On 13 December, the Solemn Blessing and Diploma Award Ceremony for graduates and masters of the 2024/2025 academic year took place in the Aula Magna of the Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences (FFCS) of the Portuguese Catholic University (UCP) in Braga.
The ceremony, presided over by the Metropolitan Archbishop of Braga, Dom José Cordeiro, and the Rector of UCP, Isabel Capeloa Gil, was attended by the Vice-Rector of UCP Braga, Paulo Dias, the Director of FFCS, Bruno Nobre, and the Director of the Faculty of Theology, Luís Miguel Figueiredo Rodrigues, as well as more than a hundred graduating students, accompanied by their families.
The Vice-Chancellor opened the session by welcoming the students and their families and called on the young people who received their diplomas to use the principles they learned at Católica to ‘help transform society into a more humane, more supportive, more just and more peaceful place.’
‘This diploma is your licence to dream. But it is also your responsibility to make a difference, to do better. Use what you have learned to improve the world around you, in your community, in your profession, in your families. Challenge us to improve too. Challenge your communities to build a better world,’ he urged. Paulo Dias ended his opening speech by saying that we should ‘celebrate above all the persistence, effort, motivation and learning of the students, as well as the support, often beyond their means, of their families, who certainly give up many immediate material goods to fulfil their dreams and those of their sons and daughters.’
Representing the graduating students, Carla Coutinho, who holds a master's degree in Digital Communication, emphasised that now ‘the goal is only one: to know how to do well!’ She also admitted that ‘it is a source of pride to say: I am a graduate of the Portuguese Catholic University.’
The Rector of UCP, Isabel Capeloa Gil, challenged students to be ‘protagonists in the great struggles, in the great challenges that societies and Portugal face.’
At the close of the session, José Cordeiro said that Catholic graduates should have a distinguishing feature, which is the light of the Gospel, the knowledge of how to do good. ‘May this be your hallmark here or anywhere else in the world where you may find yourselves, because this universal, Catholic meaning, which is the highest expression, is not even a religious or confessional meaning,’ he appealed.