Michael October - November

not want children to be exposed to any religious in-

fluence,” it really shows, among the PQ government,

contempt for any religious belief.

In an interview with the Canadian Press pub-

lished on September 13, 2013, Most Rev. Pierre Andre

Fournier, Archbishop of Rimouski and President of the

Assembly of Quebec Roman Catholic Bishops, stated:

“The Bishops of Quebec worry about this debate

on the charter of values drifting. There is a grave dan-

ger: anti-religious militantism threatens much more

Quebec’s identity than an openeing to religions...

The issue of the Muslim veil creates a diversion from

the fundamental issue, which is the real meaning of

neutrality of the State. It is like a magician: the atten-

tion of the people is drawn to one direction, whereas

the real thing, the trick, is taking place elsewhere.”

A pluralist Quebec

One year before the presentation of this secular

charter, the Roman Catholic Bishops of the Province of

Quebec had already defined the problem at stake — a

frontal attack against religion — in their pastoral mes-

sage called

Catholics in a pluralist Quebec

, published

in November, 2012:

“Among those who describe themselves as ‘with-

out religion’ there are surely some who share the

secularist view that religion simply has no relevance,

and who do not concern themselves with it. Among

them we will also find people who explicitly describe

themselves as atheists (‘there is no God’) and others

who are agnostics (‘it is impossible to prove either the

existence or the non-existence of God’). These are

currents of thought that have and have always had

serious proponents, with whom believers can and

must enter into respectful discussion.

“However, it is not those currents of thought

(which we might call ‘classic’) that tend to make head-

lines nowadays in Québec or elsewhere around the

world, but rather a militant anti-religious position that

strongly opposes religion and its place in the public

square. Among the arguments cited in support of that

militant ideology, one often finds the following:

• Religion is a purely private matter. The public

sphere ought therefore to be free of every trace of re-

ligion.

•

Religion is a backward and outmoded phenom-

enon. The progress of science and civilization ought

to result in its disappearance since religion consists

of nothing but superstitions, beliefs and taboos that

hinder people from reaching their full potential and

real autonomy.

•

Religion is a tool to create, impose, maintain and

justify patriarchal and discriminatory power structures.

Its influence must therefore be limited as much as pos-

sible in order to protect rights and freedoms.

• R

eligions are by definition sources of divisions

and hatred. Despite their words of peace and brother-

hood, they always lead to violence and war.

What is “laicity”?

“The debates that have been taking place for sev-

eral years now have demonstrated that there are sev-

eral interpretations of the words “non-confessional”

and “laicity” (laïcité)

. Not everyone is speaking of the

same thing when they use these words; and by all ap-

pearances, not everyone has the same notion of how

the notion of laicity should be implemented.

An institution is described as non-confessional,

and is characterized by laicity, if it is independent of

any religious belief. It neither favours nor discrimin-

ates against any church or religious group in particu-

lar. For their part, churches and religious groups have

no power within such an institution.

Translator’s note: There is a subtlety in the French ex-

pressions laïque and laïcité that can be challenging to cap-

ture in English; laïcité is widely used, as in this document,

in a descriptive, nonpejorative way to designate the non-

confessionality of institutions that operate without refer-

ence (either positive or negative) to religious identity and

belief. Laïcité is sometimes translated as “secularism,”

with an unfortunate negative connotation, or simply by the

word “laicity” – a word which exists in English, originally

meaning “the principles of the laity; the rule or influence

of the laity; the fact of being lay” (Oxford English Diction-

ary, 2nd edition), but which is no longer in widespread

use. “Laicity” has the shortcoming that its adjectival form

would presumably be “lay”, which could be confusing: a

“lay institution” is not exactly what is meant by an insti-

tution laïque. In this translation I have opted to translate

laïcité as “laicity” and laïque as “non-confessional.” The

latter has been widely used in Québec, for instance to de-

scribe the new regime of school boards that followed the

deconfessionalization of the public school system.

“The use of the word laicity to designate something

that is ‘not concerned with or devoted to the service of

religion’ may seem novel for many Catholics who are

more familiar with a traditional meaning of the word

‘lay’, namely ‘belonging to the ‘people as contradistin-

guished from the clergy’. This traditional meaning re-

fers to the ‘laity,’ that is, the baptized in general who are

not members of the clergy, and not to the laicity which

is now being debated in Quebec.

“Laicity is a notion that is applied to institutions, and

not to society as a whole. Indeed, society is made up of

people with every kind of conviction, belief, spiritual-

ity and religious adherence, and religious organizations

too are part of society. Thus it is characterized by ‘plur-

alism’ rather than ‘laicity’.

“Moreover, one must not confuse laicity with op-

position to religion, a mistake that is sometimes made

in the heat of debate. In a truly non-confessional con-

text, there can no more be an official atheism than

there can be an official religion.

Religion in the public square

“From its very beginnings, Christianity has been a

movement that made itself visible in the public square.

As is well known, Jesus drew crowds; he went about

the villages and towns of Galilee, Judea and the sur-

rounding regions, and people came to him from all

over. At the time of his last visit to Jerusalem, he was

welcomed by a joyful throng, and crucified in a public

place the following Friday. A few weeks later, filled

with the Holy Spirit, the apostle Peter proclaimed the

resurrection of Christ to a crowd of pilgrims that had

come to Jerusalem for the feast of Pentecost, and to

that same crowd the proclamation of the Good News

rang out in every language.

“In subsequent centuries, public spaces have

hosted Christian symbols and monuments, as well as

expressions of faith like processions and traditional

stations of the cross. The Church sees herself as a

community open to the world, not a shadowy and

secret cult, even though there have been – and, alas,

continue to be – persecutions and tyrannies that con-

demn the faithful, for a time, to a clandestine existence

or to exile.

“New gestures, symbols and practices unfamiliar

to Quebec society are now joining the existing mani-

festations and symbols of the Christian faith. This

presents a welcome challenge: to create an open and

hospitable public sphere, where the values and be-

liefs of everyone can be expressed in mutual respect.

“Though this is a challenge, it is also an opportun-

ity – an opportunity to grow as a community, and to

blaze a trail that other societies, led by the example of

Quebecers, can follow.

“Earlier generations of Catholic Quebecers could

not have imagined living in an unmistakably pluralist

society. This means that we have to learn new ways

of being Catholic Christians in a society that no longer

necessarily sees itself in us.

“To be Catholic, in a pluralist society and in a world

of communication and networking, is to be called to

come face-to-face with difference: differences in faith,

differences in religious practice (or no such practices

at all), differences of conviction and opinion. Our atti-

tude must be one of welcome, openness, respect and

kind listening.” (

End of the excerpts from the docu-

ment of the Quebec Bishops.

)

“These people revile what they do not under-

stand.” (Jude 1:10); one could say the same thing

about the Quebecers who are ashamed of their past

and think that the Roman Catholic faith is respon-

sible for all the evils, whereas it is precisely Christi-

anity that has built our present civilization.

Quebec’s motto is Je me souviens (I remember);

but Quebecers remember what precisely nowadays?

Do they remember their ancestors who came from

France to found a Christian country in the New World

by planting the Cross? Do they remember the found-

ers of this new country were martyrs and saints?

In this debate on the secular charter proposed by

Pauline Marois, a false understanding of the separa-

tion of Church and State is at the root of the problem:

in this case, it is the State that invades the religious

domain and infringes on religious rights by banning

religious symbols. Far from making living together

easier, this charter divides people more than ever.

NO to closed secularism that wants to eliminate from

the public square all religious expression, but YES to

open secularism that respects religious freedom and

the heritage of faith of 400 years left by our ancestors.

Alain Pilote

Quebec’s flag is made up of the Christian cross and

the French fleur de lys: under the pretext of the neutrality

of the State, will the cross be removed?

The crucifix has hung

in Quebec’s National As-

sembly since 1936 under

the Duplessis govern-

ment. In a statement, the

Quebec Bishops Assem-

bly denied having asked

for the crucifix’s remo-

val: “It was placed there

by the elected members

and the decision to keep

or remove it is the duty of the elected members

in respect of the opinion of the population...

The crucifix is not a museum object or just a

reminder of the past or a piece of heritage.

It must be treated with all the respect due to

a symbol fundamental to the Catholic faith.

Members must ensure that it is.”

MICHAEL October/November/December 2013