The Dominus Project

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We wanted to create a regular newsletter (that will double as the blog on our website) to keep you informed of all things Dominus Project. We have lots of projects and events in the works as well as wonderful resources to share, and this will be a regular place to let you know about them. But we figured it would be best, in this first edition, to share a little bit about our beginnings.

So, why The Dominus Project? What is it? How did it get started, and why do we need it?

Maybe a fruitful place to start is with two experiences I’ve had. The first is academic: I am a theology professor at a small but mighty university in Louisiana. As a theologian interested in the Church’s ministry of evangelization, I know well the dismal statistics of the past few decades. More and more Americans are disaffiliating from the Church, which is a fancy of way of saying, if they were given a survey where they had to declare their religious identity, they would check the box that said “none.” For every one Catholic the Church gains, we lose about six. And the median age of disaffiliation is only thirteen years old! It may seem hard to believe, but that means many kids raised in the faith don’t consider themselves Catholic anymore before they even get to high school.

The second is more personal: I am a Catholic husband and dad, a man whose heart has been changed forever by encountering the risen Lord in his Church and who wants nothing more than for his wife and children to be united with God for all eternity. That may seem overly pious but, when I step back and search the core of who I am and what I desire, I know it to be true. You can have all the accolades, the money, the power, the looks, whatever (not that I don’t think about these things at times). But what I want more than anything else is for my family to experience the joy of heaven. I’d give up everything for that.

Thinking about this has made me attentive to families I know in my community where the kids have grownup to be faithful Catholic adults who care deeply about the Lord, his Church, and what it means to live as a disciple of Jesus in the world. Something I’ve noticed: in these families, sure, the kids went to Mass on Sundays and holy days. Yes, they typically received good doctrinal formation. These count for a lot. But what really seemed to be the clincher was that the faith wasn’t just an adornment to their lives, or one of the things they held to be important. Instead, it seemed to be the very fabric of their lives. It was the warp and weft of daily life. In other words, the kids didn’t think of themselves as students at this school at certain times, baseball players at others, and Catholics on Sundays; they were Catholic students, Catholic baseball players, Catholic in all that they do.

So, how did this happen? Who was responsible for this thick Catholic culture in their homes that became the soil that provided the nutrients and environment for strong, healthy plants to grow? What was the key that helped these children grow into young adults who were Catholic disciples of Jesus Christ? The answer is simply this: their parents. As the research of the past couple decades has shown, the main factor that helps a child grow into a believing and practicing adult is his or her parents. And it’s not the parents who merely send them to Catholic school or CCD/PSR, but the ones who can witness to the power of their own faith and who intentionally build a culture of faith in their home.

And this is where The Dominus Project comes in. We at FranU want to help parents and caregivers become precisely this kind of witness and help them build this kind of culture in their homes. All of our prayers, formation in discipleship, and resources are directed at this. There’s more we will say in future newsletters, but for now, know that we are praying for you and want to help you so that your home can become the rich soil that produces amazing fruit for the Lord. Please pray for us and join us in this mission!

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