ROME — Eight centuries ago Dominic de Guzmán launched one of the most influential spiritual movements in the history of Christianity.
Following in the footsteps of Jesus, the Order of Preachers sought to relive the experience of the first disciples, who went through streets of Galilee preaching the love of God in poverty.
On November 7, at their mother church of St. Sabina in Rome, the Dominican Order will initiate a jubilee year commemorating the bull promulgated by Pope Honorius III in 1216 and 1217, which ratified and confirmed the founding of the Dominicans.
Fr. Bruno Cadorè, Master General of the Order and 86th successor of their holy founder, told Aleteia in a recent interview that St. Dominic wanted his brothers to pray, to study—“not so that they would all be learned men; but rather, that through the continuous search for the truth found in the Scriptures, their humanity would be molded”—and to live in fraternity and poverty.
Dominic’s brothers traveled the globe. Today the Dominican family has 3,000 nuns in 209 monasteries; 6,000 brothers in 602 friaries; more than 40,000 apostolic sisters in more than 119 congregations and 150,000 lay-members.
