American appointed to new Medieval theology post in Oxford

The Rev Dr Reginald Lynch OP has been appointed the first holder of the new position at Blackfriars Hall and the University of Oxford.

He has become the senior research fellow and director of the Aquinas Institute at Blackfriars who will also be a departmental lecturer at the faculty of theology and religion at Oxford University. Fr Lynch is a Dominican of the Province of St Joseph in the eastern United States.

He will deliver teaching to undergraduates and graduates, supervise postgraduate research, exercise academic leadership and pursue an active programme of original scholarship. At Blackfriars, he will play a key role in promoting Medieval and Scholastic Theology, including the thought of St Thomas Aquinas and the theological tradition associated with him in Oxford and internationally.

In addition, he will support “promising young scholars, fostering interdisciplinary collaboration, and contributing to the wider public and ecclesial engagement of theological scholarship”.

An appeal for the Dominicans’ formation fund “exceeded expectations,” by attracting more than £150,000 in donations, according to the annual report of the English Province of the Order of Preachers. In June, the order had announced it urgently required £60,000 to cover the cost of training the eight men due to enter their novitiate in Cambridge this September. “The novitiate year alone costs around £12,000 per friar,” it said.

The fund and a generous benefactor have also covered the £75,000 cost of transforming attic space into a bedroom at Blackfriars, Cambridge to provide enough space for the new novices. That sum also paid for additional renovations in Dominican foundations in Cambridge and Leicester.

Fr Nicholas Crowe OP, the Prior Provincial of the Dominicans said that donations reflected “the generosity and confidence of supporters in response to the hope-filled growth in vocations, a heartening sign of the continuing attraction of the Dominican vocation for young men.”

The English Province of the Order of Preachers in Britain received £4.75 million in fundraising in 2025. In 2024, it received £1.79million. “The reason for this high result was the winning of two significant multi-year grants” noted the report.

The first was a five-year grant for teaching at the Blackfriars Studium, the only centre in Britain to offer intellectual formation for religious orders. It teaches a first cycle of studies leading to an STB (Baccalaureate in Sacred Theology) accredited by the Angelicum (Pontifical University of St Thomas, Rome). The second grant was for the new post in medieval theology funded by the McDonald Agape Foundation.

The report also revealed a surge in numbers attending Mass at Holy Cross Priory and Parish in Leicester. Sunday Mass attendance at the Dominican-run parish has now reached 1,200 per week. The 7pm Sunday Mass is now the only Sunday evening Mass in the city, attracting “a large and varied crowd of students and other young people as well as families”, said the report.

The Dominicans have four houses in England, and one in Scotland. Two more are canonically associated with the English province in the Caribbean. There are 82 friars in the English province, of whom 61 are in the United Kingdom. Thirteen novices or student brothers belong to the province and a further five from other provinces are associated with it.

Stay updated — add us as a preferred news source on Google: