SANTA PAULA, Calif., March 24, 2004 (PRIMEZONE) -- Francis Cardinal Arinze, Nigerian-born prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, will travel from the Vatican to preside at commencement ceremonies at Thomas Aquinas College on Saturday, May 15, 2004. At that time, the college president and the chairman of the board of governors will present Cardinal Arinze with the Saint Thomas Aquinas Medallion, an award reserved to those who have demonstrated extraordinary dedication to God and his Church.
"We are honored to welcome Cardinal Arinze to our campus, and especially honored that he is willing to travel so far to be with us," says Dr. Thomas E. Dillon, president of the college, who visited with the cardinal in Rome last year where they discussed liturgy, the Church and Catholic higher education. "Cardinal Arinze fully embraces the teachings of the faith and is an intelligent, warm and engaging man. I am deeply impressed by his humility, his great kindness and his genuine priestly concern about souls. We are very much looking forward to his visit."
In addition to serving as prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Cardinal Arinze is a member of 12 Vatican congregations, councils and committees, including the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Congregation for Evangelization of Peoples and the Pontifical Council for the Laity.
Cardinal Arinze will be the seventh cardinal to preside over the college's commencement ceremonies and to receive the Saint Thomas Aquinas Medallion. Previous recipients from the College of Cardinals include J. Francis Cardinal Stafford (2003), Christoph Cardinal Schonborn (2002), Francis Cardinal George (2001), Jan Cardinal Schotte (1999), Anthony Cardinal Bevilacqua (1998), and John Cardinal O'Connor (1989).
The college expects 71 seniors, who hail from 24 states and Canada, to receive their Bachelor of Arts degrees this year.
Commencement ceremonies will begin with Baccalaureate Mass at 9 a.m., followed by a continental breakfast and Commencement at 11 a.m.
About Thomas Aquinas College: Thomas Aquinas College offers a unique, four-year program of Catholic liberal education that begins in wonder and aims at wisdom. The curriculum consists exclusively of the Great Books, and the college uses only the Socratic method of dialogue in all of its classes. There are no textbooks, no lectures and no electives. Instead, the College offers an entirely integrated curriculum using only the original texts of the greatest thinkers who have helped shape Western Civilization. These authors include St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Augustine, Aristotle, Plato, Shakespeare, Euclid, Dante, Descartes, our American Founding Fathers, Adam Smith, Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton and Einstein, to name a few.
Thomas Aquinas College graduates consistently excel in the many world-class institutions where they pursue graduate degrees such as law, medicine, business, theology and education. They distinguish themselves in these professions, serving as headmasters, business owners, lawyers, priests, doctors, military service men and women, professors and college presidents.