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Cardinal Robert McElroy leads university's fall liturgy with message of inclusion

Cardinal Robert Walter McElroy presides over USD's Mass of the Holy Spirit in The Immaculata on Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024. (Photo by Matthew Piechalak)

The University of San Diego (USD) celebrated the beginning of the fall semester with its annual Mass of the Holy Spirit inside The Immaculata on Sept. 12.

Held annually to commemorate the start of the academic year, the mass welcomed the university community to gather for a rededication to the USD mission and to one another. Mass of the Holy Spirit follows in the long tradition dating from the founding of the great European universities in the Middle Ages.

The celebration was presided over by Cardinal Robert Walter McElroy. McElroy, the bishop of San Diego, gave a powerful homily about the dangers of marginalization.

"Everyone of us at times, find ourselves on the peripheries - where we are shut out [and] all of us condemn people to the peripheries," he said to a packed congregation of faculty, staff and students. "We do this through race and class, with issues of friendships, in our political society. The readings today take us to task for creating peripheries."

McElroy encouraged the USD community to "always seek, as best you can, to go beyond the peripheries. To not shut people out and also try to understand what people are feeling."

He also encouraged everyone feeling isolated to find support.

"I urge you to seek out community and help."

- Story and photos by Matthew Piechalak

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