The Western Province, or Province of the Most Holy Name of Jesus was first established in 1850 by the co-founders Fr. Sadoc Vilarrasa and Bishop Joseph Alemany. Alemany, who in 1840 completed his studies in sacred theology in Rome at the Dominican College of St. Thomas, the future Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, "Angelicum", had been appointed Bishop of Monterey and invited Fr. Vilarrasa to accompany him to California. On his way to his new post in California Alemany stopped in Paris and asked Dominican sisters to join him to teach the children of the Forty-niners. Mary Goemaere (1809-1891) volunteered to accompany the new bishop and to begin a school in his new diocese. Within three years, nine women (three American, one Mexican, and five Spanish) joined Sister Mary to form the Congregation of the Most Holy Name. The province was soon reduced to a self-governing Congregation. Finally, in 1912, the congregation was formally re-erected as a province, and currently covers the states of Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Utah, Oregon, and Washington, and serves eight parishes and ten campus ministries within this area. It is headquartered in Oakland, California. As of January 2019, the Prior Provincial is the Very Rev. Christopher Fadok, OP.