St. Jerome's Has Given Him a Place to Grow, Michael Higgins Says. after Two Decades, He's Leaving to Seek New Energy and Ideas
By Mirko Petricevic
The Record [Canada]
June 24, 2006
http://www.therecord.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=record/Layout/Article_Type1
&c=Article&cid=1151099414938&call_pageid=1024322088745&col=1024322217916
His admirably enunciated words won't echo much longer through the halls of St. Jerome's University in Waterloo.
But don't think you've heard the last of Michael Higgins.
The president of the Roman Catholic university moves to Fredericton, N.B., next week to take up the post of president and vice-chancellor at St. Thomas University.
 |
|
Scholar, academic administrator and school trustee, Michael Higgins of Kitchener is leaving his post as president of St. Jerome's University in Waterloo to become president of St. Thomas University, a larger Catholic school in New Brunswick. Photo by Mirko Petricevic, Record Staff |
Higgins, who has become a familiar voice across Canada for his scholarly comments on Catholic issues, plans to continue writing and broadcasting in the Roman Catholic and, mostly, the secular press.
And with an institution as large and diverse as the Roman Catholic Church, Higgins is sure to have much pontificating ahead.
As a scholar and a Roman Catholic, Higgins says it's his responsibility to share his knowledge of the church with the public.
But he won't be pushing his opinion on specific issues such as women's ordination or clerical celibacy, he says.
"It doesn't matter what I think," he says.
"My job is not . . . to push my private opinion, but to push the debate. To push the research. To push openness and discussion which is critical for the church's credibility and for its vitality."
•
Higgins, 57, was born into a Roman Catholic family and raised in downtown Toronto.
Interviewed this week, Higgins said he had always experienced religion in a visceral way rather than having adopted religious beliefs because of a set of intellectual notions.
His wasn't a particularly pious family, he said.
He attended church regularly, but didn't serve as an altar boy.
After attending a Catholic elementary school, his parents enrolled him in a public high school.
It was a move that burst his Catholic bubble.
Most of the other students were Jews. Many were sons and daughters of Holocaust survivors.
It was the early 1960s, a time of the Second Vatican Council, which was formed to modernize the Catholic church.
It was also a time when Rolf Hochhuth wrote The Deputy, a play that criticized Pope Pius XII for not doing enough to oppose the extermination of Jews by the Nazis.
"I certainly became aware we have some dirty laundry," Higgins recalled.
He said the criticism didn't make him defensive about his church. Rather, it motivated him to investigate its history and doctrines.
So attending a public school made him more knowledgeable about his own faith, he said.
"It helped me to think methodically about my faith and be able to articulate that in a different (non-Catholic) environment."
After high school, Higgins spent two years in seminary. He had thoughts of becoming a priest, but he eventually left.
"I don't think I was cut out for celibacy," he said.
His departure had nothing to do with a personal crisis of faith, he said.
It was simply a choice.
•
Higgins said his work in the popular press was sparked by theologian James Cameron and poet-scholar Eli Mandel, who were graduate school professors and mentors.
Cameron, he said, taught him that "a Catholic intellectual . . . had an obligation to bring his or her scholarship to bear in the service of the community and could not afford the luxury of withdrawing into an ivory tower."
The secular press is the appropriate forum for public discourse, Higgins learned.
But not as an apologist or spin doctor for the church, he added.
In part, that means being critical of his own church.
"You only really seriously critique that which you love," he said.
Church scandals, such as the sexual abuse of students by Roman Catholic brothers in Newfoundland, have not shocked him, he said.
"I don't expect perfection in the church," he said. "I know it too well and intimately to expect perfection."
However, Higgins added, he has been "disappointed that we haven't risen to the standards that we profess to live by."
Over the years, socially conservative Catholics have assailed St. Jerome's scholars for not being doctrinally conservative enough.
But Higgins isn't cowed by the criticism.
"Intelligent, reflective Roman Catholics live in a state of tension with the church," he said. "I think that is a healthy situation."
But unlike some Catholics who advocate for the church to adopt more liberal attitudes, Higgins said the church won't be made more effective by simply adopting trends in secular societies.
Rather, the church must remain faithful to its fundamental sense of itself while, at the same time, be open to new possibilities when they enrich its commitment to the Gospel, he said.
•
Higgins arrived at St. Jerome's when he was in his early 30s, after teaching at a Catholic high school in Toronto for eight years.
What he thought was going to be a decade of teaching at the Waterloo school turned into 24 years.
In addition to serving as president and vice-chancellor, he has taught religious studies and English literature, served as academic dean and as chair of the religious studies department at the University of Waterloo.
He has also authored and co-authored numerous books and for the past year has been a trustee on the Waterloo Catholic District School Board.
At St. Jerome's, he served as editor of the ecumenical journal Grail and helped to establish a popular series of local public lectures that has attracted many notable speakers -- Catholic and non-Catholic -- including Jean Vanier, Romeo Dallaire, Preston Manning and former prime minister Joe Clark.
"It offered me a place to grow," Higgins said of St. Jerome's. He could have coasted on to early retirement, he said, but after more than two decades it's a good time to leave.
At 57, he personally needs a bit of shaking up to get new energy and ideas, he said.
Higgins said there have been many highlights during his time at St. Jerome's, but that he doesn't attempt to single out a favourite experience.
At St. Thomas, which has 3,000 students, he will take the helm of a school that's triple the size of St. Jerome's.
Myroslaw Tataryn, vice-president and academic dean, will serve as acting-president at St. Jerome's until a new top administrator is hired.
Higgins and his wife, Krystyna, a professional piano accompanist, have four children. Their youngest daughter will stay in Kitchener to finish her last semester of high school.
Those who have followed his work in the Record and elsewhere won't be denied their Higgins fix.
He's working on a radio series on Heri Nouwen, a Dutch-born priest and prolific author who served in the L'Arche community for developmentally delayed adults in Toronto until his death in 1996. It will eventually be broadcast on CBC Radio.
Higgins also plans to continue as a television commentator. He won't have a regular column in the Record, but plans to continue his monthly column for national newspapers.
"As a Catholic leader, you have a responsibility to bear witness to your own spiritual and intellectual integrity -- that's crucial," Higgins said.
"That's the most effective statement of faith."
mpetricevic@therecord.com
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.