In this episode we we are beginning what hopefully will become a longer series and, ultimately, its own podcast. The concept is to recapitulate the conversation had by Saint Dominic in the tavern with the Albigensian in the 13th century. The conversation lead to the Albigensian rejoining the Church. Based on this conversation, Saint Dominic decided that there needed to be an "Order of Preachers". Thus began the Dominican Order. In contrast to a push for christians to remove themselves from the public square, "The Dominican Option" is an attempt to enter into it and make the case for Christ and His Church. Todays conversation. is between Father Hyacinth Cordell OP, a Dominican Friar at St Pats in Philadelphia and Professor Alan Stoekl a Professor Emeritus from Penn State University.

Bios
Fr Cordell

​​Fr. Hyacinth Cordell, O.P. is from suburban Chicago.  He's a drummer and percussionist, and studied music one year at the University of North Texas.  He graduated from St. Louis University with a degree in Philosophy and Letters.  He has an M.Div., S.T.B., and S.T.L. from the Pontifical Faculty of the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, DC.  He was ordained a priest in 2011.  He served as parochial vicar at St. Pius V in Providence, RI for four years, and for three years at St. Dominic in Washington, DC.  He was pastor for two years at St. Dominic before being asked to be pastor here at St. Patrick's in June, 2020.  He has an interest in music and health.  He runs regularly and eats what is known as the Whole Food Plant Based Diet (a healthy vegan diet).  Every year he goes to Kolkata, India in October to teach an intensive course on the Eucharist to the Missionaries of Charity (Mother Teresa's sisters), and he invites any who are interested to go with him and volunteer while he teaches.  
 

Professor Allen Stoekl

Professor Stoekl's  recent work has focused on issues of energy use, sustainability and economy in a literary-cultural and philosophical context (both French and international). Hi book Bataille's Peak follows up on earlier work on Georges Bataille, but from a framework of current questions of energy use and depletion (which Bataille formulated, he argues, already in the 1940s). He is presently engaged in a larger project considering theories of the city from the past (the surrealists, situationists and Le Corbusier) in light of current theories--aesthetic, political, energetic--of sustainable urbanism. He has lectured extensively here in the US and abroad, and has recently served as Visiting Professor at Johns Hopkins and Westminster University (London).