Fr. Vincent Ferrer Bagan, O.P., is Director of Liturgical Music at the Pontifical North American College in Rome.
Dominican Friars Train America’s Diocesan Priests In Rome
By BlackFriars Staff
Seven friars of the Province of St. Joseph have been called to Rome to train the seminarians who will become America’s next generation of diocesan priests.
Fr. Vincent Ferrer Bagan, O.P., serves as Director of Liturgical Music at the Pontifical North American College, which forms over 300 American seminarians and priests each year.
“We want seminarians to experience the full range of beauty that is possible in Catholic music—something they can bring to their parishes back in the U.S.”
“Even if we don’t always grasp the fullness of what we’re singing right away, it’s something that sticks in our mind and flowers. The joy of the Incarnation, and singing in an uplifting way about the joy of the Incarnation, will always be relevant through the ages,” says Fr. Bagan.
Fr. Peter Cameron, O.P., also of the Province of St. Joseph, has been called to the North American College where he will teach preaching and serve as a formation advisor.
Five friars of our province teach at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, or “the Angelicum,” as it is known after its patron. The Angelicum was founded by the French Dominican, Blessed Hyacinth Cormier, to form future leaders of the Church in the thought of St. Thomas.
“Cormier’s vision was to have a center of studies, not only for Dominicans, but for the whole Church at the heart of Rome, and it was very prophetic,” says Fr. Thomas Joseph White, O.P., Rector of the University and a friar of the Province of St. Joseph.
Cormier’s dream came to fruition in many ways, not least when “a young priest named Karol Wojtyla came to study here, and went on to become one of the most important theologians and spiritual mentors of the 20th century and one of the great spiritual popes of our age,” Fr. White adds, referring to Pope St. John Paul II.
Equipped by your generosity with a firm foundation in Faith and Reason, these friars continue to form future leaders of the Church, perhaps even popes.
