An archbishop from Western Canada committed to healing the Church’s relations with Indigenous people and two distinguished medievalists who have made invaluable academic contributions to the University community here in Canada and internationally are to be awarded honorary degrees by the University of St. Michael’s College.
Archbishop Donald Bolen will be granted a Doctor of Divinity degree at the fall convocation while Professors Ann Hutchison and James Carley will be granted Doctor of Sacred Letters degrees.
Archbishop Bolen, a champion within the Church for Truth and Reconciliation, was ordained a priest in 1991, named Bishop of Saskatoon in 2010, and installed as Archbishop of Regina in 2016. Since being named a bishop, he has served on a variety of national and international ecumenical dialogues and has written three books on human relations, including ecumenical relations. Throughout his time as a bishop, he has been deeply involved in addressing the injustices inflicted on indigenous people in Canada. He has been a vigorous supporter of the recommendations made by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and served as a member of the committee that encouraged Pope Francis to visit Canada in July 2022 to address Canadian indigenous peoples directly. A member of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, Archbishop Bolen was awarded the Cross of Saint Augustine in 2008 by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams for service to relations between the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion.
Professors Ann Hutchison and James Carley, distinguished scholars from the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies (PIMS,) will be awarded honorary degrees in recognition of their service and immense scholarly contribution to the University and support of students, marking the first time that St. Michael’s has accorded such an honour to a married couple.
“The St. Michael’s campus is the historical epicentre of mediaeval studies in Canada, so it is fitting that we acknowledge Ann and James, for their remarkable scholarship, and their intellectual generosity to generations of students,” says St. Michael’s President David Sylvester.
Professor Carley is University Professor Emeritus of York University and a Fellow of the Institute. Professor Hutchison is a long-time Fellow of the Institute and was Academic Dean of the Institute until 2022. Both have contributed much to the thriving and renowned scholarly world of Medieval Studies in Toronto and are models of interdisciplinary research.
Prof. Hutchison’s work on Catholic and Counter-Reformation culture in England has filled an important niche in yet another research area vital to the University of Toronto’s graduate Centre for Renaissance and Reformation Studies and to St. Michael’s own Catholic profile. As Academic Dean at PIMS, she introduced many new initiatives, based on her passionate vision to link students and research from all cohorts on the east end of campus. Her Friday teas offered undergraduates, Mellon Post-doctoral Fellows, and faculty at PIMS, St. Michael’s and the Centre for Medieval Studies a unique intergenerational opportunity to meet and discuss their interests. She has mentored large numbers of SMC undergraduates and championed joint undergraduate/graduate/faculty research through her annual Women’s Medieval Workshop initiative.
Dr. Carley is a historian of Glastonbury Abbey and the world of the high Middle Ages in England. His many publications on Arthurian literature and his collaboration with Welsh and Irish scholars are notable. His great work on the English royal library in the early Reformation period merges with his pioneering work on humanists and scholars and the recovery of lost and scattered libraries has bolstered his recent work on the study of Hebrew scholarship in Tudor England.
“In Archbishop Bolen and in Professors Hutchison and Carley we see lives that reflect the core values of our university,” says President Sylvester. “They seek out the truth daily, they understand the value of building strong communities, and their dedication to their work offers us profound insights into the human condition. It is a privilege to be able to count them as part of the St. Michael’s community.”
This year’s honorary degrees will be conferred at the University of St. Michael’s College convocation, to be held on November 11, 2023.
Learn more about Honorary Doctorates and Other University of St. Michael’s College Honours
Professor Gilles Routhier will be awarded the highest academic honour at the University of St. Michael’s College, the Doctor of Divinity honoris causa, at this year’s Faculty of Theology convocation, which takes place on Nov. 13, 2021.
The honorary degree stands in recognition of Dr. Routhier’s outstanding body of scholarly work, his continuing international leadership and impact in the field of theology, and his service to his institution and the academy.
Professeur titulaire and former Dean of the Faculty of Theology and Religious Sciences at Laval University, recently appointed Rector of the Seminary of Quebec, Member of the Royal Society of Canada, and priest of Archdiocese of Quebec, Fr. Routhier is a world-renowned scholar who has published extensively and shaped in profound ways the current field of theological study around the globe.
Professor Routhier’s body of scholarly work is both monumental and influential. The author and co-author of more than 40 books, and editor and co-editor of more than 35 others, he has published more than 160 peer-reviewed articles, and more than 180 book chapters. He has given more than 300 academic lectures—across North and South America, throughout Europe and in Africa and Asia—on topics ranging from pastoral and practical theology to ecumenism and ecclesiology. He has been awarded approximately $1M CAD in support of his research at Laval. Through his teaching, Fr. Routhier has shaped a generation of critically minded new scholars and had a measurable impact on our understanding of the history of Catholicism in Quebec, the reception and hermeneutics of Vatican II, ecclesiology, missiology, history of theology, Mariology, and practical and pastoral theology.
Professor Routhier is currently working on a research project with Faculty of Theology Professors Michel Attridge and Darren Dias entitled “One Canada, Two Catholicisms: Divergent Evolutions in the Catholic Church in Quebec and Ontario, 1965-1985,” funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Much of Professor Routhier’s work was done while he has carried significant administrative responsibilities at Laval University. His appointment as Rector of the historic and influential Seminary of Quebec, founded in the 17th century, follows his many years of leadership in the Laval Faculty of Theology and Religious Sciences, as Dean from 2012-2020, and as Vice-Dean from 2008-2012 and 2001-2003. His curriculum vitae captures in detailhis remarkable service to Laval and beyond the University. Among those pages you will find contributions to the Archdiocese of Quebec, the Church in Quebec, service to the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, and to the Vatican. Professor Routhier becomes the most recent in a lengthy list of honorary degree recipients, a list which includes such names as Bernard Lonergan, Catherine de Hueck Doherty, Gustavo Gutierrez and Romeo D’Allaire.
Celebrate this year’s graduates with us at the Faculty of Theology’s Fall Convocation 2021 page.
At the Faculty of Theology and Continuing Education Division’s 2019 Fall Convocation, not only will new scholars receive degrees qualifying them to conduct high-level research and teach, but two already-accomplished scholars will also receive special honours in recognition of their longstanding contributions. This year’s honorary degree recipients are Dr. Catherine B. Shannon and Dr. James Heft, SM (Marianist), both prolific researchers, writers and educators whose work embodies the ideals of the University of St. Michael’s College.
Dr. Shannon graduated from St. Michael’s with a B.A. in History in 1960, and went on to become a historian of Northern Ireland. In addition to her research on the historical roots of partition and the Northern Irish conflict, she worked to organize conferences and symposia during the 1980s and 1990s to promote dialogue between nationalist and unionist politicians. She has written on the impact of the conflict on Northern Irish women, and convened two conferences where women from Northern Ireland and the Republic discussed their aspirations for peace and their roles in achieving it.
In addition to her scholarship and advocacy, Dr. Shannon has served as a guest historian for museum and historical society exhibits. She has also served on the Executive Board of the American Conference of Irish Studies for over a decade, and has served as president of the Eire Society of Boston and the Charitable Irish Society of Boston.
Dr. Heft is a priest in the Society of Mary and has been a leader in Catholic higher education for over three decades. He received his MA in 1971 and his PhD in 1977 from the Faculty of Theology at St. Michael’s. For years, he served in a variety of teaching and administrative roles at the University of Dayton, where he chaired the Theology department before working as provost and then university chancellor. He departed in 2006 to found the Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.
The author or editor of 13 books on topics ranging from intellectual humility and interreligious dialogue to Catholic higher education, Dr. Heft has also published over 175 articles and book chapters. His book Catholic High Schools: Facing the New Realities (Oxford, 2011) was listed as a best-seller in a recent Oxford catalogue, and a new book on the future of Catholic higher education is under review with the same press. In recognition of his long and distinguished service to Catholic higher education, in 2011 the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities made Dr. Heft the recipient of the Theodore M. Hesburgh award.
For their many contributions and accomplishments, Dr. Shannon will be conferred with a Doctor of Sacred Letters, honoris causa and Dr. Heft will be conferred with a Doctor of Divinity, honoris causa on Saturday, November 9 during a joint convocation for the Faculty of Theology and Continuing Education Division at St. Basil’s Church. A reception will follow in Fr. Madden Hall.
A list of all past recipients of honorary degrees from the University of St. Michael’s College can be found here.