The Apostolate of the Press in the Dominican Order

Extract

A religious Order, Père Lacordaire said, is an expression of the ideal of man as raised and inspired by God. Greater or lesser loyalty to this ideal is the measure of the success or failure of a religious Order. The motto Veritas, Truth, is the mark of the Dominican Order, the symbol of its ideal. To uphold, to spread and to defend the Truth was the high ideal of St. Dominic in establishing the Order of Friars Preachers. But if the quest for truth is a noble aspiration, it is none the less an arduous pursuit. To maintain the truth without counting the costs, to become its apostle by preaching it in season and out of season, to vindicate it without flinching when challenged, is an achievement which entails much labour and strenuous self-sacrifice. An apostle is not sent to preach his own fancies and theories, but to teach and defend the truth of God and His Church in whose name he speaks, so that if he, as the Church’s representative, indulges his own fancies and speculations, he forfeits his rights in the apostolate of truth, and is likely to become a traitor to the Word of God and His Christ, according to St. Paul’s strong words.