NEW FRIARS IN MINISTRY
Fr. Dominick Jean, OP
Associate Pastor
Fr. Joseph Van Havermaet, OP
Campus Minister
Fr. Peter Martyr Lewitzke, OP
Campus Minister
Fr. Jordan DeGuire, OP
Doctoral Candidate
Fr. Adrian McCaffery, OP
Professor of Philosophy
FR. DOMINICK
I am the Associate Pastor at St. Vincent Ferrer Parish in River Forest, IL.
When was your solemn profession? If ordained, when was your ordination?
What is your favorite part of your ministry/what excites you the most about your ministry?
My solemn profession was on August 12th, 2023. I was ordained on May 16, 2026.
One of my favorite parts of ministry is hearing Confessions. At St. Vincent we have confessions six days a week and I’m always busy when I’m in the confessional. The opportunity to bring people the mercy of God is one of the greatest gifts.
What's an unexpected challenge you faced in your ministry?
The vineyard of the Lord is always going to be busy. There is always work to be done, projects to be completed, or opportunities for growing our parish community. In the midst all that it can be difficult to maintain the primacy of both prayer and my relationships with my Dominican community here.
Without prayer and the witness of a zealous common life, no ministerial efforts are going to bear lasting fruit.
What's an unexpected joy you experienced in your ministry?
I’ve received a great welcome from families, couples, and individuals within the parish community. We’re a diverse community with Africans, Filipinos, Italians, Irish, and Polish to name just a few groups. And across the board there is a great zeal and excitement here in the parish for the Faith and for sharing the Gospel of Jesus.
FR. JOSEPH
I am assigned to St. Thomas Aquinas in West Lafayette, Indiana, which is the Newman Center at Purdue University.
When was your solemn profession? If ordained, when was your ordination?
What is your favorite part of your ministry/what excites you the most about your ministry?
My solemn profession was on August 8, 2024. I was ordained on May 16, 2026.
I am really looking forward to getting to know the students at Purdue and helping them encounter Jesus in their time here.
What's an unexpected challenge you faced in your ministry?
A challenge here is the large number of students and the need to balance all of their needs.
What's an unexpected joy you experienced in your ministry?
An unxpected joy is to see students still involved at St. Tom's over the summer and the good relationships between students and resident parishoners.
FR. PETER
After serving as a parochial vicar and campus minister at St. Thomas Aquinas parish at Purdue University, I am studying ancient Hebrew in preparation to pursue a doctorate.
When was your solemn profession? If ordained, when was your ordination?
What is your favorite part of your ministry/what excites you the most about your ministry?
Solemn profession was August 14, 2021
Ordination to the priesthood was May 20, 2023
I love the organic conversations about the faith that happen in a campus ministry. I'm also consistently blown away by God's mercy as I hear confessions.
What's an unexpected challenge you faced in your ministry?
It's difficult to balance the demands of ministry with our life of prayer, community, and study, not to mention our basic human needs for rest, friendship, and exercise.
What's an unexpected joy you experienced in your ministry?
Even in a smaller community of friars than I'm used to, we still form strong bonds founded on prayer and our common life.
FR. JORDAN
Having completed my first assignment as a chaplain at Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, I am pursuing a doctorate in Liturgical Studies at the University of Notre Dame.
When was your solemn profession? If ordained, when was your ordination?
What is your favorite part of your ministry/what excites you the most about your ministry?
I made solemn vows on August 14, 2021, and I was ordained a priest on May 20, 2023.
My favorite part of ministry is seeing people come alive as they encounter Christ, whether that's in the confessional, learning about the faith, or growing in friendship and community.
What's an unexpected challenge you faced in your ministry?
An unexpected challenge of ministry has been how quickly I've become "old." My references don't always land, and I don't always get what the students are talking about.
What's an unexpected joy you experienced in your ministry?
An unexpected joy of ministry has been the community at Aquinas College. There are about 1100 students, along with faculty and staff, which means that I'm running into the same people across campus and able to form deeper connections with students, faculty, and staff.
FR. ADRIAN
I am a professor of philosophy at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (the Angelicum), in Rome, where I serve the Order and represent the Province. The University, which is one of the world’s centers of Thomism, and which has an important place in the mission of the overall Order, draws all sorts of students from many countries. The special mission of the University is to promote the philosophico-theological vision of Thomas Aquinas, and my own small role as professor falls within this brave endeavor. Aquinas remains one of the most important writers in the western canon, and it is in my view the Dominican friar’s birthright and duty to Thomisticize — up there, even, with praising, blessing, and preaching, I’m pretty sure.
When was your solemn profession? If ordained, when was your ordination?
What is your favorite part of your ministry/what excites you the most about your ministry?
My solemn profession was June 2, 2019; my priestly ordination was May 22, 2021.
What excites me most about my ministry is working with students who are enthusiastic about philosophy (contemporary and medieval) and in particular Aquinas (with his relevance to both). These students do not come to class hopeful of memorizing stale responses in hopes of satisfying a vague or atavistic inclination but of engaging Aquinas’s creative, astonishing answers by deep concentration and close reading (and rereading). To absorb the mind of Aquinas is to absorb the whole western canon. It is also, what is much more important, to take on the mind of Christ.
What's an unexpected challenge you faced in your ministry?
The challenge I face in my ministry is that I am so far from “Home.” I joined the Central Province to live in the American Midwest and serve - as priest and preacher - this region’s wonderfully good, intelligent people. Although it is a challenge for me to live so far away, I am delighted and privileged to be able to do it.
What's an unexpected joy you experienced in your ministry?
An unexpected joy is the amount of pastoral ministry I find in a largely academic context. It’s probably very unhelpful (I’m learning) to exaggerate the differences of the two, there being so much happy overlap.