Vocations: Dominican Brother Paul Dismas Carty

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Dominican Brother Paul Dismas Carty

SALT LAKE CITY — When he entered the Dominican Order as a novice on Aug. 13, a feeling of kinship with Saint Paul led Brother Paul Dismas Carty to ask to keep his baptismal name.

Although he was raised Catholic, he never took the faith seriously until, he said, “I had this kind of radical conversion or reversion … and so I feel a connection to St. Paul in the way of like having this very radical conversion in college.”

He chose his second name, Dismas, because he feels an affinity with The Good Thief. Tradition has it that Dismas was the name of one of the two thieves who was crucified next to Christ. When the other thief mocked Jesus, Dismas defended the Lord, saying that the two of them were justly condemned, but Jesus was innocent.

Like Dismas, “I used to get myself into all sorts of trouble,” Brother Paul Dismas said.

That trouble was part of the twisting path that led him to enter the Dominican order. His father was Catholic, and he was baptized as an infant. Growing up in California’s Orange County, he attended Catholic schools, and the family would pray before meals and attend Sunday Mass, “but we didn’t really talk about the faith,” he said.

When he was 8 his father passed away from lung cancer; “that kind of threw my whole life upside down,” he said.

His mother continued to take him to Mass on Sundays, but about the time he was a freshman in high school he “stopped caring about the faith as much. … For me, the faith wasn’t that important. I was being a very rebellious teenager. … In high school, I just started to kind of fall further and further away from the faith and just care more about the things of the world. And by the end of high school, I pretty much completely wouldn’t consider myself a Catholic. I believed in God, but, you know, it was very much just caring about the things of the world.”

He moved to Utah to study engineering at the University of Utah, and “spent all my time that I wasn’t studying or getting schoolwork done, just basically partying, just partying and living kind of a debaucherous lifestyle,” he said.

After his freshman year of college he developed health issues, becoming so sick that he couldn’t eat or get out of bed.

Doctors couldn’t diagnose the problem, he said. “I kind of felt helpless, and that’s when I …. in the depths of sadness and pain … I turned back to God for the first time in several years, and I just kind of cried out in prayer. … There was no one else to turn to.”

He asked God for help, and promised, “I will serve you forever, if I can get back to being healthy again,” he said.

Finally a doctor diagnosed the problem, but it took two years to get back to normal health, he said, and after that he became more intrigued “with the things of the faith and wanting to know God.”

He began to call his uncle, who is also his godfather, and talk about the nature of truth and how to find it, he said. During these calls his uncle would suggest that he go back to church, “but he wasn’t pushy about it, but he would just bring up little things about the faith,” Brother Paul Dismas said.

On his own, he began to turn to Scripture more often, “and I started developing my identity as a child of God,” he said.

He also discerned the need for a faith community. He went to Bible study with some Protestant groups on campus, but still felt there was something missing. He began wearing a crucifix and a miraculous medal, and then accepted a Catholic friend’s invitation to attend Mass. He also became involved with the Saint Catherine of Siena Newman Center next to the U’s campus.

“That was the community I needed,” he said because they were people his own age who cared about the faith.

Dominican priests minister at the Newman Center, and Brother Paul Dismas grew to appreciate their faith life, especially the Divine Office, which he joined on a daily basis. He also took spiritual direction from one of the friars.

About this time he began to feel a call to a religious life, but never considered becoming a priest because “I thought that I’d done too many bad things in my life,” he said.

Then he learned about the conversion story of Father Donald Calloway, MIC, who as a teenager was involved with the Japanese mafia but eventually converted to Catholicism and was ordained a priest.

Brother Paul Dismas was “blown away” by Fr. Calloway’s conversion story, he said, and it led him to realize that by comparison the things he himself had done were not so bad, so he realized that he could in fact become a priest.

The feeling that he could live a religious life grew, he said, so he investigated several religious orders, but felt as if those doors were always getting shut, while “with the Dominicans, the door was always open,” he said.

After graduating from college, he worked fulltime for a year to pay off his student debt, then entered the Priory of Saint Albert the Great in Oakland, Calif., a Dominican house of formation for friars.

The past three months have been an opportunity to “read, reflect and pray, and contemplate the things of God,” he said, adding that this has helped him realize that he truly does want to become a priest so that he can administer the sacraments, preach the Gospel and help lead people to the truth.

He would recommend that a young person who may feel called to a religious vocation find a spiritual director, “because you need someone that can guide you,” he said.

He also suggests that the person take it to prayer and determine how they can best serve God’s people. “Would it be as a priest, or do you see yourself being a faithful servant to God as a lay person, as being married and having children?,” he said.