Editorial

By Paul Schratz

Do devout Muslim women have to unveil their faces when voting in an election?

Must government employees or schoolchildren remove crucifixes or yarmulkes in the workplace or classroom?

Should religious schools and hospitals lose any entitlement to government funding?

Questions such as these are part of the "accommodation" debate now under way in Quebec. Although focused there, it's relevant across Canada, where multiculturalism is being redefined daily with the arrival of each new immigrant family.

The issue has special importance in the Lower Mainland, not only because of the increasingly mosaic society here, but because Catholics are being challenged to live out their faith in a special way in the context of the archdiocesan synod.

The trigger of Quebec's accommodation debate was the village of Herouxville, which this year issued a "code of conduct" for immigrants that, even if well intentioned, was ultimately patronizing and offended many.

Among other things, it pointed out to new immigrants that they must accept local standards and that they may not, among other things, kill women by stoning, burning, or treating them as slaves.

The village went before Quebec's travelling Bouchard-Taylor Commission last week to state its position as part of the debate on religious accommodation. Also presenting a brief to the commission was Cardinal Marc Ouellet, who made a compelling case that true accommodation will be found only in Quebec rediscovering its lost faith.

The Archbishop of Quebec and Primate of the Catholic Church in Canada argued that for four centuries, Quebec society rested on two pillars: the French culture and the Catholic faith.

Secular fundamentalism brought in with the Quiet Revolution has left a "spiritual void created by the religious and cultural rupture," Cardinal Ouellet said. The vacuum is being filled with attachment to fleeting and superficial values, resulting in a disoriented culture, youth who are confused, and a society that is abandoning marriage and children and turning to abortion and suicide in staggering numbers.

Quebec has focused its efforts on preserving its French culture, but Cardinal Ouellet explained that it was Gospel values that taught love of neighbour, and those same Gospel values are the path to harmonious relations with other faiths.

"What affects our soul also affects our body," he said. "I believe Quebecers really need to rediscover their religious identity."

Cardinal Ouellet obviously hopes his message will be well received in Quebec City, which will host a Eucharistic Congress next year, but it has relevance in B.C., where tolerance of faith in the public square is an issue that never goes away. Perhaps because of this province's embrace of all things secular and the fact that faith never gained quite the same foothold here, things religious have been more or less tolerated. Will that always be the case?

In Shirley Jackson's short story The Lottery, a small town celebrates its annual tradition, a ritual public stoning. The irony is that modern-day Herouxville is warning immigrants against stonings, while The Lottery is a cautionary tale about indigenous townspeople who have themselves adopted it.

Either way, the issue is pertinent when examining our de-Christianized culture today. Men and women have an inherent need for God in their lives. Remove that and they'll fill the spiritual vacuum with something else: materialism, socialism, paganism.... This culture remains as much in need of spiritual awakening as Quebec's, and that is the point of the Vancouver synod.

Pope John Paul II maintained that our culture must recover its memory of faith. From the sacraments to devotions such as the Rosary and public processions all the way to Catholic art, music, and eating fish on Friday, that culture is our identity.

Cardinal Ouellet's point was the same: the crucifix that continues to hang in Quebec's National Assembly is not an imposition of a state religion, but a reflection of the history on which the culture is founded. It is Quebec's identity.

Pope Benedict XVI has been emphasizing that point in Europe: those who abandon their Christian heritage, memory, and identity do so at their own risk.

One might even say they're playing a lottery with the future.