New Master of Students at the Dominican House of Studies

The fifty student brothers of the Province of St. Joseph have a new master at the beginning of this 2012-13 academic year. Fr. Andrew Hofer, O.P., has been appointed as the master of students, an office with “full and final authority in matters of discipline and the spiritual formation of the brothers,” according to the Province’s Ratio Formationis Particularis. The Order’s Book of Constitutions and Ordinations says that the master “shall advance the brothers towards gradual attainment of the perfection of religious and apostolic life, in the spirit of the Order. He shall teach them that to follow Christ is the supreme rule of our life; he shall teach them to be of one mind with the Church, to know and cherish the spirit of Saint Dominic and the Order’s sound traditions, to read when opportune the signs of the time, and to interpret them in the light of faith” (LCO 214 §1). Father Andrew grew up as the youngest of Jim and Loretta Hofer’s ten children on a farm in Kansas. He became a son of the Province of St. Joseph after his Bachelor of Arts in history, philosophy, and classics at Benedictine College in Atchison, KS, and his Master of Letters in medieval history at St Andrews University in Scotland. He professed solemn vows in the Great Jubilee Year of 2000, and is now ten years ordained a priest. After serving at St. Pius V Parish in Providence, Rhode Island, Father Andrew was sent in 2003 to the Province’s foreign missions in East Africa. He lived in Nairobi, Kenya for two years while teaching at Tangaza College of The Catholic University of Eastern Africa and other institutions in Nairobi. During this time he also served as the moderator of studies for the Dominican Vicariate of Eastern Africa. Having previously earned a License of Sacred Theology at the Dominican House of Studies, Father Andrew went to the University of Notre Dame, where in 2010 he earned the Ph.D. in Theology, specializing in the Fathers of the Church. He wrote his dissertation under Fr. Brian E. Daley, S.J., on the Christology of St. Gregory of Nazianzus, and he continues to enjoy writing studies in historical and systematic theology. His articles appear in such journals as Augustinianum, Vigiliae Christianae, International Journal of Systematic Theology, Pro Ecclesia, and The Thomist. Father Andrew made his canonical profession of faith as a full-time member of the Pontifical Faculty at the Dominican House of Studies on August 23, 2010, and he loves to teach not only specialized patristic courses, such as seminars on Patristic Christology, Patristic Preaching & Priesthood, Aquinas and the Fathers, and the Theology of St. Augustine, but also courses in the Nature & Method of Theology, Preaching, Church History, Mariology, and independent studies in Greek. When asked about his new responsibility as student master, Father Andrew said, “I know a lot is expected of me, because a lot is expected of our brothers in formation. These men are being formed to be preachers of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. The world desperately needs the good news, preached by men consecrated in the truth. The salvation of souls is at stake. Please pray for us.” The Studentate of the Province of St. Joseph is located at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, DC. Read more: Dominicana (blog of Dominican Student Brothers) Order of Preachers Vocations (blog of the Director of Vocations) Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception at the Dominican House of Studies