Adjunct Instructor of Spiritual Theology
Fr. Luke Buckles was born April 22, 1949 in Des Moines, Iowa and Baptized the following June at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Des Moines. As a young boy his family moved to San Diego, California where he grew up. His father worked in the post office and his mother was a nurse. He has one brother who just retired from teaching at St. Rita’s elementary school and continues to teach Philosophy at the community college.Fr. Luke entered the Catholic Church in October, 1967 during his first semester of pre-med studies. Mid-way through the program he discerned a call to become a priest. The vocation director for the diocese of San Diego encouraged him to consider religious life. The vocation director gave him a book to “pray through” with all the different religious orders of men in the Church and that is how he first came across the Dominican Order.
Fr. Luke entered the Dominican Order on September 8, 1972 and was ordained on March 17, 1978, having completed an M.Div and a Master of Arts in Theology. After a year of ministry at Holy Rosary Church, he was sent to Rome and earned his licentiate and doctorate in sacred theology in 1985 from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas, the Angelicum. He taught at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology until 2003 when he was invited to teach at the Angelicum. He finished his assigned terms as a member of the faculty and rector of the International Convitto of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome and currently has been teaching again at the Dominican School in California every fall semester and for every spring semester since 2021 at Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is currently appointed as an adjunct faculty member of the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in California and adjunct professor of spiritual theology at Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans.
Fr. Luke has taught theology for the last 40 years as well as serving as spiritual director to religious brothers, priests, nuns and sisters co currently during these years. In the summers he has had the privilege of serving in parishes, Newman centers, and offering retreats to priests, married couples, and members of Christ’s Faithful Laity.