Welcome to Episode 21 of Season 4! In this episode I speak with Dr. Michael W. Higgins. Michael W. Higgins is a distinguished educator, media commentator, and author. He has been president of St. Jerome's University, St. Thomas University in Fredericton, New Brunswick, and at St. Mark’s College in Vancouver, among numerous other academic positions. Currently he is Basilian Distinguished Fellow of Contemporary Catholic Thought at the University of St. Michael’s College at the University of Toronto. In addition to his academic career, Michael W. Higgins is the author or editor of over a dozen books and has been a regular columnist for the Toronto Star, the Kitchener-Waterloo Record, the Catholic Register and the Canadian Correspondent for The Tablet (London).

This episode focuses on the recent Synod of the Catholic Church and what we might expect to emerge from this Synod and the future of synodality. At the heart of our discussion today will be his new book published by Paulist Press and Novalis Press, A Synod Diary: Sixty Days That Shook the Church. Michael wrote this diary while in Rome and in it he recounts each day of the Synod in October 2023 and 2024 and his concerns, worries, and joys.

Will the Synod be a success? There is something fundamentally good about people listening and especially clerics listening to the laity. As Michael said, how the Synod is instituted will depend largely on how individual dioceses and individual parishes implement synodality and how they feel about the “s” word. Michael and I discussed that new priests and seminarians by every measure are more conservative. This is not just anecdotal. The Catholic Herald reports the research of sociologist Ryan Burge:

“Newly ordained Catholic priests in the United States are now overwhelmingly theologically conservative, with progressive clergy virtually disappearing among the youngest cohorts, according to survey data recently released from the National Study of Catholic Priests and highlighted by sociologist of religion Ryan Burge.

The data reveal a striking generational reversal in the theological profile of the Catholic priesthood. Among priests ordained in the most recent years, 84 per cent describe their theology as conservative, while just 2 per cent identify as progressive. By contrast, among priests ordained in the late 1960s, 68 per cent described their theology as progressive and only 16 per cent conservative, indicating a near-total inversion in the ideological composition of the clergy over the past six decades.”

Does that mean synodality will not be implemented? I am not sure if it means that since the USA is not the Catholic Church. But I do think it means that the laity need to make their voices heard and heard again for the good of the Church.

This podcast emerges from the Centre for Christian Engagement at St Mark’s College, the Catholic college at UBC, a centre that explores the Christian and Catholic intellectual tradition and seek to learn from others, other Christians, other religious traditions, and those who do not claim any particular or formal religious affiliation.

What Matters Most is produced by the Centre for Christian Engagement at St Mark’s College, the Catholic college at UBC. The CCE is a centre at St. Mark’s College that explores the Christian and Catholic intellectual tradition and seek to learn from others, other Christians, members of other religious traditions, and from those who do not claim any particular or formal religious affiliation. Our goal, then, is to talk to a lot of people, to learn from them, to listen to them, and to find out what motivates them, what gives them hope, what gives them peace, and what allows them to go out into the world to love their neighbors.

A few thanks are in order. To Martin Strong, to Kevin Eng, and to Fang Fang Chandra, the team who helps me bring this podcast to you, but also makes the CCE run so much more smoothly.

I also want to thank our donors to the Centre, whose generosity enables this work to take place at all: Peter Bull, Angus Reid, and Andy Szocs. We are thankful to their commitment to the life of the academic world and of the work of the Church in the world by funding the work of the CCE. I am also thankful to the Cullen family, Mark and Barbara, for their support of the ongoing work of the CCE through financial donations that allow us to bring speakers to the local and international arenas.

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Thanks again for listening and remember what matters most.

John W. Martens

Director, Centre for Christian Engagement

Was the Synod a Success? A Conversation with Michael W. Higgins