filipinos and three foreigners – serve in different Dominican territories under the Order’s jurisdiction. The province also has 10 cooperator brothers, one clerical brother, six novices, and 51 pre-novices. In addition, more than 70 percent of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines have ties to the Dominicans since they got their philosophical, theological or canon-law education at the UST Ecclesiastical Faculties.
“Apparently, the Dominican Province of the Philippines has more members than the Holy Rosary Province,” Fr. Gerard P. Timoner, O.P., Rector of the Central Seminary, said. “But this is because most of the priests in the Holy Rosary Province are assigned in different countries. Both provinces are blessed with a good number of friars.”
Upholding truth
“One could say that our Order is born out of love for truth and conviction that men and women are capable of knowing the truth,” Timoner said, quoting from the General Chapter of the Order in 2001.
During the medieval ages, constant criticisms that led to heresies against the Church paved the way for the birth of the Order of Preachers.
Dominic de Guzman and Bishop Diego of Osma deplored the Cistercian monks’ failure to redirect the people of Southern France misled by the Albigensian heresy back to the Church because of the bad example and ignorance of the clergy. To address this problem, Dominic decided to form a group of priests that would walk and dress in humility, listen to the sentiments of people, and principally preach the Gospel to maintain the Christian tradition.
“In those dark ages, the authorities in preaching the Gospel were the Albigensians, whose misleading teachings resulted in the Albigensian heresy (which accepts no sacrament and rejects Jesus’ birth, crucifixion, and death). In order to redirect the people, the Dominicans came to rise and taught the scriptures, preserving the Christian tradition through the incorporation of reason to faith,” Rodriguez said.
In 1215, the Fourth Lateran Council strongly stressed the importance of preaching and confession in pastoral practice, which paved the way for the approval of the Dominican Order by Pope Honorius III in 1216. Dominic himself was canonized in 1234; his feast is celebrated every year on August 8.
For almost eight centuries, the Order of Preachers has built a significant reputation in different scholarly disciplines.
St. Thomas Aquinas, UST’s patron saint, provided the Catholic Church with monumental contributions, most notably the Summa Theologiae, which illustrated his philosophical prowess in reconciling faith and reason.
In his encyclical Fides et Ratio, Pope John Paul II admired the intellectual virtuosity of Aquinas, who strengthened the foundations of the Roman Catholic Church through his writings.
“In him (St. Thomas Aquinas), the Church’s Magisterium has seen and recognized the passion for truth; and, precisely because it stays consistently within the horizon of universal, objective and transcendent truth, his thought scales heights unthinkable to human intelligence,” the Pope said.
John Paul the Great knew whereof he spoke. He himself was a product of the Dominicans, having been perhaps the most illustrious alumnus in the 20th century of the Angelicum, the Dominicans’ pontifical university in Rome. Levine Andro H. Lao and Yve Camae V. Espena with reports from Jonathan Eli A. Libut
