Pointing everyone towards the Lord: Fr Paul Rowse OP on the Dominican charism

In a world that feels unstable, where shifts in politics, culture, technology and even the Church may be unsettling, where can we find stable ground? Is there any?

Where can our feet firmly tread in times of upheaval? And is there truth—eternal and unchanging—that everyone can cling to?

This year, the parish of St Dominic in Camberwell East is celebrating the centenary of its founding. Fr Paul Rowse OP, parish priest at ‘St Dom’s’, believes this is one of the unique contributions the Dominican charism brings to modern society: the belief that, in the end, ‘truth doesn’t change.’

Fr Paul was appointed parish priest at St Dom’s in 2022, on the far side of the COVID lockdowns. This role is his third stint at the parish, having served as a student prior to ordination, assistant priest and now parish priest.

Everything that we Christians know about God is revealed to us, given to us by Christ to bring us to believe in God in a way that we couldn’t possibly otherwise.

He inherited a parish filled with lively volunteers. While some existing initiatives needed new energy, the contributions of many capable and long-standing people in the parish meant they were able to keep things going, especially in the areas of community justice. Fr Paul sees his mission—a mission shared by the Dominicans in Camberwell as a whole—as helping people to recover this ‘robust’ sense of truth, the sense that we have been irrevocably given something that, while allowing for growth in understanding over time, is actually quite stable.

‘We can deduce certain things for ourselves,’ he says. ‘But ultimately, everything that we Christians know about God is revealed to us, given to us by Christ to bring us to believe in God in a way that we couldn’t possibly otherwise.’

‘If that’s the case, then we’ve got a point of unity to focus upon. The Church can become ever more herself, more eloquent in her witness and testimony to the truth, because we’ve been put on the same page.’

The pandemic meant that parish numbers thinned out considerably for a few years, but recently Fr Paul has noticed a steady growth once more, with Mass numbers doubling from what they were a few years ago. Even so, there have been shifts in attitudes that the Dominicans have noticed and made a particular focus in their ministry now.

‘There’s a strange kind of movement towards a quieter faith,’ he observes, ‘which I would oppose with everything I’ve got.

‘Even in terms of morale, our people aren’t as bold as they once were … The Church has been beaten around a bit; she’s always a target. If there’s a mission I have, it’s making sure that the Church is robust enough to carry out her mission.’

Forming people holistically

What this looks like in practice has been a return to beauty in prayer, talking up the good things going on, and being formed together in community. Fr Paul is convinced that these are the places where spiritual renewal begins.

What’s missing at the moment is truth, so we push that, offering opportunities for parishioners to engage with and hear the truth, explained charitably, clearly and unrepentantly.

On top of annual parish retreats during Advent and Lent, the friars now hear confessions every day except Sunday, and for the jubilee celebrations of St Thomas Aquinas they have begun a teaching series every Thursday night on the great Dominican, introducing students and parishioners to his thought.

‘As far as transcendentals go, what’s missing at the moment is truth, so we push that, offering opportunities for parishioners to engage with and hear the truth, explained charitably, clearly and unrepentantly.’

Fr Paul is also interested in ‘beautifying’ the church, ensuring a holistic approach to the three transcendentals so that ‘everything would point towards the Lord in his truth, goodness and beauty.’

Providing a holistic formation for people is especially important for Fr Paul, since his own formation growing up was ‘patchy’.

His upbringing in Catholicism was more ‘cultural’ than anything else, he says, although to some extent religious life was inevitable.

‘I remember being given a Bible for my 12th birthday and thinking that was the bee’s knees. So I was destined for ministry,’ he says.

He first recognised a calling to the priesthood when he was eight, struck by the way his local priest celebrated Mass. When he was 12, he wrote to his local bishop in Broken Bay expressing his interest. And when he was 17—‘bored of reading the Tree of Man by Patrick White for Year 12’—he wrote to a number of religious orders hoping for a response. One of the only orders to respond enthusiastically were the Dominicans.

Despite the grace that clearly guided him through those years, Fr Paul admits there were contradictions in his own faith that resulted from a patchy formation. ‘I think I’d have to say as a teenager I was pro-choice without knowing all that that terrible position meant,’ he says. It was on a bus ride to university one day in Sydney, and reading Pope John Paul II’s Evangelium Vitae, that everything changed.

‘I distinctly remember looking out and seeing the sunset and something clicked. And that was it. I was and am entirely pro-life,’ he says. ‘It was a pretty dramatic spiritual experience, and it had a lot of foundation building up to that point, but I think shows that my religious formation had been patchy.’

Offering opportunities for encounter with beauty, goodness and truth, he hopes, might help to plug those holes in people’s formation as they seek to grow in their faith.

The truth, scars and all

Fr Paul clarifies that when he speaks of an ‘emboldened’ faith, the boldness he speaks of has nothing to do with a brash or abrasive approach to mission.

In the eyes of many, he observes, the Church has lost its credibility in both morality and truth, in significant degree because of its own failings. The Church’s testimony, therefore, must always include an awareness of our ‘wounds and scars’, the ways we have sinned.

We don’t shy away from the wounds and scars of our people because they are part of the story. But this doesn’t take away anything from the beauty and light of the Lord and his love for you.

Fr Paul harkens back to the experiences of ancient Israel, especially as expressed through the psalms.

‘If you look at someone’s testimony in the Scriptures, especially in the psalms, the general idea is: I was hopeless and in the gutter until the Lord came, and now I am restored to his favour and goodness. And that trajectory gets repeated over and over.’

‘So we don’t shy away from the wounds and scars of our people because they are part of the story,’ he says. ‘But this doesn’t take away anything from the beauty and light of the Lord and his love for you.’

As we learn the art of telling our story, and the story of God’s goodness and favour to us, he believes, we will find a harmony between humbly, gracefully and confidently giving witness to the truth that has been given to us in Christ.

A year of celebration

Throughout 2024, St Dominic’s will be celebrating the centenary of its founding. There is a broad spread of events, which include an 11am Easter orchestral Mass on Sunday 31 March, a centenary address by Archbishop Anthony Fisher OP on 15 May, a weekend visitation by Archbishop Peter A Comensoli to mark the feast of St Dominic in August and an ecumenical forum in September, among celebrations of other milestones in the parish’s history.

‘There’s something for everyone,’ Fr Paul says. He hopes this year can be one that draws people deeper into the life of community and prayer, and one that reorients everyone towards the Lord in his goodness, beauty and truth.