It is a rare gift to read a graduation address and to recognize, sentence by sentence, the unmistakable resonance of two papacies speaking through one pastor’s voice. Cardinal Roger Mahony — retired Archbishop of Los Angeles, and a friend of mine across many years and many shared chapters of California Catholic life — delivered such an address at St. John’s Seminary in Camarillo this past Saturday, May 17. I am posting it here in full because I believe it deserves an audience well beyond the chapel at Camarillo.
The Cardinal’s text arrives at a moment when his themes carry a particular urgency. Pope Leo XIV has signed his first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, with publication set for May 25. The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith issued its formal warning to the Society of St. Pius X only days before this commencement. And the question of what counts as authentic Catholic identity — as against the projection of a political or ideological faction onto the Body of Christ — has rarely been more urgently posed.
Against that backdrop, what Cardinal Mahony offers these new graduates — seminarians earning their philosophy degrees and the lay women and men receiving the Master’s in Pastoral Ministry — is not a partisan map but a sacramental one. The address turns on a single theological insight, and it is precisely the right one: that the Eucharist is the place where the priesthood and the laity meet, not in competition, but in communion. The priest at the altar acts in persona Christi; the lay faithful become the Body of Christ in the world. The mission is one because the Source is one.
This is not a sentimental ecclesiology. It is the ecclesiology of Lumen Gentium, of Sacrosanctum Concilium, and of the entire Conciliar architecture the Cardinal helped to implement across his decades of episcopal service. It is also the ecclesiology that both Francis and Leo have made the lodestar of their pontificates — Francis with his ferocious insistence that clericalism is a scourge, Leo with his more recent warning that an “individualistic secularism” empties faith of its communal and missionary character and reduces it to custom or personal preference.
Cardinal Mahony names the dangers without flinching: drift into individualism, drift into ideology — “neither are from Christ, but of the world.” Anyone who has been watching the ecclesial landscape over the past several months will recognize the precision of that diagnosis. We are awash in voices, some wearing cassocks and some wearing keyboards, who have substituted rigid systems for living communion, who have made authority self-referential, who have allowed individual autonomy to eclipse the shared journey of the People of God. The Cardinal does not name them. He does not need to. He simply puts before these graduates the alternative: hearts on fire, formation rooted in the altar, mission shared between vocations that are distinct but never divided.
There is a further note worth sounding here. The Cardinal’s address is not only Leonine; it is unmistakably Franciscan in cadence. The reference to priests carrying “the smell of the sheep” is taken straight from Pope Francis’s 2013 Chrism Mass homily, and it remains one of the most prescient images that pontificate ever produced. To send seminarians out under that image, while also sending lay ministers out under the image of the Acts of the Apostles — Peter at the Beautiful Gate, Philip running to meet the Ethiopian eunuch, Priscilla and Aquila forming Apollos — is to insist on a vision of the Church in which no baptized person is incidental to the mission. That is exactly the vision Vatican II proclaimed when it taught, in language Cardinal Mahony rightly calls a flame, that the baptized faithful are “the heart and the lamp” of the Church going into the future.
I commend his words to your prayerful reading.
— Monsignor Arthur Holquin, S.T.L.
Graduation Address
St. John’s Seminary, Camarillo May 17, 2026
Cardinal Roger Mahony
For seminarians receiving the B.A. in Philosophy and lay students receiving the M.A. in Pastoral Ministry.
My dear graduates, faculty, families, and friends,
Today is a day of profound joy for the Church. We gather not only to celebrate academic achievement, but to recognize the fruit of years of prayer, sacrifice, study, and formation.
Two groups stand before us — seminarians preparing for priesthood, and lay women and men receiving the Master’s in Pastoral Ministry. You come from different paths, but today you stand together as one body, formed for one mission: to bring the Gospel to a world longing for hope, truth, and meaning.
Pope Leo XIV has spoken often this year to seminarians, priests, and those in ministry. His message has been consistent: the Church needs hearts on fire. He told seminarians they are called to be “witnesses of hope in a difficult time,” and he told ministers that their formation must lead them to become “gentle and strong heralds of the Word that saves.”
Those words apply to every one of you.
I. Witnesses of Hope
The first identity the Holy Father gives you is this: witnesses of hope.
Hope is not the same as optimism. As Pope Francis reminded us during the Jubilee Year of Hope, Christian hope is the strength to face setbacks, illness, and disappointment — and still look beyond the obstacles to what lies ahead.
Hope is a theological virtue — the conviction that God is faithful, that Christ is risen, and that the Holy Spirit is at work even when the world seems to be unraveling.
And the world gives us plenty of reasons to feel overwhelmed.
We live in a culture of distraction, where attention spans shrink and noise increases.
We live in a culture of division, where people are sorted into tribes, and algorithms reinforce our fears.
We live in a culture of loneliness, where young people report record levels of isolation despite being more “connected” than ever.
Into this world, Christ sends you.
Think of the disciples in the Upper Room. They were afraid, uncertain, unsure of the future. But then the Holy Spirit descended upon them, and suddenly these ordinary men and women became extraordinary witnesses. They stepped into the streets of Jerusalem with courage, clarity, and joy.
You, too, are called to step into the world with that same fire.
Seminarians: your philosophical training has taught you to think clearly in a world that often prefers confusion.
Lay graduates: your pastoral formation has taught you to accompany people in a world that often feels abandoned.
Together, you are signs that God has not given up on His Church. You are witnesses that Christ is still calling, still forming, still sending.
II. Builders of Communion
Your second identity is this: builders of communion.
Pope Leo XIV has insisted that the Church must resist the temptation to become a collection of isolated individuals. Instead, we must be a people who build bridges — between cultures, generations, parishes, and even between the wounded parts of our own hearts.
This is not easy.
We live in a time when people “cancel” one another instead of listening.
When disagreements become personal attacks.
When the digital world encourages us to speak before we think, and react before we pray.
But Jesus shows us another way.
When He sent the disciples out two by two, He was teaching them that the Gospel is never a solo project.
When the early Church gathered in homes, breaking bread and sharing their new life in Jesus, they were showing the world a new way of being human.
When Paul wrote to communities torn by conflict, he urged them to “bear one another’s burdens,” not to walk away from each other.
Graduates, the Church needs you to be people who heal divisions, not deepen them.
Seminarians: you will be called to shepherd communities where people disagree about everything from liturgy to politics.
Lay ministers: you will be called to accompany families, youth, and parishioners who carry wounds that are often invisible.
Your task is not to win arguments. Your task is to create spaces where Christ can be encountered. To build communion where the world expects conflict. To show that unity is possible — not because we are perfect, but because Christ is.
But let me warn both groups of graduates what most concerned Pope Francis and Pope Leo: for us to drift into individualism and into ideology. Neither are from Christ, but of the world.
III. One Mission, One Body: Clergy and Laity United in Christ
Your third identity today is a profound truth at the heart of your graduation: the Church’s mission is never carried out by priests alone, nor by lay ministers alone, but by both — together — united in Christ and nourished by the Eucharist.
This is not a modern idea. It is woven into the very fabric of the Gospel and expanded in fulsome ways through the Second Vatican Council. When the Council proclaimed in clear language that the individual person baptized in Jesus Christ is the heart and the lamp for the Church going into the future, the Spirit lit an unquenchable flame in our midst.
When Jesus sent out the disciples, He did not send only Peter. He sent the Twelve. And later, He sent the seventy-two. Different roles, different responsibilities, but one mission: “Proclaim that the Kingdom of God is at hand.”
In the Acts of the Apostles, we see this same pattern. Peter preaches, but it is the lay believers who open their homes. Paul evangelizes, but it is Priscilla and Aquila who form and teach Apollos. The apostles lead, but the entire community “devotes itself to the breaking of the bread and the prayers.”
The early Church grew not because of a few heroic individuals, but because every baptized person understood themselves as a missionary disciple.
And that is the vision the Church needs today.
The Eucharist: The Source of Shared Mission
The Eucharist is not simply the center of the Church’s worship. It is the center of the Church’s identity. It is the place where the priesthood and the laity meet, not in competition, but in communion.
The priest stands at the altar in persona Christi, offering the sacrifice. The lay faithful stand with him, offering their lives, their families, their work, their joys, and their sufferings.
The priest consecrates the Body of Christ. The lay faithful become the Body of Christ in the world.
The priest says, “Go forth, the Mass is ended.” The lay faithful respond by carrying Christ into places the priest cannot always go.
Your vocations are different, but they are not separate. Your roles are distinct, but they are not divided. Your mission is shared, because your source is the same: the Eucharistic Lord.
Imagine what the Church can be when priests and lay leaders support one another:
A priest preaching the Gospel with courage because he knows lay leaders are forming hearts in the parish.
A lay minister accompanying a struggling family, strengthened by the sacraments the priest celebrates.
A parish where every ministry flows from the altar and returns to the altar.
A community where the Eucharist is not only celebrated but lived with joy and enthusiasm.
This is the Church Christ intended. This is the Church the world is longing to experience.
IV. Missionaries of Christ’s Compassion
Finally, for your fourth identity, Pope Leo XIV calls you to be missionaries of Christ’s compassion.
Not missionaries of ideology. Not missionaries of nostalgia. Not missionaries of your own preferences.
Missionaries of Christ.
And what does Christ’s compassion look like?
It looks like Jesus touching the leper when everyone else stepped back. It looks like Jesus speaking to the Samaritan woman when everyone else judged her. It looks like Jesus feeding the crowds, healing the sick, forgiving sinners, and washing the feet of His disciples.
In the Acts of the Apostles, compassion becomes mission. Peter and John heal the crippled man at the Beautiful Gate. Philip runs to the Ethiopian eunuch and opens the Scriptures for him. Paul and Barnabas travel across continents to bring the Gospel to people who had never heard the name of Jesus.
Compassion is not sentimentality. It is love in action. It is truth with mercy. It is courage with tenderness.
And the world needs this desperately.
We live in a time when many people feel unseen. When the poor are often blamed for their poverty. When migrants, the elderly, and the unborn are treated as problems rather than persons. When mental health struggles are hidden behind curated social media profiles.
Graduates, Christ is sending you into this world — not to condemn it, but to love it into holiness.
Seminarians: you will preach, baptize, absolve, anoint, and celebrate the Eucharist. But above all, you will be called to love people with the heart of Christ and, yes, with the smell of the sheep!
Lay ministers: you will teach, counsel, accompany, and lead. But above all, you will be called to bring Christ’s compassion into places where priests cannot always go — homes, workplaces, schools, and the margins of society.
This presentation would not be complete without warning you about a danger lurking around the edges of our Church in this time.
Both Pope Francis and Pope Leo XIV have cautioned against forms of clericalism — not just involving clergy but seeping into ministers as well — that are sustained by deeper distortions, especially ideological reductionism and individualistic self-reference. Francis has consistently warned that the Church must not be reduced to ideological frameworks, and that clericalism becomes a “scourge” when it distances pastors and ministers from the People of God and substitutes rigid systems for living communion.
Pope Leo XIV, in his early pontificate, echoes and reshapes this concern by resisting attempts to categorize the Church or papacy within political or ideological camps, insisting instead that the Church’s mission is to remain rooted in Christ rather than conform to partisan or cultural agendas. He has likewise warned against an “individualistic secularism” that empties faith of its communal and missionary character and reduces it to custom or personal preference, calling the Church instead to a relational, synodal life that walks “together” rather than “alone.”
Taken together, their teaching suggests that clericalism flourishes precisely when ministry loses its ecclesial and relational grounding — when authority becomes self-referential, ideology replaces discernment, and individual autonomy eclipses the shared journey of the People of God.
Conclusion: Go Forth with Fire
My dear graduates, the Church needs you.
The world needs you.
Christ needs you.
You have been formed in mind, heart, and spirit. You have prayed, studied, wrestled, discerned, and grown. You have been shaped by the wisdom of this seminary, the guidance of your professors — both in person and online — and the grace of the Holy Spirit.
Now you are being sent — just as Jesus sent the disciples, just as the Spirit sent the early Church.
Pope Leo XIV said to seminarians earlier this year: “Have a great journey.”
Not an easy journey. Not a predictable journey. A great one.
So go forth —
as witnesses of hope, as builders of communion, as one Body united in the Eucharist, as missionaries of Christ’s compassion.
May the Holy Spirit set your hearts on fire. May Christ walk beside you. And may your lives proclaim the Gospel with joy.
Congratulations, graduates of St. John’s Seminary. The Church rejoices in you today!
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