Church’s massive bureaucracy.7 The Roman Catholic Church of Québec exercised a virtual monopoly over education (schools, colleges, etc.), health care (i.e. hospitals, health care centres, etc.), and the social services (social assistance, etc.) offered to French Québecers who formed the majority of the population. As a result, the Church’s organizational presence became ubiquitous. This semi-established status and public presence was legitimated by the traditional religious nationalism, which united a conservative, clerical version of Catholicism and French-Canadian ethnic identity.
VVIn this situation, the cultural power of the Church was enormous. It defined Québec’s cultural identity in opposition to the Protestant and secular culture of North America. It demanded unanimity within its own ranks and supported the government in its opposition to pluralism. The Church was sustained in its activities by the faith of the vast majority of t people. Their ardent piety produced a culture of solidarity and mutual aid. An intense faith inspired vast members of young people to become priests, sisters, and brothers, dedicated to serve in their own society and the field of overseas missions. This profound loyalty to the Church may seem like an anomaly in the middle of the twentieth century. Yet whenever a people has been conquered by empire and must struggle for its collective survival, the Church easily becomes a symbol of identity and resistance.
VVThere were signs in the 1940s and 1950s that the unanimity in the Catholic Church was seriously being challenged. Joseph Charbonneau, the Archbishop of Montreal, broke ranks with the other bishops in his support of non-confessional institutions and interventions in favour of workers’ strikes.8 The review Cité libre, directed by intellectuals relying on liberal Catholic thought coming from France, criticized what it called the clerico-nationalist, corrupt, and undemocratic regime of Duplessis; some even labelled his term in office as the Grande noirceur, or Great Darkness.[2] Two priests, Gérard Dion and Louis O’Neil, published a book in 1956 that criticized Duplessis’s reactionary policies and advocated democratic and egalitarian ideas.[3] Examining activities and events in these two decades, historians have come to recognize the cultural and social currents that ultimately prepared for the Révolution tranquille, or Quiet Revolution. Still, despite these moments of anticipation, when the Liberal government of Jean Lesage was elected on 22 June 1960, a cultural explosion took place that truly deserves the name Quiet Revolution.[4]
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8887. Jean Hamelin, “Société en mutation, église en redéfinition, le catholicisme québécois contemporain, de 1940 à nos jours,” dans La crois et le nouveau monde. Histoire religieuse des francophones d’Amérique du nord, dir. Guy-Marie Oury, 217-36, (Montréal : Éditions C.I.D./C.M.D., 1987), p. 224.
8888. Jean Hamelin, Histoire du catholicisme québécoise. Le XXe siècle, Vol. 2, De 1940 à nos jours, ed. Nive Voisine, (Montréal: Boreal Express, 1984), p. 11.