Dear University community,
Some of you may know that a special member of our extended Catholic University family, alumnus and trustee Sean Cardinal O’Malley will celebrate a milestone birthday this coming Saturday, June 29th.
Through consultations with ecclesial members of the board of trustees this week we are launching a fundraising initiative to establish the Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley Endowed Chair for Hispanic Ministry and Evangelization that will reside in the University’s School of Theology and Religious Studies. This effort already has the support of several bishop trustees who are helping us approach dioceses, individuals and apostolates to support the chair and pay tribute to Cardinal Sean’s tremendous legacy of service to our global church.
As many of you know, Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley, OFM Cap, is a Catholic University alumnus, archbishop of Boston, and a member of the University’s Board of Trustees.
Cardinal O’Malley first walked our green campus in the late 1960s as a Capuchin seminarian and earned a master’s degree in religious education and a doctorate in Spanish and Portuguese Literature. He later served the University as a professor from 1969 to 1973, and as chairman of our Board of Trustees in 2016-17.
This endowed position is an expression of gratitude for the Cardinal’s robust contributions to the University and reflects his decades of leadership in Hispanic and Latino ministry. After his appointment here, he served as Executive Director of the Centro Católico Hispano in the Archdiocese of Washington. He was then named Episcopal Vicar for the Hispanic, Portuguese, and Haitian communities.
That love and dedication to Hispanic and Latino communities has remained an extraordinary example for the Church in America.
We are confident that this chair, once fully funded and established, will have a lasting impact on the scholastic excellence of our School of Theology and Religious Studies. We also believe it will generate greater evangelical fervor and pastoral expertise in the care of the Hispanic and Latino Catholic communities in the United States for generations to come.
I know you all join me in wishing Cardinal O’Malley a very happy 80th birthday and in thanking him for his loving service to the Church.
Sincerely,
Peter Kilpatrick
President
The Catholic University of America