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Your Excellency Bishop Borro Barbosa,,
Fr. Leahy esteemed authorities of Boston College,
Faculty,
Students,
Friends,
and above all members of the graduating class of 2026.

It is an honour and a privilege to be here with you today and address some words to you all as you graduate from this great institution. I would like to thank Fr Leahy especially for the kind invitation to make this Commencement address and I avail of the opportunity to thank all of the staff of the College who have facilitated my visit.

It is not without some trepidation that an Englishman comes to Boston during the 250^th anniversary of American independence. Spending some time in the city yesterday, I could not help but notice that your tea still seems rather expensive but nor could I ignore the extraordinary signs of achievement and progress that mark this city, and indeed this country. The last 250 years have seen this nation grow and develop in ways that the first residents of this then colony could scarcely have imagined. The declaration of independence was not just the end of British rule in this land but was rather the start of an experiment in self-government that transformed not just the country, but our world.

Today you, in fact, we, receive our degrees, but yours is rather different from mine. It is anything but honorary. It represents years of work, of study, of struggle, and I hope, some fun and friendship along the way. At home, an occasion like this is typically called a 鈥榞raduation鈥� but I was struck by the American term: 鈥榗ommencement鈥�. It immediately invokes a sense of the future, of a new beginning, rather than looking back at the road that has led here or dwelling on the achievement itself, and it is no small achievement. There is something quintessentially American about that orientation towards the future but you will, I am sure, forgive me, for glancing back just a little. The founders of this great nation declared at its birth that human beings 鈥渁re created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,鈥� thus rooting the fledgling country not just in the pursuit of political independence, power or security, but rather in a clear moral, even theological claim about the dignity of the human person as a creation of God. That claim, that conviction, which is profoundly Christian, remains foundational and is something of which we must never lose sight. It means that human dignity is not granted or ceded, be it by the state, or government, or even popular consensus, but rather arises from truths about the human person that precede all those things. Before anything else, this nation is built on the firm base of God given human dignity, everything else flows from there.

The English poet, Lord Byron, wrote that 鈥榮orrow is knowledge: they who know the most must mourn the deepest o鈥檈r the fatal truth, the Tree of Knowledge is not that of Life.鈥� And yet, if I were to try to indicate where education lies in the schema laid out by your founders, I would surely locate it under the pursuit of happiness. As Aristotle put it at the start of the Metaphysis, 鈥榓ll men, by nature, desire to know鈥�, and seeking to fulfil that good and natural desire brings a happiness which I hope all of you have had the opportunity to experience in your time here at Boston College. This is, first and foremost, a place of learning, a place where knowledge may be pursued and developed, through research and reflection. Our desire for knowledge is so much more than a desire for facts. It is more than the drive to acquire information. The expanding databases provided by artificial intelligence can provide us with enormous amounts of that sort of knowledge but that is not enough to fulfil our desire to know. Pope Leo XIV has warned against a 鈥榥aive and unquestioning reliance on artificial intelligence as an omniscient 鈥渇riend,鈥� a source of all knowledge, an archive of every memory, an 鈥渙racle鈥� of all advice鈥� (Message for the 60th World Day of Social Communications, 2026). Our thirst for knowledge could never be satiated in that way. It is rather a desire, which, I think, may be best expressed as a desire for understanding, for wisdom, for meaning and for truth.

The pontificate of Pope Leo has already witnessed a renewal in interest in the works of St. Augustine, and here I cannot but make reference to one his most famous phrases, 鈥榶ou have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you鈥�. That thirst for, that reaching out for knowledge, first invoked by Aristotle, finds an even deeper meaning in Augustine. I hope that in your time of study here you too have had the chance to seek that deeper knowledge that is found in God alone, the pursuit of which is the surest road to happiness. If not, it is never too late.

You receive your degrees today as individuals, each with their own story, their own path, which has led to this moment. Nevertheless, you also graduate as a group, as the class of 2026. St. John Henry Newman, the most recent Doctor of the Church, held that an essential part of University education was the interaction of the students themselves. He understood that these exchanges were just as formative as lectures, and courses, readings and essays. Indeed, when time dulls recall of certain facts and details, that overall formation is often what remains most important in memory. In Discourse 5 of The idea of a University, Newman reflects that 鈥楢 university is a place... which gathers together students and teachers, not for the sake of the teachers, but for the sake of the students... They learn to respect, to consult, to aid each other. Thus is created a pure and clear atmosphere of thought, which the student also breathes鈥�. Your generation was deprived of an early introduction to that sort of experience because of the Covid pandemic, but I hope that your time in Boston College has been marked by that kind of rapport. Newman could not have envisaged how the internet would change education, and so much else, but I have no doubt that, if he had, it would merely have strengthened his conviction regarding the importance of peer interaction.

I would like to dwell briefly on the three verbs Newman highlighted: to respect, to consult, and to aid. Our desire for knowledge should also push us to learn about and from those around us, to hear perspectives and experiences that are not our own. Through that, we should learn to respect others, even if we may not agree with them, while bearing ever in mind that the deepest motive for our respect is that they too 鈥榓re created equal,[and] that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights鈥�. That, of course, applies to each person, you included. To have respect for oneself is a necessity in order to begin to have the same attitude towards those around us. To learn to respect others is, in some ways, to learn how to live in society and the more deeply we learn that lesson, the stronger our societies become. 聽

To have the humility to consult is also a precious gift and Newman is right to highlight it. Jean Paul Sartre, in his 1946 lecture Existentialism is a humanism observed that 鈥榠f you seek counsel鈥攆rom a priest, for example鈥攜ou have selected that priest; and at bottom you already knew, more or less, what he would advise鈥�.聽 Newman would not accept that. To truly consult, is to seek knowledge, it is to seek insight. At its best, it is the openness to hear the truth. Of course, Sartre is right in noting that whom we choose to consult is not irrelevant, but if that person is also a seeker of truth, if they value wisdom, then together we may learn and indeed grow. I am always struck, in a way I am sure Sartre would ridicule, but Newman would readily understand, by the friendships between Saints, which helped them grow in knowledge, in truth and above all in holiness.聽 St. Ignatius and St Francis Xavier spring to mind, as do St. Clare and St. Francis, and St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross. To consult others, and to listen to them, is an essential part of education, and I would argue, of human life.聽聽

The final verb underscored by Newman is 鈥榯o aid鈥� and here I would like to dwell a little longer, not so much looking back on your years in college, but looking forward to the next step, taking seriously that today is the commencement of something new, a new phase of life. That students would aid each other probably struck Newman as a perfectly natural and normal thing and I doubt that he would have paused to place greater emphasis here. And yet university education has, like so many aspects of our society, been influenced, in some cases profoundly, by a market economy that thrives on metrics of success and thus inculcates competiveness. That can bring out something which is more than merely a competitive streak, but rather more akin to a zero sum game where winning means everyone else has to lose. I do not want to seem dismissive of that idea, or rather, of the reality that inspires it. A difficult jobs market in a certain sector, limited places on a specific course, one scholarship with a thousand applicants. These are realities that are faced by people every day. In that context, helping others can almost seem like an act of self-sabotage. And yet to aid, to help others, needs to be at the core, not only of university life, but also of civil society. Today you graduate from a prestigious institution and enter into the next phase of your lives. That would not have been possible without help from others. Each of you knows in your heart who you should be grateful to today, perhaps they are here with you. As you go forward in your lives, both personal and professional, your ability to aid, to help, to assist, will grow. I urge you all to take that seriously. And just as I placed education under the 鈥榩ursuit of happiness鈥� so too do I place helping others there. This is clear above all in the teaching of Jesus Christ, which reminds us again and again, that joy is to be found in service of others.

One final way to aid others that I would like to emphasise is something I mention whenever I have the opportunity to address a group of young people. If you really want to help, if you want to aid others, if you want to serve: consider going into politics. My work means that I meet an awful lot of politicians, and while I may not agree with all they say or do, I am consistently impressed by the sacrifice and commitment to the service of others that I see in them. That is not the usual narrative around public servants and of course I am not suggesting that all politicians are saints, or even trying to be, but the work they do is essential, and often comes at personal cost, for themselves and even their families. It is not easy to be a politician today almost anywhere. The challenges they have to face are enormous and the decisions that must make are far from easy or simple. I have no doubt that as you look around the world today there are things you would like to change, things that inspire you to act, even if it is just the high price of tea! It is my hope that this 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence will inspire more young people to consider the call to aid society through this work. You will not have an easy task but you will certainly have my admiration, as indeed you have it in graduating today.

May God bless and keep you all.

Thank you.