Dominican Ecclesial Institute - Board of Members and Trustees

Fr. Matthew Strabala. OP, was born January 5th, 1969 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa to Thomas Strabala of Riverside Iowa and Maria Elena Padilla-Strabala originally of Gilbert, Arizona. The eldest of three children, he has one brother, Luke, in Austin Texas, and a sister Camille, who resides with her husband and three daughters in Mesa, Arizona. His family moved from Iowa to El Paso, Texas in 1979 where he completed grade school and attended the local Christian Brothers High School. At his Confirmation, inspired by the stories of St. Dominic’s passion for reconciling alienated Christians with the Church, he took the name Dominic, adding it to his baptismal “Matthew” and “Thomas”. In 1987, he entered college seminary for the diocese of El Paso, studying psychology at the University of Dallas (UD) while in formation at Holy Trinity Seminary; it was there that he met his first live Dominican Friars.

After graduating from UD in 1991 with a B.A. in Psychology, he began his theological studies at the University of St. Mary-Mundelein Seminary in Chicago. After his first year of theology, responding to a need to further discern his vocation, he left seminary and worked various jobs in Chicago while exploring other dioceses and religious communities. It was during this time, recalling both his initial attraction to the preaching and teaching charism of St. Dominic and the Dominican men whom he had known and admired, that he began a serious conversation with the vocation director for the Dominican Province of St. Albert the Great. Ultimately he applied for admission to the Order, was accepted and began the year-long Dominican Novitiate in Denver. At the end of that novitiate year, in August of 1996 he made his first (temporary) profession in the Order and traveled with his classmates to St. Louis to complete his theological studies at the Aquinas Institute of Theology. As part of the Dominican formation program, Matthew returned to the Southwest to spend an academic year working at the Aquinas Newman Center at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque in 1998-1999.

In May of 2000 Matt made his solemn (lifelong) profession in the Order of Preachers, graduated from Aquinas Institute with a combined MA/MDiv in Theology and was ordained a Deacon. The following July he was assigned as a deacon to the Newman Center in Albuquerque where he continued on as parochial vicar working closely with Newman Center pastor, Fr. Bob Keller, OP and fellow Aquinas Institute graduate Melanie Ahern who was then serving as Campus Minster. On December 9th, 2000 he was ordained to the priesthood by Archbishop Michael Sheehan at the Newman Center. He fondly recalls “hitting the ground running” as he went from a parish deacon on the Second Sunday of Advent, to a Priest on the Third Sunday of Advent and from there right into full priestly ministry that Christmas season.

During his time at the Newman Center, fr. Matt enjoyed the regular celebration of the sacraments with the UNM community as well as occasionally assisting at neighboring parishes and at Kirtland Air Force Base. In addition to his work with the students, staff, faculty and alumni of UNM, fr. Matt also served as a member and co-chair of a vocation promotion committee comprised of representatives of almost all of the men’s and women’s religious communities in the Archdiocese of Santa Fe.

In August of 2003 he left New Mexico to begin work on a Doctorate in Systematic Theology at the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. While studying in DC he continued his preaching ministry through work with the EPS (Evangelization-Parish-Service) Program at neighboring Trinity University and by saying mass regularly for a local congregation of cloistered Poor Claire Nuns, whom he credits with having prayed him through his comprehensive exams.

Although his studies were disrupted by the extended illness and ultimate death of his mother in 2006 he has completed his coursework and comprehensive examinations and is in the dissertation phase of his academic program. His field of study is ecclesiology, the study of the Church itself as a historical and divine-human institution. His primary focus is on the French Dominican theologian Yves Congar who was the theological architect behind many of the major documents of the Second Vatican Council; consequently, fr. Matthew has become something of a Vatican II scholar in the process.

Taking over the reins of the Dominican Ecclesial Institute (D+E+I) as Director in June, 2009, Fr. Matt returns to New Mexico not as a stranger but as voyager returning home. Recognizing the achievement and significance of the work of the founding Director, fr. Michael Demkovich, OP, Fr. Matt hopes to continue to build on what has been established as well as move D+E+I in new directions, including a more significant presence on the internet and a new set of D+E+I course offerings. His long range plans include attempting to offer an extensive library of basic Catholic catechetical information in an easily accessible and comprehensible form both in English and in Spanish.