Dr. John Haas delivered the 2023 Commencement Address and was awarded the college’s St. Thomas More Medal for Defense of the Faith and Holy Mother Church. Haas received his doctorate in moral theology from the Catholic University of America and his licentiate in moral theology from the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. He also studied at the University of Chicago Divinity School and the University of Munich in Germany. Before assuming the presidency of the National Catholic Bioethics Center, Haas was the John Cardinal Krol Professor of Moral Theology at St. Charles Borromeo Theological Seminary in Philadelphia and an adjunct professor at the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family in Washington, D.C. He retired as president of the National Catholic Bioethics Center in 2019, remaining on as President Emeritus and as a Senior Fellow. He has been a consultant to both the Committee for Pro-Life Activities and the Subcommittee on Health Care Issues under the Committee on Doctrine for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. He was appointed by Pope Benedict XVI as an Ordinary Member of the Pontifical Academy for Life and later a member of the Academy’s Directive Council. In 2011, the Holy Father appointed him as a consulter to the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers. Haas and his late wife, Martha, have nine children and a number of grandchildren.