Cardinal Sarah to deliver Christendom College commencement address

Founded in 1977, Christendom is a Catholic liberal arts college with an enrollment of 539 students. Students study a common curriculum than includes Catholic theology, philosophy, the history and literature of Western civilization. 

The college explains its mission on its website:

“Founded in 1977 in response to the devastating blow inflicted on Catholic higher education by the cultural revolution which swept across America in the 1960s, Christendom’s goal is to provide a truly Catholic education in fidelity to the Magisterium of the Catholic Church and thereby to prepare students for their role as lay apostles to restore all things in Christ.”

Cardinal Sarah’s address will be live-streamed, and available for viewing at Christendom’s website and YouTube page. He will also receive an honorary doctorate of humane letters. The commencement ceremony will begin at 1 pm, on Saturday, May 14.

The Diocese of Arlington’s Bishop Michael Burbidge will join Cardinal Sarah in celebrating the Baccalaureate Mass for graduates on Friday, May 13.

Born in 1945 in Ourous, Guinea, Cardinal Sarah was ordained a priest in 1969, and went on to become the youngest bishop in the world at the age of 34. After Pope Benedict XVI named him a Cardinal in 2010, Pope Francis appointed him Prefect of the Congregation of Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments in 2014, a position he held until February 20, 2021.

The international success of his autobiographical book, 2015 book God or Nothing, was followed by the publication of The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise. His 2019 book, The Day is Now Far Spent, diagnoses a moral and cultural decline in the West that he says can only be remedied by a renewed devotion to Christ.

Recent commencement ceremonies at Christendom have included football coach Lou Holtz, radio personality Patrick Madrid, author Fr. Robert Spitzer, S.J., Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and Cardinal Garhard Muller.