Vocation Discernment
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Vocation Office
Western Dominican Province
5890 Birch Court
Oakland, CA 94618-1626
(510)-596-1821
Our Vocations require a great deal of support, from the first moment they begin their novitiate until the last moments of their retirement. Please do conside visiting our donation page and helping form and sustain the priests and brothers who will serve you in the future, serve you now and have served you in the past.
Saints and Blesseds
The Order of Friars Preachers,
The Dominican Order,
has a beautiful history of learning, service and holiness manifested in its saints and blesseds of every age since its foundation by St. Dominic de Guzman. Do enjoy the periodic postings of such stories as are available from various sources, especially our own archives.
Religious Retirement
Our elderly and infirm friars receive the best care we have available to us, as in any family. We rely heavily on the donations of others for our own existence and thus when one of our own becomes incapable of further ministry due to age or infirmity, those same donations help us support the sometimes necessary special care required by such members of our communities.
We prefer to care for our elderly and infirm in our own houses so that the life of a religious community can be a part of a friars life as long as possible. This is also the most economical in many ways. We strive to use donations wisely. But sometimes a care facility is essential. As we, as a Province, do not benefit from the national collection for retired religious, we ask that you assist us in caring for these friars who have prayed, taught, served and ministered for so many years amomg the people of the Western United States and beyond.
Please, in your kindness, consider assisting us in this work of brotherly love.
Many thanks in advance.
Catholicism
It's just the right thing
Fr. James Disney Thompson, OP
Fr. James Thompson joined the Order in 1995. He met the Dominicans through the Catholic campus ministry at the University of Washington while working as a senior secretary at the UW School of Law. He received a B.A. in Linguistics at the University of Kansas in 1975, and then moved to Los Angeles and worked various secretarial and administrative assistant positions, including three years for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. He relocated to Seattle in 1989. He has also had graduate studies in theoretical Linguistics at CSU, Northridge, and in Theology at Seattle University. Fr. James made Solemn Profession (vows for life) with the Dominican Order in February, 2001. He completed his philosophical and theological studies for the priesthood at the Dominican School of Philosophy & Theology. In his first year of priestly ministry he completed an M.A. in Theology, also from the DSPT. His pastoral interest is itinerant preaching and catechesis, his academic interests include Biblical Theology, early Patristics, and philosophy of mind. Hobbies include reading speculative fiction, snooping around used book stores, and brewing beer.
Fr. James' first assignment after ordination to the priesthood was for three years at St. Catherine's Newman Center, the Catholic campus ministry at the University of Utah. He served as Associate Director at All Saints Catholic Newman Center at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona from 2006-2009, and as Interim Director there during the 2009-10 academic year. He is currently an Itinerant Preacher for the Western Dominican Preaching.
[Revised: March 14, 2012]
Photos 1997 | 2007a | 2007b | 2007c
First Mass, June 8, 2003
Presbyterate Ordination, June 7, 2003