The Chairman of the Special Olympics — and nephew of  President John F. Kennedy, and son of the first director of the Peace Corps, Sargent Shriver — received Notre Dame’s prestigious Laetare Medal at this year’s commencement. And he had some wisdom to share on the subject of human dignity: 

Thomas Merton saw the radiant dignity inside each of us:

“At the center of our being” he wrote, “ is a point of … pure truth, a … spark which … is the pure glory of God in us…. It is in everybody, and if we could see it …. It would make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely.”

And yes, darkness and cruelty will come. From my earliest memories, when tragedies shook my family, my parents taught us a spiritual practice: the prayers of the rosary. We went to Our Lady. We hoped to experience Mary’s great Yes – which opened the way for God to enter the world.

Over the years, I have continued to hold fast to those rosary beads. Because we all have our own Yes. And I try, however failingly, to say my “yes” too. To say yes, as she did, to the presence of God within; to say Yes, as she did, to opening the way for God to enter the world.

If that sounds mystical, it is! So be a mystic! Allow grace to remove any obstacle that separates you from the presence of God within — so that grace can also remove any obstacle that separates you from the presence of God in others. Because in the eyes of God, there ARE no “least of these, no ‘them and us.” There is no less of God in any of us.

The only difference is in our ability to say yes.

This ability to say yes is the core of the spiritual movement now sweeping the world, a movement we are all now called to join — a movement to say Yes to dignity as the standard for how we treat each other – in our families, in our schools, in our faith and in our work.

This is both an ancient call …. and the most urgent call of our times.

In answering the call, Notre Dame graduates, you have an extravagant advantage. You have been schooled here — on this campus, in this special place – and your university was blessed for this calling even before Father Sorin baked the first brick to build Notre Dame.

So as you leave this home field of the Fighting Irish to launch the next chapter of your lives

What would you fight for?

What were you born to fight for?

I pray you will fight to honor the inherent dignity in every human being — and renew the face of the earth.

You can watch the full speech below.