Thomas More College of Liberal Arts (Merrimack, NH) will honor its graduating class of 2021 during this year’s Commencement Ceremonies on Saturday, May 22. The College is pleased to welcome Most Reverend James Sean Wall (Bishop of Gallup, New Mexico) as this year’s Baccalaureate Mass Celebrant and Dr. Robert Royal as this year’s Commencement Speaker. Each will be awarded honorary degrees for their dedication to Faith and Reason.
Most Reverend James Sean Wall, M.Div., is the bishop of Gallup, New Mexico. Before his appointment by Pope Benedict XVI to the See of Gallup in February 2009, he served as Diocesan Vicar for Priests, as well as the Director of the Mount Claret Retreat Center, and a Member of the National Advisory Council for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. He earned his Bachelor’s in History from Arizona State University, a Master’s in Divinity from St. John’s Seminary in Camarillo, California, and pursued advanced studies at the Liturgical Institute of St. Mary in Mundelein, Illinois. Born in Ganado, Arizona on the Navajo Nation, James Wall was born to parents whose conversion followed upon a providential encounter with Franciscan Friars. He was educated at local schools before his undergraduate years. After a period of discernment and formation, he was ordained to the priesthood on June 6th, 1998 for the Diocese of Phoenix, Arizona, where he served as Parochial Vicar and Pastor at several parishes, even after having been called upon to take up work within the chancery.
Bishop Wall has rekindled the idea that the institutional Church, especially the office of Bishop, should patronize religious art and architecture, and advocate for the regional cult of the saints as the focus of pilgrimage and devotion. His cathedral now has central to it, relics of St. Jose Maria Robles Hurtado, a Mexican priest martyred during the Cristero uprisings. In the last several years, Bishop Wall has been one of the chief ecclesiastical figures in promoting devotion to Kateri Tekakwitha and Our Lady of Guadalupe. His efforts have culminated in a new project to establish a shrine and museum dedicated to the unique contribution Native American and Spanish Catholicism have made to the United States and North America.
Dr. Robert Royal is the inaugural St. John Henry Newman Visiting Chair of Catholic Studies. Over the past year, Dr. Royal has taught the upper-division College tutorial— “Apocalypse, Plagues, Utopias, and Dystopias”—and journeyed with the Sophomores through Dante’s Divine Comedy. In the Fall, he organized a major conference on understanding and defending America’s Christian patrimony, entitled, “Rediscovering Columbus” through the College’s Center for the Restoration of Christian Culture. This Spring, to mark the 700th Anniversary of Dante’ death, Dr. Royal began an online seminar on The Divine Comedy, which was launched from the Thomas More College campus.
A native of New England, Robert Royal earned his B.A. and M.A. from Brown University and his Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the Catholic University of America. Royal has studied and worked extensively in Italy since the time of his Fellowships from the Renaissance Society of America and as a Fulbright Fellow. He is the author, editor, and translator of over a dozen books, among which are Dante Alighieri: Divine Comedy, Divine Spirituality; The Catholic Martyrs of the Twentieth Century: A Comprehensive World History; The God that Did not Fail: How Religion Sustains the West; The Pope’s Army: 500 Years of Papal Swiss Guards; A Deeper Vision: The Catholic Intellectual Tradition in the Twentieth Century; J-P Torrell’s Initiation à saint Thomas d’Aquin, and most recently Columbus and the Crisis of the West.
Robert Royal was the Editor-in-Chief of Prospect magazine. He served as the Vice President of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, is the Founder and President of the Faith & Reason Institute (Washington, D.C.) as well as the Co-founder (with Michael Novak) and the Editor of the online journal The Catholic Thing. An international lecturer on political, cultural, and religious topics, Royal is known and beloved by the widest audience as a regular commentator with Raymond Arroyo and Fr. Gerald Murray as EWTN’s “The Papal Posse.” He resides in northern Virginia with his wife Veronica, surrounded by children and grandchildren.
For further reading:
Dr. Robert Royal Appointed St. John Henry Newman Visiting Chair in Catholic Studies
