New England
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May 24, 2025
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Members of the final pioneering class at Thomas Aquinas College, New England, donned their caps and gowns and received their diplomas on Saturday — one week after their California counterparts — marking an end to four years of study, growth, and fellowship.

The Class of 2025, which watched the New England campus’s first graduating class walk the Moody Auditorium stage in 2022, has reached that same milestone. As the last of the campus’s first four classes, these 39 seniors have witnessed the traditions and culture planted by their predecessors take root and blossom, while also helping cultivate an atmosphere of studious camaraderie for future generations.

To begin Commencement Day, Rev. Gerald E. Murray, a canon lawyer and pastor of St. Joseph’s Church in New York City, offered the Baccalaureate Mass of the Holy Spirit in Our Mother of Perpetual Help Chapel. In his homily, he encouraged the seniors to promote and defend the Faith throughout their daily lives.

“Dear graduates, I naturally encourage you to live out your Catholic faith with determination and serenity,” he said. “Be the young people who help to revive and enliven the Catholic Church in the United States, and beyond, simply by doing what the saints have instructed us to do, day in and day out.”

Photos: Baccalaureate Mass of the Holy Spirit
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Following a brief reception of coffee and doughnuts on the St. Augustine Hall lawn, the Commencement exercises began in Moody Auditorium. College President Paul O’Reilly opened the ceremony, welcoming all those in attendance. “We are most grateful to you for the trust you have placed in us by sending these young people to Thomas Aquinas College. Without your confidence and dedication, we would have no college, and thus no occasion such as this to celebrate.”

Next, Pedro da Silva (NE’25), the elected Class Speaker, addressed his classmates, likening their liberal education to the example shown by the Forty Holy Martyrs of Sebaste, the Class of 2025’s patron saints. “The exemplarity of the Forty Martyrs lies in their exceling over all other armies because they won the greatest victory, were the most ordered, and had the greatest leader,” he said. “I would dare to say that our education here has also exceled others for similar reasons: We have fought a great battle, in the most perfect order, and under the best of leaders.”

The College then honored and recognized benefactors Michele and Dr. Donald H. D’Amour, who have been especially generous in their support of the New England campus. Chairman of the Board of Governors Scott Turicchi presented the couple with a bust of St. Albert the Great, inducting them into the Order of St. Albert, reserved for the College’s most generous friends. “At the core of the D’Amours’ beneficence is a firm belief in the value of Catholic liberal education here at Thomas Aquinas College,” said Chairman of the Board of Governors Scott Turicchi. “We are happy to stand with them as partners in this shared mission.”

Photos: Commencement Ceremony
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Commencement Speaker Kevin Roberts, president of The Heritage Foundation, took the podium next, charging members of the Class of 2025 to bring their love of the true, the good, and the beautiful with them as they leave the College. “The world is not going to repair itself,” he said. “For Christians, retreat is surrender, especially if it masquerades as purity. The whole world is mission country today, just like Northfield, Massachusetts, was for the first people who settled here. And Jesus is very clear that we are all called to be missionaries in it.”

Just a few minutes later, 39 men and women each ascended the stage as seniors and descended as Thomas Aquinas College alumni, bearing academic hoods and diplomas. When the last of these new graduates returned to his seat, Dr. O’Reilly welcomed them all into “the community of those who know,” to which the Class of 2025 responded by singing, “Non nobis Domine: Not to us, O Lord, but to Your name, give glory.”