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 Archbishop Wilton Gregory Addresses Class of 2008
Members of the 45th graduating class of St. Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary were both challenged and encouraged to recognize and meet the wide-ranging needs of contemporary society by the Most Revered Wilton D. Gregory, Archbishop of Atlanta.
He reminded the graduates that Church history “.embraces divergent thought, challenging debate, and often conflicting opinions existing together.” And he urged them to be as “…the great teachers of the Faith (who) were intrepid men and women who wrestled with the truth throughout each age.
“Ours is the task of serving what may be the most educated and yet the least catechesized community in the history of the Catholic Church. Our people have the benefit of instant knowledge made available through cyberspace and in spite of that advantage they often have quite deficient and inadequate information regarding the Church and her heritage,” he said.
Archbishop Gregory also noted “Every priest must be a servant to the poor, to those often forgotten and neglected by society. In a special way, you must greet the immigrants who come to our shores…with a sensitive heart as well as a deep commitment to pursue justice with and for them often at the expense of being misunderstood and ridiculed…”
The full text of his commencement address follows:
Appropriately must I begin this evening’s commencement address with a sincere and heartfelt word of congratulations to the graduates of Saint Vincent Regional Seminary, to their parents, faculty, and honored guests. Today marks a wonderful moment of rejoicing at the completion of a goal and at the fulfillment of an aspiration that richly deserves both applause and acknowledgement. However, because Saint Vincent’s is significantly more than merely an academic institution of higher learning, this night requires at least some reflection in Faith on the reason that academics and Faith formation are herein combined in the education of you men.
Your education is directed toward the preparation of pastors of souls, the formation of ministers of the Gospel, and the training of servants for God’s People. You have been engaged in preparing yourselves not merely to make a living by acquiring an academic degree, but to bring life to your sisters and brothers as is the mission of our Church. A sound appreciation of the arts, of history, of the sciences, of literature, of the humanities, and above all of theology is a necessary component of what Saint Vincent’s has striven to offer you. But equally important has been the preparation of your hearts for the mission that Christ left His Church. Hopefully the achievement of those goals are being celebrated this evening as well.
The quest of the ministry in the name of Christ is an obligation imposed upon the Church by none other that Jesus Himself. He commissioned His first Disciples as well as all those who have dared to follow in their footsteps to pursue a pattern of living and service that is nothing less than heroic since it follows the pattern that Christ established in His own Blood.
It was your desire, my dear young brothers, to explore the possibility that Christ was calling you to serve the mission of the Church as a priest that brought you to Saint Vincent’s Seminary. It was that aspiration that just perhaps you were to be a man for others in the image of Jesus Christ that spoke to your heart and drew you to this institution of learning. Seminaries are places where wisdom and dedication must coexist as mutually dependent. The learning and knowledge that you have attained are intended to prepare you to be more effective pastors of souls. Zeal without insight – without wisdom can be a ruinous combination as can knowledge without the passion to serve for a priest. Effective ministry in the Church requires both.
The ministry of the Church demands both great wisdom and deep passion. Your formal education has been intended to open your minds and hearts to the truth, to new ideas, to an appreciation and an understanding of the history and heritage of the Church. The Catholic Church has a rich and extensive legacy that stretches back to Apostolic times. Ours is a history that embraces divergent thought, challenging debate, and often conflicting opinions existing together. The wisdom of the Church is never reduced to simple answers or narrow-minded attitudes. The great teachers of the Faith were intrepid men and women who wrestled with the truth throughout each age. We need such teachers and pastors today. The challenges that the Church faces in today’s world need wise, knowledgeable priests who are unafraid to explore the truth and who are capable of transmitting the Truth of Christ in ways that attract the young and use the means of communications that are a part of the world in which we live.
In short, priests of today and tomorrow are required to be both educated and creative, both learned and savvy enough to speak to the hearts of those who seek the Truth of Christ – 0ften without even knowing what it is that they seek. Ours is the task of serving what may be the most educated and yet the least catechesized community in the history of the Catholic Church. Our people have the benefit of instant knowledge made available through cyber-space and in spite of that advantage they often have quite deficient and inadequate information regarding the Church and her heritage.
The ministry of the Church in today’s world requires genuine holiness of life – not mere piety or superficial religious deeds. We need men who pray rather that those who simply say prayers. Like the Apostle Paul who had to transcend his own Jewish heritage to proclaim Christ to a foreign world, so must you men see your preparation and formation as a summons to speak to a society that in many ways is as foreign to Christ as were the Romans and Hellenists to the religious background of the Jewish disciples in the first century.
You are also called to minister in an even more complex society that includes those whose Hispanic heritage is richly Catholic but often challenged by other Christian and secular influences. Every priest must be a servant to the poor, to those often forgotten and neglected by society. In a special way, you must greet the immigrants who come to our shores from the Caribbean, the Pacific Rim, and the countries of Africa and Asia always with a sensitive heart as well as a deep commitment to pursue justice with and for them often at the expense of being misunderstood and ridiculed by the majority opinions that will challenge you. In order to succeed in this ministerial environment, you must be both knowledgeable of our Catholicity, but also comfortable with the tools of modernity. That is no small accomplishment. Your spiritual grounding in the Faith must be strong enough to endure the often harsh scrutiny of a cynical environment. Yet you must also know that even in spite of the challenges that you face in serving Christ in such an atmosphere, the hunger for the Truth is equally great in our world as it may have been in any century of the past.
You men are being invited to be priests in a moment of great challenge but also great possibility. We need you to be wise and resourceful – to be well-informed and yet adaptable – to be open and yet anchored in the Truth of the Gospel. Saint Vincent’s has attempted to prepare you for these challenges and this evening we applaud your achievements both in completing your formation for the ministry as well as your accomplishments that will lie ahead. You give great hope to the Church in assuming the Priestly Office at this moment in time. We know that the Holy Spirit who is the ultimate source of our service will guide you to achieve great things for the Lord and as the Church awaits the Solemn Feast of Pentecost, we pray that like those first disciples, you will proclaim Christ Crucified and Risen from the dead with success well beyond our imaginings. Bless you tonight and always!
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