Vocations Director, Webmaster: Fr. John Bayer was born in Texas in 1984. He entered Our Lady of Dallas in August, 2007. He made his first temporary vows on August 20, 2008, and he made his solemn profession on August 19, 2012. He was ordained priest on August 10, 2013. He is Form Master for Class 2025 and he teaches English Lab, Latin and Theology at Cistercian Preparatory School. He is also an adjunct professor of theology at University of Dallas.

Fr. John’s father worked as a professor of theology, and his mother, who immigrated to the United States from Germany, first worked as a teacher and then later as a nurse practitioner. Growing up, Fr. John spent time in California, Connecticut and New York. He attended both public and private (Catholic) schools as a child. Fr. John spent most of his childhood in a suburb of Putnam County, New York, but he spent several summers visiting his father and stepmother in New York City, where they had their own business in career counseling and outplacement services.

After spending one year at College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, Fr. John transferred to University of Dallas. He began college as a drama major, and then switched briefly to math, before his studies at University of Dallas brought him finally to settle on philosophy.

Fr. John’s studies in philosophy, along with important friendships in college, a semester studying abroad in Rome, and at first only occasional contacts with the monastery, encouraged him to consider priesthood and religious life. He worked in different law firms during and after college, and was preparing to apply to law school, when he realized that it was necessary to enter the novitiate at Our Lady of Dallas and discover whether he had a vocation there. It was essential to give such an important question due time and space before making other commitments.

Soon after joining the monastery, Fr. John began teaching at Cistercian Preparatory School and studying for the priesthood at University of Dallas. In 2012, he traveled to Rome to continue his graduate studies at Pontifical Gregorian University, where he defended his dissertation on St. Anselm of Canterbury in 2019. In addition to good philosophy and theology, Fr. John loves athletics, hiking, camping and marveling prayerfully in nature.