Only 100,000 more (including professed laymen and the like)? I thought it’d be a bit more than that
The number of Dominican Friars is not as high as the number of Franciscans friars. The Dominicans have only one male obedience. We have over 100 with a little over one million friars. I’m not sure how big the Lay Dominicans are. The Secular Franciscans are the largest Franciscan obedience with over 500,000. I think that the Dominican’s number are elevated by the number of sisters that they have. I know they have very few nuns, unlike the Franciscans. We have over 20,000 Poor Clare nuns around the world.
Without the precise number of Lay Dominicans, I can only estimate based on the number of Dominican sisters and friars. However, 100,000 is not a small number in a day and age when people cry and whine about declining vocations.
There are three orders that have not lacked for vocations: Dominicans, Franciscans and Missionaries of Charity. For example, in the USA, I believe there are three Dominican Provinces of friars, while there are over 30 Franciscan provinces of friars. The Dominicans also attrack the attention of the scholastic, while the Franciscans attrac the attention of the common man. That influences their respective numbers.
Among Traditionalists, the Franciscans have very few vocations, whereas the Dominicans have many more. Traditionalists generally do not understand Franciscans and often misunderstand. The Franciscan attempt to go back to the 13th century appears to Traditionalist as something new or a break with tradition, not realizing that Franciscans broke with tradition after Vatican II and are not trying to reconcile with tradition . . . Franciscan tradition.
On another subject, I was disappointed that EWTN did not televise the friars’ mass of St. Francis. They stuck to the mass at the EWTN chapel, which was the mass proper for the solemnity of St. Francis, but the flavor is not the same when you have all of the friars and Poor Clares together. It was a little disapointing to see so few lay people at the mass. One would think that the people who work for EWTN and the local people would have been there, considering that the whole thing began with Franciscans.
They were lacking on March 12 for the opening of the Jubilee year commemorating the 800th birthday of the Poor Clares.
Several of the brothers were observing this. A postulant asked me what was wrong. The only comment that I could offer in return is that people are still in love with the ritual, but they don’t understand the connection betwen the ritual and the tradition from which it comes. In this case, they don’t understand that the reason they have a beautiful mass and a wonderful network is because of the legacy of Francis and Clare. People don’t put these things in context. When you fail to put this in context, you don’t appreciate the tradition and how it is the dressing over the framework.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
