Memorial of Saint Dominic, priest

Born in old Castile, Spain, Dominic was trained for the priesthood by a priest-uncle, studied the arts and theology, and became a canon of the cathedral at Osma, where there was an attempt to revive the apostolic common life described in Acts of the Apostles.

Dominic sensed the need for the Church to combat the Albigensians–or Cathari heresy, and he was commissioned to be part of the preaching crusade against it. The Albigensians, also known as “the pure ones”–held believed there are only good or evil in the world. All matter is evil, so they denied the Incarnation and the sacraments. On the same principle, they abstained from procreation and took a minimum of food and drink. 

He continued his preaching crusade for 10 years, and was successful with ordinary people but not with the leaders. His fellow preachers gradually became a community, and, in 1215 Dominic founded a religious house at Toulouse, the beginning of the Order of Preachers or Dominicans.