Dominican Order in the United States

The Dominican Order (Order of Preachers) was first established in the United States by Edward Fenwick in the early 19th century. The first Dominican institution in the United States was the Province of Saint Joseph, which was established in 1805. Additionally, there have been numerous institutes of Dominican Sisters and Nuns.

The Dominican Order (Order of Preachers) has four provinces of Friars established in the United States. Each province is divided according to the states in its geographical region.

The Eastern Province, or The Dominican Friars of the Province of Saint Joseph, now covers the northeastern United States (i.e. Kentucky, the original home of the Dominican Order in the United States, and the states to the north and east of eastern Kentucky).

The Central Province, or Province of Saint Albert the Great was established in 1939, and currently covers the states of Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North and South Dakota, Wisconsin, and Wyoming, and serves six parishes and four campus ministries within this area. The headquarters is in Chicago. In 2012 the Province completed construction on the new Saint Dominic Priory in St. Louis, Missouri; the new Priory, which can house up to 50 friars, is the House of Studies for the Central and Southern Provinces. As of June 2015, the Prior Provincial is the Very Rev. James Marchionda, O.P.

On December 8, 1979, as a response to the rapidly growing Catholic population in the Southern United States, the Order of Preachers approved the foundation of a new Dominican province – the Province of Saint Martin de Porres. The geographic boundaries of the province cover eleven states: Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina. The friars (priests and brothers) minister in a variety of settings throughout the South, including universities and other educational institutions, campus ministries, Dominican parishes, and itinerant ministries The Dominican Province of St. Martin de Porres currently serves at five campus ministries and eight parishes.

The Western Province, or Province of the Most Holy Name of Jesus was first established in 1850 by the co-founders Fr. Sadoc Vilarrasa and Bishop Joseph Alemany. Alemany, who in 1840 completed his studies in sacred theology in Rome at the Dominican College of St. Thomas, the future Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelicum, had been appointed Bishop of Monterey and invited Fr. Vilarrasa to accompany him to California. On his way to his new post in California Alemany stopped in Paris and asked Dominican sisters to join him to teach the children of the Forty-niners. Mary Goemaere (1809-1891) volunteered to accompany the new bishop and to begin a school in his new diocese. Within three years, nine women (three American, one Mexican, and five Spanish) joined Sister Mary to form the Congregation of the Most Holy Name. The province was soon reduced to a self-governing Congregation. Finally in 1912, the congregation was formally re-erected as a province, and currently covers the states of Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Utah, Oregon, and Washington, and serves eight parishes and ten campus ministries within this area. It is headquartered in Oakland, California. As of January 2011, the Prior Provincial is the Very Rev. Mark Padrez, OP.

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Wikipedia