Hope, May Edition 2024

By Carol J. Dempsey, OP, PhD

The Intellectual Life: Intersections between the Dominican and Holy Cross Charisms

I have been a member of the Order of Preachers—a Dominican—for 49 years and a faculty member in the theology department of the University of Portland, an institution sponsored by the Congregation of Holy Cross, for 30 years. Common to the charism of both religious communities is a focus on education and a love for the intellectual life. When I was a O.P. novice in my congregation, Sister Vivien Jennings, O.P., Ph.D., encouraged me to read The Intellectual Life: Its Spirit, Conditions, Methods by A. G. Sertillanges, O.P. This book is a classic among Dominicans, and I was surprised to see it even on the bookshelf of one of my department colleagues.

When I arrived at the University of Portland as an energetic, curious assistant professor, I met the university’s relatively new president, David T. Tyson, C.S.C., Ed.D., who, in his address to the university faculty, said that he wanted the university’s professors to be not only excellent teachers but also excellent scholars. My heart skipped a beat because this president’s vision was also mine. I had found a home at the University of Portland for my own calling and vocation as a biblical scholar and my work as a teacher. To be able to flourish in a “community of teachers and scholars” was an added boon. Community is foundational to the Holy Cross charism, and it is also one of the four pillars of Dominican life. Dominicans form community wherever they find themselves as preachers in service of the Gospel, and here I found myself welcomed among a vibrant, diverse community of learners, teachers, and scholars.

For Dominicans, the intellectual life is both speculative and practical. In other words, the intellectual life is meant to engage not only topics like Natural Law but also topics concerned with the many injustices facing our world today. Nurtured by a spirit of deep contemplation that often spills over into the mystical life, Dominican intellectual life and the sharing of its fruits of contemplation is meant to be a source of hope, inspiration, and transformation for all creation. Perhaps this understanding is best exemplified through the life and work of my Dominican brother Thomas Aquinas, O.P., who upon completing the writing of his Summa Theologica declared that it was all straw next to the experience of God. The central question for the twenty-first century is, in my view, the God-question: who or what is God. The search for and union with the Divine is central to Dominican intellectual life and central to Holy Cross institutions like the University of Portland with its focus on faith and formation.

In a world rampant with fundamentalism and biblical literalism where leaders connect politics with religion and religion with politics in ways that are often strange and superficial, the Holy Cross mission to educate the head, heart, and hand is essential and needed now more than ever. With people searching for the experience of “belonging,” the Holy Cross focus on creating and fostering welcoming communities adds warmth to our cold, corporate world. Truly the Dominican and Holy Cross charisms intersect, making space for the presence of the Divine in our midst.

Carol J. Dempsey, OP, PhD

Vice President and President Elect of the Catholic Biblical Association of America

Professor of Theology (Biblical Studies)

Department of Theology

University of Portland, Portland, OR