A Dominican Vicar General for the Archdiocese of Hartford, CT

Just this week, Archbishop Leonard P. Blair named Fr. Steven C. Boguslawski, OP, Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Hartford. Fr. Boguslawski was already serving as Moderator of the Curia for the Archdiocese, a position he was appointed to last March. What is a vicar general? The Code of Canon Law gives the details: Can. 475 §1: “In each diocese the diocesan bishop must appoint a vicar general who is provided with ordinary power according to the norm of the following canons and who is to assist him in the governance of the whole diocese.” Of the “following canons,” the most instructive is Can. 479 §1: “By virtue of office, the vicar general has the executive power over the whole diocese which belongs to the diocesan bishop by law, namely, the power to place all administrative acts except those, however, which the bishop has reserved to himself or which require a special mandate of the bishop by law.” The vicar general is, in a sense, the right-hand man of the bishop, assisting him with his administrative and executive duties, invested with governing power and representing the bishop in his actions. Fr. Boguslawski made simple profession in the Order of Preachers in 1981 and was ordained a priest in 1987. After ordination he earned a Ph.D in New Testament Studies and Theology from Yale University. While at Yale he served the Dominican parish of St. Mary in New Haven. In 2001 he joined the administration of Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, where he served as Rector from 2003 to 2006. Returning to Washington, DC, Fr. Boguslawski became the President of the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception, completing his term in 2013. Fr. Boguslawski has authored and edited a number of books, one focusing on St. Thomas Aquinas and Jewish-Catholic relations, as well as journal articles in America and the Irish Theological Quarterly.

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