By O’Connor Daniel | Reporter
When he’s not leading a Roman university or lecturing on Thomas Aquinas, Fr. Thomas Joseph White plays banjo and resonator guitar in a bluegrass band made up entirely of Dominican friars.
White is the rector — or president — of the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas, commonly known as the Angelicum. He’s also a professor of theology, author of several books on Thomism and the founder of the Thomistic Institute in Washington, D.C., which promotes Catholic philosophy and theology, both in person and online.
But on Wednesday from 7-9 p.m. in Jones Concert Hall, he’ll be onstage at Baylor University as one of the founding members of the Hillbilly Thomists, a priestly bluegrass group with a surprising cult following.
Dallas senior Janie Kull said she’s excited for the live music experience.
“I absolutely love concerts and I’ve heard such wonderful things about the Hillbilly Thomists,” Kull said. “I think it’s a beautiful way to celebrate all traditions of faith.”
The band began in 2017, when the friars, then in formation for the priesthood, decided to record an album to raise money for seminary formation. What started as a weekend hobby — playing Irish and Appalachian folk tunes in the priory — quickly turned into something bigger.
“We discovered there was a whole interest in this kind of music from Catholic priests, which, of course, is an eccentric hobby,” White said.
The band’s debut album unexpectedly reached No. 3 on the Billboard Bluegrass chart in 2017. The group has toured across the U.S. and built a fan base that includes theology students, homeschool families and curious music lovers.
When asked how such an unlikely group of musicians — priests with musical tastes more in line with the Carter Family than Gregorian chants — found each other, White explained the difference between music for liturgy and music for life.
“Liturgy is the heart of life, but life is more than liturgy,” he said.
While you’ll find sacred polyphony and Gregorian chant in Dominican churches, White said music also has a place in daily life — when doing dishes, driving long distances or simply gathering with friends on a Friday night.
“Folk music in the Catholic tradition accompanies life,” he said. “It’s about joy, mourning, suffering and humor.”
As Dominicans — members of the 800-year-old Order of Preachers founded by St. Dominic — the friars study and teach theology, often inspired by the work of 13th-century philosopher Thomas Aquinas. When they decided to start a bluegrass band with a Catholic spirit, the name was easy. They borrowed it from Southern author Flannery O’Connor, who once wrote that she was not a nihilist, but a “Hillbilly Thomist.”
“When we decided to do something in the Americana bluegrass tradition that has a strong Catholic flavor, it just seemed natural to call the band the Hillbilly Thomists,” White said.
O’Connor’s Catholic vision shows up in the band’s lyrics, too. In “Holy Ghost Power,” White noted that there are direct references to “Everything That Rises Must Converge,” “The Enduring Chill” and “Wise Blood.”
“Didn’t used to believe in the God of love, but now I eat it in the body and drink it in the wise blood,” the lyrics go, tying together Eucharistic theology and O’Connor’s most famous title.
“She’s looking at how grace can work through violent events,” White said.
He teaches O’Connor in Rome, and always starts with her story “Revelation,” calling it a kind of doorway into the rest of her work.
While their songs draw from Catholic theology, he said the band doesn’t write music intended for use during the Mass.
“We typically avoid playing in churches,” White said. “In terms of the Catholic liturgy, we wouldn’t see the music as primarily appropriate in that setting.”
While the music is not liturgical, it is deeply theological — infused with the intellectual tradition of Aquinas and the spiritual longing of the Christian life. In the song “Veronica,” for example, written by fellow friar Justin Bolger, the lyrics describe a desire to see God face to face. That longing, White said, mirrors Dante’s final vision in Paradiso — the moment of union with God, the beatific vision.
“This is now taken as prefiguration, or a metaphorical symbol of God impressing the divine essence on the soul, that we could come to see God face to face,” he said. “It’s super profound, but gently conveyed through music.”
White sees a wider trend of young people returning to tradition — and not just in music. Across the U.S., he said, Catholic parishes are seeing more and more young adults entering catechesis.
“You can see a shift in young people under the age of 30 toward wanting a form of religion that is less therapeutic and more challenging,” he said.
Rather than seeking comfort, he said, they are seeking transcendence, and a liturgy that helps them live a life that’s visibly different from secular culture.
“It says to their peers Christianity is an alternative life with Christ, that’s a challenge and that is beautiful,” he said.
While teaching and the priesthood remain his central vocation, White said the music gives him a different creative outlet. The band spends its recording time at a retreat house in the Catskill Mountains, where they pray the Liturgy of the Hours together throughout the day, and collaborate, record, layer in harmonies and add solos into the recording music process together.
“That’s the whole creative dimension of music that I love,” he said.
White said he hopes Wednesday’s performance at Baylor offers students a glimpse into the humanity of the priesthood.
“The band is musically tight and has a pretty high level of technical skill at this point,” he said. “We’ll do our best — and I think people will enjoy it.”
White said he hopes Wednesday’s performance at Baylor gives students — especially those who aren’t Catholic — a small window into the humanity of the Catholic priesthood.
“There’s so much profundity in the American music tradition,” he said. “We as a band have a lot of homage to that and try to tap into that music of the past. It’s worth knowing about and recovering a sense of and respect for.”
