FULL SPEECH: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis Delivers Commencement Address At Ave Maria University

Added: 2026-05-11

[00:00:00][applause] >> Now, as the governor of the entire state, I get around a little bit, but I will say that Southwest Florida, this region of Florida, has always been very special to me. I have it on good authority that when Republicans die and go to heaven, it looks a lot like Naples, Florida.

[00:00:22]I'm also excited to be here at this community, Ave Maria. I remember when this was a tomato field. I remember when the university was being built. I remember when the first houses are being built, but it's becoming unique community, not just in our state, but in our country. You are way more likely to run into a golf cart than you are a criminal.

[00:00:45]And what passes for scandal here is when someone fails to genuflect at mass.

[00:00:50]Pretty good culture you got there.

[00:00:53]And then here at Ave Maria University, you are doing it the right way. You are not being swept up in the spirit of the age. Instead, you have a university that regards faith and reason as complimentary, and that's can provide a lens for which we can find the truth. You have rigorous classical liberal arts education, not rooted in passing fads and the latest ideological joyrides that we see in so many other universities, but in rigor and in the promotion of traditional moral virtues.

[00:01:31]You also have found date faith as the foundation, not just as act for academic life, but also for campus culture.

[00:01:40]So many Catholic in name universities we have in this country, and I can say Ave Maria is the genuine article. So, congratulations.

[00:01:51]>> [applause] [applause] >> And what Ave Maria is doing is something that we all must do. It's not to try to conform our faith to the spirit of the age, but to pursue truth regardless of where those currents are going. 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.

[00:02:27]You think of the early Christians as a persecuted sect in a pagan empire, and yet the faith has outlasted the Roman Empire. It spread to barbarian cultures.

[00:02:38]It survived skepticism during the Enlightenment, and it has even survived under very brutal totalitarian regimes.

[00:02:46]The faith does not depend on what is fashionable or who holds power.

[00:02:53]It is in fact the truth that ultimately will set you free. When St. Paul instructed Timothy to quote guard the deposit entrusted to you, he was speaking of a deposit of faith that was objective and unchanging.

[00:03:09]The truth is not subject to a popular vote, and it doesn't follow popular fads. The church, its role is to shape the times through faith, not to exchange these timeless truths for temporary relevance.

[00:03:25]North is still north. Right is still right, even when you have to stand all by yourself.

[00:03:33]Now, truth must also be central to our civic life as Americans. I think it's important to say this this year in the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States of America. This should be a time where we all reflect on the principles on which this country was founded and that made it great. Now, in Florida, we're leaning into this as a state. We believe it's important for young people to learn more about the founding of the country, but also our more seasoned citizens who may not have been exposed to this throughout their education. We're even commissioning statues in counties that are named after the Founding Fathers. And you know, there's a lot of blue states taking those statues down, so I'm getting them at a discount on the open market and it's working out really good for us.

[00:04:24]>> [applause] >> But it's important to do because 250 years ago, we had a group of Founding Fathers that risked their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to establish an independent free nation.

[00:04:42]That was not the same when they signed their John Hancocks on the Declaration of Independence. That is not the equivalent of just popping off on social media. When they put their signatures on that document, they knew they had two choices, success or death.

[00:05:00]And they all would have been put to death for treason had they not succeeded. They had a lot to lose. This was not the French Revolution. These were very successful people. They were the movers and shakers of the colonies, but they believed that it was important to take a stand not just for themselves, but for us many generations They really sought a conservative revolution. All they were trying to do was have the traditional rights of Englishmen be respected by Parliament and by the Crown.

[00:05:32]But in formulating the revolution, they had to think deeply about where our rights come from, what is the proper role of government, and in doing so, they set the stage to have revolutionary consequences for human freedom starting with the Declaration of Independence.

[00:05:50]They later the next decade went and had to formulate a constitution. As they're doing all these things, they were very smart about history. They studied the history of every republic for the history of mankind, and they tried to draw lessons from them. And the one lesson, there was really only one common thread that united all previous republics in human history, and it was this.

[00:06:13]Every single one of them had failed.

[00:06:15]And so they understood it fell to the United States of America to determine once and for all, can we actually have a society where we govern ourselves, uh where our rights are God-given, not government-granted, where we live under a rule of law, not the rule of individual men, where government is constitutionally limited, uh or uh or is mankind destined to live under various forms of despotism uh for the rest of human history? And they really believed, and I believe, that ultimately the United States would be the one to answer that question. Now, in spite of winning a war, in spite of and issuing a Declaration of Independence, even framing a Constitution and a Bill of Rights, they didn't think that ultimately answered the question. That gave the United States the ability to potentially answer the question in the affirmative. That's why when Benjamin Franklin walked out of the Constitutional Convention, he was asked, "Did you give us a republic or a monarchy?"

[00:07:15]And his answer was, "A republic, if you can keep it." They understood you could have the best Declaration of Independence in the world, you could have the best Constitution in the world.

[00:07:25]These do not run on autopilot. They require every generation of Americans to step up and defend institutions, defend freedom uh when they are at risk. And that is as true today as it was then.

[00:07:39]Now, this is something that I think is similar to how I view the role of faith because our country was founded on principles that were not just time capsules in 1776, 1787, or 1791.

[00:07:55]These are enduring principles because they are true principles. They are an accurate reflection on human nature.

[00:08:03]They are accurate reflection on the fact that government does not give us that our rights, God gives us our rights, and that governments must be constitutionally limited. 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.

[00:08:26]Now, human nature has not changed since 1776.

[00:08:30]The need for constitutional limits on government has not changed since 1776.

[00:08:35]That a free society must be guided by the rule of law, that has not changed since 1776.

[00:08:41]Now, Florida has done more than anyone to carry the torch of what George Washington called the sacred fire of liberty that represents that spirit of 1776 that we will be celebrating on July 4th. We have done a lot, but some of the things we have done, we preserved freedom during COVID not just for the people of Florida, but really for people around the country.

[00:09:05]We've also ensured the triumph of the rights of parents to direct the education and upbringing of their children. We defeated pernicious ideologies that sought to corrupt our institutions. We created and defended a culture of life in Florida, and we became the number one state in the United States for religious liberty, and so much more on and on it goes. But, here's the thing, and the graduates are going to find this out. Leadership is not cost-free.

[00:09:34]Whenever you stand for something, if you're making a difference, it's likely because that's not easy. It's very easy to just hitch your wagon to whatever wind the way the winds are blowing. The test of leadership is whether you're able to dig in, stand up for what's right, even when it is not something that is popular. And for for us, it was mostly we were not popular with the elites and the media and academia and all this and we took a lot of blowback.

[00:10:01]But it's the right thing to do and you got to be willing to do that. You're also going out in the world where and you've grown up in this, where we have information overload. Now, on the one hand, it could be a mechanism for truth seeking. You can press a button, send a truth all around the world and you wouldn't have been able to do that 40 years ago. But it also allows a lot of bad actors to say a lot of bad things.

[00:10:27]Sometimes the truth can be elusive and being able to sift through a lot of the verbal rubble that gets thrown out is something that's going to only be more important as technology continues to advance.

[00:10:40]You're graduating on the eve of another technological innovation. People are talking about in terms of artificial intelligence. And as faithful Catholics, I think we all understand that technology can be very good, but it must be channeled to benefit individual liberty and to benefit humanity. We must not be governed by the almighty algorithm. Technology must enhance the human experience, not supplant the human experience. And these are going to be debates that are going to rage not just today, but for many, many years to come.

[00:11:19]Now, everyone sitting here getting a degree is going to pursue a lot of different things. Some will try to go into law, medicine, business, social work, who knows. And you have obviously a great foundation with which to pursue those endeavors, but no matter what you choose, everybody here will have the duties to strengthen and improve the Republic regardless of that chosen vocation. Uh, you have a responsibility to continue the preservation of a free society. Now, maybe that means you end up being an office holder.

[00:11:54]Uh, like like I am. Maybe it means you are in the military. You join law enforcement. Maybe you just very successful with business. Maybe you're involved in medicine. Maybe you just have a strong family. You're involved with your community and you're a diligent citizen. There's ways that you can do it, uh, and they're not all the same. But, make no mistake about it. We you are the inheritors of the greatest political project in history that began 250 years ago. We have a responsibility.

[00:12:25]You have a responsibility to preserve that sacred fire of liberty. This is the fire that burned in Independence Hall in July of 1776 when those 56 men signed their names to the Declaration of Independence. It's a fire that burned at a cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania in 1863 when our nation's first Republican president pledged this country to a new birth of freedom. It's a fire that burned in 1944 when a merry band of brothers stormed the beaches of Normandy and helped free a continent and save the world. And it's a fire that burned at the foot of the Berlin Wall in 1987 when a very resolute president stood in front of that wall and said, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall." This is the charge to maintain and preserve that sacred fire of liberty. So, the question is, as you go out into the world, goes back to Franklin's admonition. After 250 years, what does the future hold? Can we keep it? Can we preserve it? Can we make the republic better? Well, with faithful and civil and and civic-minded graduates like we honor today, who have a great foundation and are wearing the full armor of God, the answer to Franklin's question is yes, we can keep the republic and yes, we will keep the republic. Congratulations, God bless you and God bless the United States of America. Thank you very much.

[00:13:57]Thanks so much.

[00:13:59]>> [applause] >> Thank you.

[00:14:01]Best of luck to everybody. God bless you.

[00:14:04]>> [applause] >> Thanks so much.

[00:14:09]Congratulations.