Dominicans to scale back and refocus work in Britain

The Dominican Order is to withdraw from some parishes in England and Scotland due to a lack of trained friars, writes Liz Dodd. The English Province announced this week that it is to hand over control of St Columba’s parish in Glasgow and St Cuthbert’s parish in Durham to diocesan clergy. It is also to gradually withdraw from St Dominic’s parish in Newcastle.

The Dominicans will also withdraw from the university chaplaincy at Durham after the chaplain, Fr Benjamin Earl OP, was summoned to Rome by the Order’s International Master to work as Procurator General.

Fr Martin Ganeri OP, Prior Provincial of the Province of England, told The Tablet the Order had overcommitted itself in recent years. Durham chaplaincy, which the Dominicans took over in 2012, was the second major university chaplaincy to be taken over by the Order in the North East in the space of a year.

“It’s not that we’re moving away from chaplaincy at all,” Fr Ganeri explained. “Fr Ben [Earl] is one of the very capable people we have in the Province. With him being taken to Rome we recognised that we had taken on too much for the capable manpower that we had. So it’s a scaling back of those things but we have a fundamental commitment to chaplaincy work.”

It took the decision to scale back its involvement in parish life at the 2016 Chapter of the friars in Oxford. A review of the state of community life determined that “a generous spirit had moved the friars in Britain to over-extend their commitments in several areas”.

The move represents a refocusing of Dominican resources on larger houses in Oxford, London, Leicester and Edinburgh, and comes at a time when the Order has an above average number of novices entering.