Florida Governor Ron DeSantis urged graduates of Ave Maria University to resist cultural conformity and remain faithful to truth during a commencement address that linked the Catholic faith with the enduring principles of the American founding.

Speaking at the Catholic university’s graduation ceremony in southern Florida on May 9, Governor DeSantis told the Class of 2026 that they were entering a world marked by information overload, technological pressure and shifting cultural currents. Ave Maria University had announced that DeSantis would deliver the commencement address and receive an honorary degree.

The governor, who is Catholic, framed his address around the 250th anniversary of American independence, arguing that both the Catholic faith and the American experiment require each generation to defend permanent truths rather than conform to the spirit of the age.

“We’re not to try to conform our faith to the spirit of the age, but to pursue truth regardless of where those currents are going,” DeSantis said. “We share a faith that is over 2,000 years old. It represents a fixed reality of who God is and what God has done above all in the life, death and Resurrection of Christ.”

He added that “truth is not subject to a popular vote” and said the Church was called “to shape the times through faith, not to exchange these timeless truths for temporary relevance”.

DeSantis drew a parallel between the constancy of Catholic teaching and the principles of the American founding. He told graduates that the founding documents were not “time capsules” from the 18th century, but expressions of enduring truths rooted in human nature and the conviction that rights come from God rather than the state.

“God gives us our rights and governments must be constitutionally limited,” he said. “So just as we rely on a 2,000-year-old faith to guide our spiritual lives, we must keep faith with those timeless political truths and those must serve as the foundation of our civic life.”

The governor invoked Benjamin Franklin’s famous reply after the Constitutional Convention, when he was asked what form of government the founders had created: “A republic, if you can keep it.” DeSantis placed that challenge before the graduates, asking whether Americans could preserve and improve the republic they had inherited.

He also warned against allowing technology to dominate human life. “Technology can be very good but it must be channelled to benefit individual liberty and to benefit humanity,” he said. “We must not be governed by the almighty algorithm. Technology must enhance the human experience, not supplant the human experience.”

The address repeatedly returned to the theme of courage. DeSantis told graduates that leadership was not “cost free” and that those who made a difference would often be required to stand alone. He urged them to “dig in” and defend what was right even when it was unpopular.

Ave Maria University, founded by entrepreneur and philanthropist Tom Monaghan, is a private Catholic university in Florida. In announcing DeSantis as commencement speaker, university president Mark Middendorf praised what he called the governor’s “dedication to living out his Catholic faith in the public sphere with courage and excellence”.

DeSantis also praised Ave Maria’s Catholic identity during the address, saying the university was “doing it the right way” by refusing to be “swept up in the spirit of the age”.

The speech formed part of a wider commencement season in which several prominent Catholic public figures are addressing graduates at Newman Guide-listed institutions. Catholic World Report, citing EWTN News, reported in March that DeSantis would speak at Ave Maria’s May 9 graduation ceremony.

For the Ave Maria graduates, the governor’s message was direct: the defence of faith and liberty cannot be outsourced to institutions or left to previous generations. It must be renewed by those now entering public, professional and family life.

“This is the charge to maintain and preserve that sacred fire of liberty,” DeSantis said. “Can we keep it? Can we preserve it? Can we make the republic better?”