St.
Albert's Priory and the An Introduction Autumn 1998 With monastic elements in its daily life, St. Albert's is the initial formation community for the Western Province of the Order of Friars Preachers. For five of their seven years of preparation for the priesthood after making first vows, Brothers living here study in Berkeley at our Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology (DSPT) and other schools of the Graduate Theological Union (GTU); they devote a year to pastoral work in one of the Province's other communities, and spend one of their years of theology at the House of Studies of the Eastern Dominican Province in Washington, D.C. Friars of the Eastern Province live here during their first year of philosophy, taken at DSPT. All students at DSPT and other GTU schools have cross-registration and library privileges at the University of California in Berkeley. The Western Province's novices also live at St. Albert's for their first year as Dominicans, forming a secluded community with its own life and chapel, all on the third floor above the refectory. Each semester since Autumn 1994, the St. Albert's Dominicans have welcomed a new group of 30 to 35 religious women and men, from all over the world, who come to live among us and attend the School of Applied Theology (SAT), which is an affiliate of the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley (JSTB), but housed at St. Albert's. Every semester our SAT residents impress and inspire us anew by their years of service to the faith. Combined with the Dominicans, they will make for a total of about 70 persons living at St. Albert's during the 1998-99 school year. The priory was founded in 1932, following the 13th century Dominican tradition of forming young friars in a city priory near a major university. The brick eastern side and kitchen annex were built in 1934, the chapel on the northern side in 1940, and the southern and western sides of the cloister were completed by 1951. For over thirty years as St. Albert's College, the Priory was a school of philosophy and theology self-contained on these five acres, until in 1964 as DSPT it became the first Catholic School in the GTU; the Franciscans and Jesuits followed, and today the three constitute the Catholic presence in the nine-school GTU. In the 18th century those same three Orders brought the Catholic faith to Old Spanish California. The Dominicans followed the Jesuits tot he missions of Baja California in Mexico; the Franciscans founded missions there also, and every thirty miles along the State of Alta California, from San Diego in the south up to Sonoma, north of San Francisco Bay. The U.S. Western Dominican Province began in 1850 when Joseph Alemany, O.P., arrived to become the first Archbishop of San Francisco, accompanied by Sr. Mary Goemaere, O.P., who founded the Dominican Sisters' Congregation of San Rafael, and by Fr. Francis Vilarrasa, O.P., who founded our Province. The Province's territory includes Montana, Utah, Arizona, and all the states west of them; its administrative offices are on Birch Court, just outside the main gate of St. Albert's. Some friars live in Siena House on Presley Way, near St. Albert's. Our other communities in the San Francisco Bay Area minister at Holy Rosary Dominican Parish in Antioch, St. Mary Magdalen Dominican Parish in Berkeley, owned and operated St. Dominic's Priory Parish Church in San Francisco, and St. Dominic's Parish Church in Benicia. Elsewhere we own and operate priory parish churches in Seattle and Portland, plus a retreat conference center at McKenzie Bridge in Oregon. Our friars also serve Dominican parishes in Anchorage, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Mexicali. Today we Western Dominicans, about 150 in all, have 21 communities, as far north as Alaska, as far east as Utah, and as far south as Baja California in Mexico. We staff Newman Centers (Catholic student facilities) at these secular universities: of Washington in Seattle, of Oregon in Eugene, of Utah in Salt Lake City, of Arizona in Tucson, of Nevada in Las Vegas, and of California in Riverside and in San Diego; also at Stanford University, California State University in San Jose, Arizona State University in Tempe, Southern Oregon College in Ashland, Occidental College in Los Angeles, the (Catholic) University of San Diego, and St. Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula, California. Elsewhere Western Dominicans are at work: in California at Mountain View, In Oregon at Brookings, in the eastern U.S. in Connecticut, Kentucky, Rhode Island, and Washington D.C. Outside the U.S. our men serve Germany, Guatemala, Kenya, Mexico, Rome, and Vatican City. Our works include hospital service, secondary and post-secondary and graduate teaching and administration, outreach to persons with HIV & AIDS, spiritual support for 12-step programs, the Rosary Center, the St. Jude Shrine, the art of icons, and the practice of medicine and law. Writing and publishing, both in print and electronic media, have flourished among Western Dominicans in recent years. True to the Order's name, the Province has a group of itinerant preachers and teachers of doctrine serving the Church in the West and abroad. True to the Order's tradition, some friars are also musicians, artists, authors, and professors of theology. From the Scriptorium at the Sign of the Mouse, |