Monsignor James Patrick Shea, president of the University of Mary and noted Catholic speaker, will serve as the 2026 commencement speaker for his alma mater, The Catholic University of America. The ceremony will be held May 16, 10 a.m., on the University’s Washington, D.C., campus.
“As a university president, teacher, evangelist, interpreter of culture, and preacher, Monsignor Shea is deeply committed to the education and formation of young people,” said University President Peter Kilpatrick. “He is also a riveting speaker.”
“His ability to engage the larger culture with clarity, Christian hope, and great wit is a much-needed antidote to so many of the challenges we face today, and an example I pray our students will take with them into their future vocations.”
About Monsignor Shea
Monsignor Shea has served as president of the University of Mary since 2009, when, at the age of 34, he became the youngest college or university president in the United States. A priest of the Diocese of Bismarck (North Dakota), he is also a dynamic speaker who has given talks at numerous high-profile Catholic events and gatherings such as the 2024 National Eucharistic Congress, the 2025 National Catholic Prayer Breakfast, and SEEK, the annual young adult conference hosted by the Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS).
A Catholic University alumnus and Basselin Scholar, Ph.B. 1997, Ph.L. 1998, Monsignor Shea studied classical Greek at the University of Texas at Austin and continued at the Vatican’s North American College, where he studied theology at the Gregorian and Lateran universities in Rome. He has studied management at the University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business and is also an alumnus of the Institutes for Higher Education at the Graduate School of Education, Harvard University. He was ordained to the priesthood in 2002, and subsequently returned to North Dakota to serve in local parishes and teach in local high schools.
“I am deeply honored and humbled by the invitation to join Catholic University’s 2026 Commencement exercises and to accept an honorary doctorate from my alma mater,” said Monsignor Shea. “My education at Catholic University changed my life in many ways. It was there that my love for the Catholic intellectual life was born and nourished, and there that I caught a glimpse of what a great Catholic university could be. And so this will be a joyful homecoming for me, and I return brimming with gratitude. I look forward to meeting my fellow 2026 graduates and, in the meantime, I assure them, President Kilpatrick, and all the faculty and staff at Catholic University of my prayers.”
The University will confer honorary degrees on Monsignor Shea and three other notable individuals:
- Lisa Brenninkmeyer — Founder and CEO of Walking with Purpose, a Catholic Bible study program directed particularly to adult women, young adult women, and girls.
- Dr. John Bruchalski — Founder of Tepeyac Clinic (now Tepeyac OB/GYN), who created one of the most extensive, innovative, humane, full service maternal care enterprises in the U.S.
- Iqbal Z. Quadir — Distinguished Fellow at the University’s Busch School of Business, who has pioneered technology-based and for-profit entrepreneurship for the economic empowerment of low-income people.
