Hillsdale College Announces Commencement Speaker Bishop Robert Barron

Bishop and founder of Word on Fire Catholic Ministries will address the Hillsdale College class of 2023.

HILLSDALE, Mich.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Hillsdale College is pleased to announce that Bishop Robert Barron will address the class of 2023 during the College’s 171st commencement ceremony.

“Hillsdale is a Christian college, nonsectarian since its founding. It holds firmly to the Christian teachings of time immemorial,” said Hillsdale College President Larry P. Arnn. “Bishop Barron is a great teacher and defender of those truths. It is an honor and blessing to have him.”

Barron is bishop of the Diocese of Winona-Rochester (Minnesota) and founder of Word on Fire Catholic Ministries. He received his B.A. and M.A. from the Catholic University of America, his S.T.L. from Mundelein Seminary, and his Ph.D. from the Institut Catholique de Paris. Bishop Barron was ordained a priest in the Archdiocese of Chicago in 1986 and appointed to the theological faculty of Mundelein Seminary in 1992. He has taught as a visiting professor at the University of Notre Dame and the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas and was twice scholar in residence at the Pontifical North American College at the Vatican. He served as the Rector/President of Mundelein Seminary University from 2012-15. Ordained a bishop in 2015, he served as auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles from 2015-2022. He is the creator and host of the documentary series Catholicism and has written numerous books, essays, and articles. Episodes of his podcast The Word on Fire Show have been listened to over ten million times, and over a half-million subscribers receive his daily email reflections.

View photos of Hillsdale College and Bishop Barron here.

About Hillsdale College

Hillsdale College is an independent, nonsectarian, Christian liberal arts college located in southern Michigan. Founded in 1844, the College has built a national reputation through its classical liberal arts core curriculum and its principled refusal to accept federal or state taxpayer subsidies, even indirectly in the form of student grants or loans. It also conducts an outreach effort promoting civil and religious liberty, including a free monthly speech digest, Imprimis, with a circulation of more than 6.2 million. For more information, visit hillsdale.edu.