Meet Father Louis Bethea, O.P.

Meet Father Louis Bethea, O.P.
By Br. Jerome Masters, O.P.

Editor’s note: During his diaconal year, Fr. Louis Bethea, O.P., served at The Rosary Shrine of Saint Jude. Br. Jerome Masters, O.P., interviewed Fr. Louis in anticipation of his ordination to the priesthood on June 5, 2025, at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, in Washington, DC. Please pray for Fr. Louis as he embarks on his priestly ministry!

Fr. Louis, tell us a little bit about your background?

I grew up in the suburbs of Washington, DC, in northern Virginia, and have a younger sister. My mom was a lifelong Catholic and my dad is a convert who was very active in our parish as a religious education teacher and youth group leader. As a result, being involved in the Church, especially in our local parish community, was always very important to me. I was educated by the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia Congregation in elementary school and by the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales while in high school.

I had not considered the priesthood or religious life from that early an age; however, a more serious consideration of my vocation came in college. I attended Carnegie-Mellon University to complete my undergraduate degree in chemical engineering before heading to Akron, Ohio, where I worked for 10 years designing new materials for car tires. I spent 7 years working in the race tire division before a 3-year stint in the European engineering office in Luxembourg. It was during this time abroad when I returned to the consideration of whether God was calling me to the priesthood.

How long have you been a Dominican friar? And what initially attracted you to the Dominican Order?

I entered the Dominicans in 2018 and made solemn profession and was ordained a deacon in 2024. Early on while discerning the priesthood, I felt attracted to the communal life, a foundational aspect of religious communities. As I prayed on the various religious orders, I was initially attracted to the structure within the Dominican life that enshrines contemplation equally alongside apostolic ministry in the well-lived and regulated life of the Dominican friar. This is for good reason: Our life cannot be lived without it being firmly rooted in the desire for and meditation upon the Lord, Who is pure truth, pure goodness, pure being, and pure love.

The strength of the Order of Preachers and, in particular, the Province of St. Joseph, is a result of God’s tremendous gift of grace, all the while buoyed by the prayers and donations of our benefactors. These gifts enable us to devote ourselves wholeheartedly to the pursuit and dissemination of the truths of our Catholic Faith with unfettered zeal! I found this emphasis on developing an intense intellectual life particularly attractive as God was guiding me to the Order of Preachers.

This year, you have been assigned as the student brother deacon at The Rosary Shrine of Saint Jude. Tell us some of the highlights of serving in this ministry and seeing first-hand how so many seek St. Jude’s intercession.

It has been a great joy to be involved in the Saint Jude Shrine this year! During this important year in formation—the diaconal year is the final year of initial formation—I have found it consoling and heart-warming to bring the intentions of our patrons to St. Jude and ask his intercession. For my part, I am always amazed at the way St. Jude intercedes for our intentions, sometimes in the way we desire, other times mysteriously.

Earlier this year I gave a tour of our Saint Jude Shrine and its home, St. Dominic Church in Washington, DC, and it gave me pause when I considered how lucky we are to be given the opportunity to pray for the intentions of so many of the faithful each and every day. When we receive the hand-written prayer intentions sent to the Shrine, it is such a humbling and prayerful moment to pray with the requestors. We are one Church, one Body of Christ, and together we beg the grace and mercy of God through our great intercessor, St. Jude.

The motto of the Dominican Friars is Veritas, which means truth. Why was seeking truth so fundamental to St. Dominic and the founding of the Dominican Order and why is the seeking of truth so important today?

We have to remember the era in which St. Dominic was active and preaching. The early 13th century was a time when the Albigensian heresy was active, alive, and hostile to the unity of the Church. Although it has largely faded into obscurity now, it greatly affected a society in which church and state were much more intertwined. They taught that the material world was evil and that God did not create it. St. Dominic and his confrères, along with other orthodox forces within the Church, had to combat this spreading heresy.

What was the question they asked? It wasn’t so much whether the Albigensians were wrong—although they were—the question was this: What is the truth about God and His creation? God is immutable—He is unchanging—and so if we aren’t seeking out the unchanging truth of God, then our efforts are in vain and we merely seek out opinion. But when we strive to find the very truth of God, we build ourselves a foundation of stone from which we can battle any number of errant propositions.

So we as an Order took Veritas as our motto so that we might continuously strive to know God as the surefi re bedrock from which we can take on any challenge to the Faith, from classical heresies to modern moral dilemmas like euthanasia and everything in between. When you are firmly grounded in the principles of truth, you can apply them to anything.

In the next few weeks, you will be ordained a priest! What do you look forward to most in being ordained a priest and a shepherd of souls?

It’s hard to believe that seven years of formation is about to culminate in priestly ordination in just a few weeks! The Lord has already been so good to us, but one of the ways I often hear that the Lord continues to teach us is through the flock that we help to shepherd to the Eternal Kingdom.

We Dominicans live a regular life, meaning that we live it according to a rule and with responsibilities to our superiors and the brothers with whom we live. We learn from one another, are corrected by one another, and hopefully become holy with one another. This also extends to the flock, where together with the priest as a shepherd, we are all moving toward the place God desires to welcome us at the end of our lives: heaven. And so I look forward to taking that journey together so that the flock and their shepherd might grow in holiness and become closer disciples and children of Jesus Christ. As a priest, I look forward to living out the sacramental life of the church with great fervor, but also exercising the munera of priest, prophet, and king in that uniquely sacerdotal mode of alter Christus.

Photo Credit: Mr. George Goss