Four new postulants have joined the Dominican Order in Australia, with the group moving in to St Laurence’s Priory in North Adelaide recently.
Perth’s David Chua is among the four, who will all commence studies in theology and assist in the Order’s parishes and school in South Australia in their first year.
Conor Power, originally from Brisbane, Peter McCumstie from Melbourne, and Ryan Villamor from Sydney make up the new postulants.
Mr Chua, Mr McCumstie and Mr Power have all studied at and graduated from Campion College in Sydney.
Master of postulants Br Brendan O’Hern OP told The Record there were two new Dominican postulants in 2012, but none last year. He said he was “very excited” to have several new additions at the priory this year.
“Any vocation we get is always a promising sign and a hope for the future,” he said.
“We understand they’re just coming and starting the discernment of their vocation and we hope that their discernment will lead to the priesthood, but there’s a long way to go yet.”
Br Brendan said the postulancy period would only be for four or five months, after which the men will receive the Dominican habit and become novices.
“They’ll be doing a bit of study in Biblical studies and history, and they’ll be given lectures on Dominican life and religious life,” he said.
“The overall formation is that they do approximately five months of postulancy, they have a year of novitiate, then they start their serious studies for the priesthood, and that can take varying amounts of time, four years or more, before they’re ordained.”
Br Brendan said it was possible the new postulants would complete their novitiate year in Hong Kong, where Dominican novices have gathered for the past few years in an effort to have a larger group being formed together.
St Dominic founded the Order of Preachers (OP) in 1216, and the first community of friars in Australia was established in Adelaide in 1898.