six million Catholics who attend mass weekly now stands at 6 per cent, the lowest of any Western society.32 But therein lies a paradox. That more than 80 per cent of Québecers still declare themselves Catholics, according to the 2001 census, suggests an attachment to the faith. If not a spiritual one, at least a cultural one.33
VII. QUÉBEC AND LAÏCITÉ TODAY
VVThe flurry of frenetic activity over the course of Québec’s history has left a permanent mark, so that in our day the Révolution tranquille primarily signifies not the growth of the Québec state or the rationalization of its services – although these did occur – but the veritable coming-of-age of a people in its belated encounter with modernity.34
VVTo assume, however, that religion is Québec’s greatest foe – and that forbidding public servants to wear religious symbols (as is the case today) is somehow a victory for provincial identity – is an unfortunate misreading of history. The Révolution tranquille put thousands of clerics out of jobs and hundreds of churches onto the real estate market, but it did not necessarily eliminate religion in the province. Instead, it gave people the freedom to practice informally, experimentally, and on their own terms. It was a victory for religious freedom over institutional control – which is why current Premier Pauline Marois’s Charte des valeurs québécoises is so profoundly misguided.
VVIndeed, although the Révolution was inspired by and promoted some complaints against religion, even anticlericalism, there was no massive rejection of religion on behalf of early modernizers. Even today, while only 29 per cent of Catholics attend mass on Sunday, most have retained their Catholic identity and insist on Catholic religious education for their children.[1] Other remnants of the Catholicism persist. Municipalities, for example, are still widely referred to as paroisses (parishes). Every saint, no matter how obscure, has a village or street named for him or her, from Cléophas to Tharcisius. The national holiday is officially known as la Fête nationale, but only bureaucrats, TV announcers and politicians call it that. To everyone else, it is still la Saint-Jean Baptiste. If a person takes a walk around Québec’s legislature, they will find plenty of Roman Catholic symbols too: the white cross on the Québec flag, the statues of missionaries – there is even a chapel a stone’s throw away from the Premier’s office, in a government building. Mass for civil servants is held there twice a week. Even inside the legislature itself, a crucifix hangs in the Blue Room, right above the Speaker’s Chair. It dates back to 1936, when Premier Duplessis decided to symbolically seal the bond between the government and the Catholic Church.
123
8832. Konrad Yakabuski, “Neither practicing or believing, but Catholic even so,” The Globe and Mail, August 2009, Web, November 20, 2013.
8833. Ibid.
8834. Réjean Pelletier, “La Révolution tranquille,” in Le Québec en jeu : Comprendre les grands défis, eds. Gérard Daigle and Guy Rocher, (Montréal : Les Presses de l’Université de Montréal, 1992), pp. 609-24.
8835.
8836.