Fr. Bonaventure Chapman hails from Buffalo, New York, where he was born and raised. He  grew up with a twin brother and an older sister. After attending St. Joseph’s Collegiate Institute in Buffalo, he went on to Grove City College, Pennsylvania, where he completed  a B.S. in Applied  Physics  and a B.A. in Christian Thought. Following a year of teaching high school in Orlando, Florida, he went off to Wycliffe Hall, Oxford University, where  he  studied for  the  Episcopal  priesthood, completing the M.Th in Applied Theology. In his third year at Oxford he converted to Roman Catholicism. Upon graduating he returned to America to teach at Catholic schools in the DC area for two years before entering the  Dominican  novitiate.  “I have  always loved teaching, and the Dominican Order’s motto, contemplari et contemplata aliis tradere, seemed the perfect expression of my desire to live a religious life teaching others about Christ.”