Specialized Ministries

In our province friars engage in a variety of ministries.  Campus ministries, parishes, our graduate school or mission in Mexicali, and internal ministries that we are committed to staffing on an on-going, long-term basis.

Specialized ministries are different in nature.  In our on-going ministerial commitments the province is making the commitment, but in specialized ministries only the individual friar(s) is making the commitment while the province administration, approving of the specialized ministry, releases the friar to engage in that ministry.  This is important, because not only is the friar able to go and do wonderful ministries elsewhere, but they have the support of the province in doing so.

When a friar leaves a specialized ministry, the province has no commitment to re-staff it.  In fact, some of the very best specialized ministries are where a friar sees a great need, begins a ministry, prepares, organizes and builds up the infrastructure to this new ministry for the express purpose of turning it over to someone else when they depart.  Not all specialized ministries are intended to continue on indefinitely.  Sometimes very valuable specialized ministries address a need that will come and go, and the friar will return to a regular province commitment or launch themselves in a new direction with a different specialized ministry.

Specialized ministries are beginning and ending continually.  It is too difficult to keep a list updated on this website, but here are some examples of specialized ministries of our recent past:

Education

Dominican professors have often have the opportunity to teach in many places beyond our own graduate school, the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology.  These include some of the following:

• University of Fribourg, Switzerland
• Angelicum, Rome, Italy
• Providence College, RI
• St. Mary's College, Moraga, CA
  Ecole Biblique, Jerusalem, Israel
  and secular universities such as University of Oregon, UC Berkeley, University of Virginia and others.

The Order and Church

Chaplains to our Dominican nuns of the Western United States

Monastery of the Angels, Hollywood, CA
Corpus Christi Monastery, Menlo Park, CA

St. Francis Center for Priestly Formation, San Diego, CA

Kenya Dominican Mission, Kenya, Africa

Missionary helping the Archdiocese of Vilnius, Lithuania: Family Center consultant and missionary

Variety

DominICON, artistry of traditional icons
St. Therese Center, Las Vegas, NV, case manager for a HIV-AIDS relief ministry
Nathan Adelson Hospice, Las Vegas, NV, spiritual care for the dying
Catholic Answers, El Cajon, CA, Chaplain and apologist for staff and radio program
Mud Puddle Films, a ministry of Fr. Dominic DeLay
Black and White Concert, bringing black and white Americans through the centuries using music
United States Military (Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines)
Chaplains serving in peace time, WWII, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, domestically, and more

Be sure to see our pages for campus ministries, parish ministries, and other ministries.  The above specialized ministries are only a small example of the countless specialized ministries we have done over the years, and only a small part of the on-going ministry of the friars at-large.