STEUBENVILLE, OHIO—Another record-breaking class crossed the stage in Franciscan University of Steubenville’s Finnegan Fieldhouse on May 10. For the fifth consecutive year, Franciscan University graduated the largest class in its history, with 907 students in the Class of 2025. This class eclipses last year’s total of 899 graduates.

The 2025 graduates came from Ohio, Virginia, California, Pennsylvania, Texas, Michigan, New York, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, and 37 others states and 22 countries. Their top majors were theology, business, psychology, nursing, philosophy, catechetics, education, communication arts, English, and mechanical engineering. The Class of 2025 also included 196 online graduates from 36 states and 8 other countries.

The celebration began on May 9 with the Baccalaureate Mass. Bishop Andrew Cozzens of the Diocese of Crookston, Minnesota, presided. A noted catechist, he serves as the chair of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Evangelization and Catechesis and is also a member of Franciscan’s Episcopal Advisory Board.

Bishop Cozzens received an honorary doctorate in catechetics and evangelization for his leadership of the National Eucharistic Revival and his many years leading catechetics and evangelization efforts for the Church.

In his homily, he challenged graduates to live lives of radical surrender to Christ, rooted in the overwhelming love of God, and nourished by the Eucharist. 

“Let yourself be overwhelmed by Jesus in his love for you, so you can surrender everything to him,” Bishop Cozzens said.

He emphasized the centrality of the Eucharist in sustaining a faithful Christian life, saying, “There is only one place in the world where you can consistently receive the life of God … only here at the altar can you eat and drink the flesh and blood of God.”

Bishop Cozzens also warned graduates against holding anything back from the Lord, calling such resistance a barrier to grace.

“Whatever you don’t surrender to him will become an area of death in your life,” he said.

Encouraging graduates to become eucharistic people, Bishop Cozzens invoked the legacy of St. Francis of Assisi, the University’s patron, and the passionate love that drove him to give everything to Christ. He urged the students to follow that example as they enter a world confused about so many truths of God.

“If you want to live your life strong in the world, in the midst of great evil, then you have to be committed to the fire. You have to be committed to the heart.”

During commencement on May 10, Mary Rice Hasson, JD, the Kate O’Beirne Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., and director of the Person and Identity Project, and her husband Kevin “Seamus” Hasson, JD, founder and president emeritus of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, were awarded honorary doctorates in humane letters for their work defending and promoting religious liberty and the dignity of the human person. Mary Hasson accepted the degrees of behalf of the couple and delivered the commencement speech. 

Addressing the graduates, Hasson called on young Catholics to courageously confront a cultural crisis and live out their identity as sons and daughters of God.

Hasson began by congratulating graduates and their families, acknowledging the strong formation they had received at Franciscan.

“You are talented, faith-filled, gifted young women and men,” she said. “You’ve shown resilience, creativity, and perseverance during your time here at Franciscan.”

Framing her message around what she called an “anthropological revolution,” Hasson described a profound cultural confusion about the human person—what it means to be male and female, and what it means to be human. She warned graduates that the ideology driving this confusion is no longer fringe but dominant across institutions and social platforms.

“There are no sidelines in a revolution, no bleacher seats to occupy, far above the fray. You are in it,” she told the graduates. “The world in which you will work, live, and raise your own families has been profoundly marked by this anthropological shift.”

Citing Pope St. John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI, and other Church leaders, Hasson traced the rise of gender ideology as the fruit of a faulty anthropology—a false understanding of the human person. She pointed to statistics showing 23 percent of Generation Z identifies as LGBTQ and noted many have “never heard that their most fundamental identity is as sons and daughters of the Lord.”

Hasson issued a clear call to action.

“It’s time for a counter-revolution,” she declared. “Your world—and the Church—need the witness and work of outstanding, virtuous young men and women to counter this anthropological revolution.”

She addressed young men and women separately, challenging each to embrace their vocation with confidence and integrity.

“To our young men: The world needs you. Masculinity is not toxic; only sin is toxic,” she said. “The world needs good men. We need you.”

“To our young women: The world needs you, women who are glad they are women, confident in their equal dignity, but secure in recognizing the differences between men and women,” she continued. “Women who embrace the gift of motherhood, whether spiritual or biological, as intrinsic to who they are.”

In his closing remarks University President Father Dave Pivonka, TOR, exhorted graduates to take what they received at Franciscan—a community of faith and truth—and bring it boldly into the world.

“Take it to a world that desperately needs it. Speak, be seen, and live the faith that you’ve learned here,” Father Pivonka said. “The world needs to be able to see what it is to be a young man or woman of faith, integrity, truth, honesty, goodness, and beauty.”

The commencement ceremonies also included an invocation by Father Patrick Whittle, TOR, associate professor of theology; a welcome by Father Joseph Lehman, TOR, chairman of the Board of Trustees; and a benediction by Father Shawn Roberson, TOR, University chaplain. The senior ranking faculty member, psychology professor Dr. Regina Boerio, led the faculty processions and carried the ceremonial mace.

View the livestreamed ceremonies at academics.franciscan.edu/commencement-live.

Photos of Franciscan University’s 2025 Commencement can be found here.