The Order of Preachers

During the 13th Century, Europe was rising in terms of commerce, power and influence. The ideas of pagan Aristotle and his Arab commentators began to fascinate the mind of the West. Europe was gradually facing a new world. But in the midst of this new life was also ecclesiastical corruption, despite the efforts of reformers like Innocent III. The new middle class of the cities, skeptical, increasingly educated, materialistic, could not be helped by a clergy that was generally untrained, nor by monastic foundations that were largely rural and, by definition, isolated from the currents of daily life. There was, in the words of Amos the Prophet, “a famine of the hearing of the Word of God” (Amos 8:11), and the vacuum was frequently filled by superstition, divisive heresy, and a love for this world. Various attempts were made to respond to the situation. Groups of diocesan priests living in community, the canons, engaged in parochial and theological work. In a number of places, lay preachers like the poor men of Lyons attempted to return to the simplicity of the early Church and to the Gospel-fervor of its early preachers. But most such lay groups quickly sank into doctrinal error, and had, in the end, to be suppressed.

Background Image Source: Fr. Lawrence Lew, OP