Forward in Faith: Catholic College Commencements
Graduating students at Catholic colleges and universities across the country are eager to start the next chapter of their lives.
*This article was originally published in the National Catholic Register.
Spring is a season of renewal, but also of new beginnings. This is particularly true for graduating students at Catholic colleges and universities across the country eager to start the next chapter of their lives.
The colleges, many of which are featured in the Register’s annual “Catholic Identity College Guide,” range from Ave Maria University (AMU) in Ave Maria, Florida; and The Catholic University of America (CUA) in Washington, D.C., to Wyoming Catholic College in Lander, Wyoming, among others.
Yet before the graduation-cap tassels are moved from the right to left, the Class of 2025 will partake in one last lesson, imbued with faithful wisdom, offered by notable Catholic speakers, including Michael Knowles, host of the Daily Wire’s The Michael Knowles Show; Bishop Robert Barron of the Diocese of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota, and founder of Word on Fire; Sister of the Holy Family of Nazareth Josephine Garrett, author and host of the Hope Stories podcast; Kevin Roberts, president of The Heritage Foundation; Chris Stefanick, founder and president of Real Life Catholic; and James Wahlberg, a filmmaker and brother of actor Mark Wahlberg. “These speakers are witnesses to the Catholic faith and have made substantial contributions to our Church and culture, including in pro-life, pro-marriage, and religious-freedom efforts,” Kelly Salomon, vice president of the Newman Guide Programs at The Cardinal Newman Society, told the Register.
The nearly 350 AMU graduates heard from Knowles on May 10. The Catholic commentator has appeared regularly on television, and his writing has been featured in the Daily Wire, The American Conservative, The American Mind and Fox News, among other outlets. He also published two bestsellers. “Our seniors are thrilled that Michael Knowles will be the keynote speaker for their commencement ceremony,” Mark Middendorf, president of AMU, told the Register before the graduation ceremony. “They have been preparing for four years to graduate and live out their Catholic faith wherever God leads them next, and Michael Knowles is such a great example of how you can live the faith with courage and conviction.”
Kate Schexnaidler, a member of the Class of 2025 who double majored in classics and early Christian literature and communications with a minor in theology, agreed, telling the Register that Knowles is “the example of a Catholic who not only knows, but actively participates and magnanimously serves in, a secular environment entrenched against the faith.”
“We look forward to being inspired by his experience so we too can go out as Catholics called to be in the world — yet not of it,” Schexnaidler told the Register prior to commencement.
Knowles said, “Your job is not to change the world, which you could not do even if you tried, but rather to cooperate with God’s grace to do what He wants for you.”
Meanwhile, on May 17, Bishop Barron is slated as the commencement speaker at CUA, where he is an alumnus (B.A. 1981, M.A. 1982) and member of the institution’s board of trustees. In a video to students and faculty, he expressed his gratitude but also encouraged the 1,300 graduates to instill the university’s motto Deus Lux Mea Est — “God is my light.”
“Remember these words as you venture out into the world leading with light in your every endeavor,” Bishop Barron said. “During the Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium specifically urged the laity to shine in each and in all the secular professions and occupations, working for the sanctification of the world from within. Your time at CUA has well laid the foundation for you to answer this call as great Catholic lawyers, teachers, doctors, writers, journalists, investors, parents and more.”
Like Bishop Barron, Sister Josephine — who has appeared on EWTN and participated in last year’s National Eucharistic Congress — will be welcomed back to her alma mater, the University of Dallas (B.A. 2003), on May 18.
After attending the school, she entered the Catholic Church and professed her final vows in 2020. In a press release, she was “without words” in describing the joy from receiving the invitation. “My prayer for the upcoming graduation of the Class of 2025 is that we will have an opportunity not to reflect on what we have done, or what we will do, but rather what God has accomplished in each of us despite our weaknesses, and the even greater things than these ahead,” Sister Josephine said.
Catholic colleges, as recommended by the Register and The Cardinal Newman Society, are standing athwart a secularized culture, offering devoted families and students not only academic rigor, but truth — “truth about the natural world, truth about man’s place in it, and truth, ultimately, about its Creator,” Christopher Weinkopf, executive director of college relations at Thomas Aquinas College, said.
The proof is in the colleges’ graduating classes. Thomas Aquinas College, which has campuses in Santa Paula, California, and Northfield, Massachusetts, will have nearly 120 students graduate this year, its largest class ever.
“At Thomas Aquinas College, the faith is not merely an ‘add-on’ to an otherwise secular education, but at the heart of everything we do,” Weinkopf told the Register.
“It illumines and propels our students as they work their way through a rigorous Great Books curriculum, seeking and attaining truth in increasingly confused times.”
This year, the Northfield campus — which opened in 2019 — will be welcoming Roberts, who was president of Wyoming Catholic College (2013-2016), on May 24.
As Weinkopf observed, Roberts’ “presence at our commencement is an affirmation of the good work to which our graduates have dedicated themselves these last four years, and we are grateful that he would join us.”
Wyoming Catholic College is also graduating its largest class ever at 51, with Stefanick addressing the students on May 19.
Founded in 2005, the college boasts a classical liberal arts education, yet immerses its students in the state’s rustic environment, such as requiring freshmen to take a class in horsemanship. Still, “every aspect of the college community” is “rooted in the Holy Eucharist,” according to the institution’s academic catalog.
Alumni and current students agree, including Kolya Sidloski of the Class of ’25. “I wanted to find an environment where those artificial barriers technology creates are not present,” Sidloski told the Register.
“I think one of the really beautiful things about this culture at Wyoming Catholic is that spontaneous overflow of joy at what we’re doing, which results from our no-phone policy.”
Across the country, in Cromwell, Connecticut, Holy Apostles College & Seminary conferred degrees on 200 graduates during its commencement ceremony, April 26.
Wahlberg, who received an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters (L.H.D.), spoke to graduates about his conversion to the faith and offered encouragement.
“When you share the good news of Jesus Christ, you got to be bold, you got to be courageous, you got to be fearless,” he said, “and I am 100% confident that each of you will be bold and will be fearless when called upon.”