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Catholic College Gives
Cardinal Arinze Standing Ovation

(May 25, 2004)

Francis Cardinal Arinze receives St. Thomas Aquinas Medallion from Dr. Thomas Dillon, president, and James Barrett, vice president of the board of governors

SANTA PAULA, CALIF.—His Eminence Francis Cardinal Arinze, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, received a standing ovation from the 71 graduates and their 1,400 guests at Thomas Aquinas College's 30th commencement on Saturday, May 15. The college later awarded the cardinal its highest honor, the Saint Thomas Aquinas Medallion, in recognition of his extraordinary dedication to God and His Church.

"The depth of Cardinal Arinze's faith and his love of the Church were manifest in the moving exhortation he delivered to the graduates and their assembled guests," said Dr. Michael McLean, dean at the college. "They responded enthusiastically to his personal example, his direct and heartfelt words and to his call to Christian service and evangelization."

A native of Nigeria, Arinze was baptized into the Faith at the age of nine by his parish priest, the first Nigerian to be beatified, Blessed Michael Tansi. He was ordained Bishop of Onitsha, Nigeria, in 1967, but spent the next few years in Biafra as a fugitive during the Nigerian Civil War. Upon returning to his diocese in 1970, his efforts to restore the Church bore tremendous fruit. During his tenure as president of the Nigerian Council of Bishops (1979 - 1982), the number of Catholics in the country doubled. In 1982, Pope John Paul II made him a member of the Roman Curia, first heading up the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue and subsequently, the Congregation for Divine Worship. He was elevated to the dignity of Cardinal in 1985.

Quoting Our Lord's directive to St. Peter, "Put out into deep water and lower your nets for a catch," Cardinal Arinze exhorted the new graduates to undertake the work of evangelization by witnessing to Christ in their families, professional lives and personal relationships.

For this work to be fruitful, he urged them to form their consciences rightly, advising that they "follow the Maker's instructions" by conforming their minds and wills to the moral principles that are "built by the Creator into the nature of the human person." He cited particular directives of both the natural law and the Church on issues such as premarital relations, marriage, contraception, abortion and euthanasia and gave the graduates the poignant yet heroic example of Saint Gianna Molla, whose canonization was to take place in Rome the next day.

Cardinal Arinze emphasized the need for the graduates to execute professional responsibilities well and to actively participate in temporal affairs. "The Christian must not be an absentee citizen in this world under pretext of preparing for the next world," said the Nigerian prelate. "The Christian must not introduce a divorce between professional duties on the one hand and religious duties on the other. Rather, the Christian's religion should help that person to make a vital synthesis of their earthly activities -- domestic, professional, social, technical and political --and harmonize them all unto God's glory."

Rejecting current intellectual fads such as moral subjectivism and theological relativism, Cardinal Arinze instead directed the graduates to be courageous in their witness to Christ. "...there comes a time or place where you are called upon to share your faith directly, to speak to another expressly about what you believe in Jesus Christ, announce Jesus Christ....It is for you, not by argument, but by example, and, when feasible, by word to show them that life would lose its meaning and sense of direction without God.

"If a Catholic graduate is to do all this -- to witness to Christ in the family, in professional life, and in direct proclamation of Christ -- then deep growth in prayer and sacramental life are absolute requirements. We cannot do it all by our own power."

Cardinal Arinze also defined the role of the Catholic college or university in enabling young men and women to do this work of evangelization. He praised Thomas Aquinas College for its outstanding fulfillment of this role by giving its students "not only information but formation."

"May God bless Thomas Aquinas College," Cardinal Arinze said, "for its excellent performance as a Catholic college since its foundation in 1971, a college where parents can send their children and be sure that this college is maintaining the best ideals of our faith....We thank this college, those who gave the very initial vision, those who maintain it today, and those who enable it to continue with this identity."

The entire text of Cardinal Arinze's commencement address (as well as his Baccalaureate address) is available on the College's website. A free CD of Commencement highlights that includes Cardinal Arinze's homily, commencement talk and spontaneous remarks from the podium, is also available by contacting the College directly.