Dominicans celebrate 200 years in the United States

The Dominican Friars marking their 200th anniversary of their foundation in the United States.

They will celebrate with a mass June 8 at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington. The public is invited.

Theodore Cardinal McCarrick, archbishop of Washington, will be the main celebrant and homilist at the 4:30 p.m. mass.

There will also be a number of special guests. The master of the Dominican Order from Rome, Fr. Carlos Azpiroz Costa, the provincial of the Dominican Friars from England, Fr. Allan White, Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk of Cincinnati, and all the friars of the Dominican Province of St. Joseph will be in attendance. 

Dominicans friars first came to the New World in the 1500s with the Spanish evangelizers. It was not until 1805 that the Dominican Friars were formally established with the creation of the Province of St. Joseph.

When the province was established in 1805, it comprised four friars; one was Fr. Edward Dominic Fenwick, who later became the first bishop of Cincinnati.

Today, the province has more than 250 friars who serve in parish ministry, hospital ministry, campus ministry, education, and retreat work in the archdioceses of Cincinnati, Hartford, Louisville, New York, and Washington, and in the dioceses of Columbus, Providence, Richmond, and Youngstown. 

The province has missionaries in Kenya, Philippines, and the Solomon Islands. It also operates Providence College in Rhode Island. The provincial offices are located in New York City.

For more information, write: anniversary@dhs.edu

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