The Pontifical Faculty of Theology of the Immaculate Conception President: Very Rev. John A. Langlois, O.P. Vice President & Academic Dean: Rev. Thomas Petri, O.P. Librarian: Rev. John Mar tin Ruiz, O.P. Director of Facilities: Br. Gerard Thayer, O.P. Board of Overseers: Dr. Hugh P. Dempsey Sr. Mary Sarah Galbraith, O.P. Rev. Msgr. Albin Grous Mr. Julian B. Heron Dr. Allen Hunt Dr. Mary E. Moran Rev. Msgr. Godfrey Mosley Mr. Patrick O’Meara Br. Ignatius Perkins, O.P. Mr. William B. Yeomans, Sr.
To set up online giving for the PFIC please visit our portal at Faith Direct, the leading faithbased online donation site:
www.faithdirect.net
Organization code: DC365
Letter from the President Dear Friends, Alumni, and Benefactors, This past May 17 we held commencement exercises for thirty graduates, our largest number of graduates in recent memory! For many of them, a new stage of life has begun in service of the Church, as priests, as teachers, or as religious education directors. The time has now come for them to do what they have been formed to do: witness to Christ in the world! The arrival of autumn now ushers in a different kind of “commencement”—the inauguration of a new administration at the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception. With this inauguration, a new stage in the life of the Pontifical Faculty has also begun. It is a time of recognizing and giving thanks for the accomplishments of the past as well as excitement in anticipating the new initiatives of the future! As I and Father Petri, the new Vice-President and Academic Dean, assume our administrative duties, we want to assure you that we are committed to building on the solid foundation that has been laid for us by our predecessors. At our Installation Mass on September 6, we both solemnly pledged, among other things, to “faithfully assist the diocesan Bishops, so that the apostolic activity, exercised in the name and by mandate of the Church, may be carried out in communion with the Church.” Our work here of forming Dominican student brothers and other seminarians for the priesthood and preaching ministry, as well as preparing religious sisters and lay men and women for taking their part in the New Evangelization, is fundamentally a work at the service of the Church, both local and universal. In a culture that is increasingly secular and relativistic, there is a great need for intelligent preachers to be able not only to communicate the truths of the faith, but also to explain why faith matters for human flourishing. Our focus on the wisdom of St. Thomas Aquinas in our course of studies enables our graduates to do precisely that. At the beginning of this new administration, we confide our labors to Our Lady, Queen of Preachers. As her intercession brought about Christ’s first miracle at the wedding feast of Cana, so we have every confidence that her intercession on behalf of the Pontifical Faculty, dedicated to her Immaculate Conception, will continue to be the source of manifold blessings in the carrying out of our mission of forming preachers for our times!
DC Frassati Fellowship Young adults, following in the footsteps of Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati, seek to bring the whole person to Christ through adoration, study, community, charitable activity, and love of the outdoors.
Sincerely yours in the Lord, Very Rev. John A. Langlois, O.P. President, PFIC
www.dcfrassati.com Fa l l 2 0 1 3 | 3