Historical Transformations of Roman Catholicism in Quebec
An essay I wrote in 2010 for an online class on Religion in Canada (Concordia University). Keep in mind, this was an elective class, not my field of study. I tried my best to make sense of Quebec’s religious history, yet it is definitely more complex than this essay can possibly inform.
Quebec, as the first firm foothold in Canada, has seen quite a rich history — and more specifically a deeply religious one — pass her by. Most notably, it can claim to be the Roman Catholic Canadian province par excellence, though throughout the past decades that particular demographic has lost its numbers. How does a province go from being a bastion of faith to this present state of laicism embraced by its people?
This essay attempts to draw the historical journey of Roman Catholicism in francophone Quebec from the days of Catholic missionaries and French colonisation (briefly), to secularization and politics, finally leading to today’s disillusionment and religious changes.
Colonisation
French colonisation in Canada was characterized by missionaries forcing Natives to submit to the Catholic religion in order to bring them to a better level of “social civility” — despite early settlers’ comments that the bons sauvages represented “humanity in its natural state of purity and innocence[1]” and despite the respect, harmony and overall tolerance they had been shown by Indians upon arrival[2].
Aside from missionaries, however, early settlers sought to establish an authoritative presence that would take care of them in these strange new lands: the clergy, educated and powerful, took control of many aspects of their daily lives: the Church set up schools, social aid and hospitals, and acted as political leaders[3], thus building a tight-knit community that was answerable to them in every way imaginable. The cultural, ethnic and religious identity of the French Canadian Catholic peoples solidified with the Church’s assistance, even as the British Protestants conquered the country and attempted (and failed)to convert them[4].
Urbanisation and revolution
Following the reinstatement of the Church’s authority in Quebec after the fall of the Protestant powers, it would come to define the political, social and ethnic future of French Canadians in an even more powerful way than previously. This explains why, in the 1900’s, “most of French Canada’s hospitals, schools and social services were founded and run by [Catholic] religious orders[5]”, why it had begun “sponsoring credit unions, electrification programs and scientific farming techniques[6]” to remain afloat of modern advances, and why it remained strong in politics.
Soon, however, this public monopoly was challenged, thanks to the very collèges classiques it had founded: “it helped educate a lay and religious elite who would play a major role in the transformations of Quebec society”, and the very urbanisation it had embraced began to erode the link to the sacred place and overall participation in religious life[7].
The religious decline would globally spur the sexual revolution of the 1960’s, freeing the previously repressed population, and the younger generation would react to “the strict control that the Catholic Church exercised over the province for many decades[8]. A new rational, critical generation looked at religion and the public domain in a very different way. Indeed, “before the 1960’s every political party or nationalist movement had also been Catholic” because of the deep roots of French Canadian ethnic identity and decades of economic and social support from the clerics[9]— but no more. Public Catholicism in politics was now identified with the non-progressive, unethical Duplessis regime.
Disillusionment
In the 1980’s, néolibéralisme merely continued the work of disillusioned politicians who prized reason and rationality — the market — as the basis for social organisation. Critics argued that this was a new basis for serving selfish interests.
The Church, on the other hand, refuted with the Second Vatican Council’s ruling, “calling all Roman Catholics to participate in the important political and social debates of their societies[10]”. At last, then, the Church had recognized it had entered a crisis and was essentially begging its loyal subjects to react to the secularization of society in a very public way, and in its place. Though the Church took great care to point out it was not identifying with either side during the referenda, it definitely urged its “partisans” to seek inspiration from the Gospels and to claim their right to self-determination[11].
Critics, however, blasted the clergy for implying that the oppression of francophones across Canada was morally acceptable[12], that dragging the Gospel into the purely secular debate was foul play and a throwback to duplessisme, and that the Church was manipulating public opinion[13], saying that discourse about sovereignty was not concerned with “social solidarity, […] the growing division between the wealthy and the poor, and […] the fight against exclusion and poverty[14]”.
In other words, the Church showed its reticence regarding independence, and all polls showed that church-going Catholics were quick to take the advice of their spiritual leaders. The public role of the Church in Quebec had taken a step back, then, but still tried to impact political¯decisions.
Today
Today’s franco-Catholic Quebec, however, is torn by ambivalence since the Church’s last great try at intruding on politics. Resentment, nostalgia and confusion reign.
Since the referendum, or thereabouts, “Quebec has been characterized as fertile ground for a cultural and popular Catholicism” that is seen as “a spiritual quest, an emotional experience and an affirmation of perennial values” though it does not associate very strongly with the Church anymore[15].
In other words, Catholicism in Quebec is now a private affair, experienced not externally but internally, with the values and moral dictates that are a heritage of the French Canadian identity. Because Roman Catholicism is rooted so deeply into this ethnic sense of “belonging” to the culture, these religious teachings are vehiculated and continue to live on, though disconnected from the Church that did not always defend this identity properly. In recent years, school boards, hospitals and social aid likewise disassociated from their religious roots, signalling the definite end of the Church’s hold on the public domain.
The Church has taken these changes fairly well regardless of declining numbers at Sunday worship or other religious events, precisely because the French Canadian Catholic roots have remained strong: rites of passage and main holidays are still celebrated. The Church has laxened its strict rules in order to preserve itself, too: lay people and women are now hired to perform administrative or pastoral tasks, and teach in schools open to religious instruction[16]. Contemporary feminist groups are currently advocating the rights of women to access to religious orders, though their stride was considerably weakened under John Paul II’s pontificate[17]. As well, currently the Church in Quebec is focusing its efforts on the younger generations and on new (fervent) Catholic immigrants.
In conclusion
Historically, culturally and religiously, then, Quebec’s francophone Catholics have had a rich history, especially of late. What began as a quest to aid the French colons to settle in the New World quickly became a mission to convert (and, by the same stride, dominate) the indigenous peoples of the land. The Church thusly gained power, and in the mid-twentieth century when political laicization began to unsettle the fabric of religious life in Quebec, it sought to regain a footing by urging people on the “right path”, supposedly guided by the Gospel. Soon disillusioned by the snaring reach of the Church and aided by the complete secularization of the public domain, people began to question their “religiousness” and, able to breathe at last, most do not practice but still viscerally associate with the deep religious and cultural and ethnic identity of their forefathers, and thus still call themselves Catholics and retain the moral and ethical teachings of a declining Church that has nevertheless transformed to accommodate this new “freedom” trend.
I am a product of my province’s religious history.
Bibliography
Beaman, Lori G. “Aboriginal Spirituality and the Legal Construction of Freedom of Religion”. Journal of Church and State. 2002: 135–149.
Sioui, George E. “The Sacred Circle of Life”. For an Amerindian Autohistory. 1995: 8–19.
Lefebvre, Solange. “The Francophone Roman Catholic Church”. Christianity and Ethnicity in Canada. 2008: 101–132.
Seljak, David. “Resisting the ‘No Man’s Land’ of Private Religion: The Catholic Church and Public Politics in Quebec”. Rethinking church, state, and modernity: Canada between Europe and America. 2000: 131–147.
Notes
[1] Lefebvre, Solange. “The Francophone Roman Catholic Church”. Christianity and Ethnicity in Canada. 2008: 108
[2] Sioui, George E. “The Sacred Circle of Life”. For an Amerindian Autohistory. 1995: 13
[3] Lefebvre, 107
[4] The ill-fated but no less passionate 1837–1838 Rébellion des patriotes best illustrates the staunchness of the French Canadians in remaining faithful to their religion while fighting for their social and political rights to be reinstated. The Church actually remained impassive and did not support the war, perhaps to serve its own agenda of gaining power again — and it did.
[5] Lefebvre, 115
[6] Lefebvre, 116
[7] Lefebvre, 123
[8] Lefebvre, 124
[9] Seljak, David. “Resisting the ‘No Man’s Land’ of Private Religion: The Catholic Church and Public Politics in Quebec”. Rethinking church, state, and modernity: Canada between Europe and America. 2000: 132–3
[10] Seljak, 134
[11] I find the use of this term (and its French equivalent autonomie) quite ironic in context here. The Church absolutely did not take sides, and yet they were indeed surreptitiously guiding people in the direction they wanted… taking away people’s autonomie, in a sense.
[12] Note once again that the Church had remained silent during the 1837–1838 patriot rebellions, which were also about the oppression of French Canadians after the British Conquest.
[13] Seljak, 138–9
[14] Seljak, 143
[15] Lefebvre, 124
[16] Lefebvre, 125
[17] Lefebvre, 127 — Benedict XVI seems to espouse conservative views as well on similarly important matters such as abortion and birth control, so it may be some time before we see women priests.
