Canada: Inhabitants of Quebec are less and less catholic

The chapel of Tadoussac, in Quebec, called "Indian chapel", is one of the oldest wooden churches in North America. The first construction was on 1615.

According to a poll taken by the French-speaking Center for Research on Public Opinion (CROP) for Radio-Canada, Church membership has sharply decreased among inhabitants of Quebec.  The poll is entitled “Do Quebeckers have No Religion?” The results of it, which were published on March 30 in the radio program “Second Look”, show that less than 60% of Quebeckers still call themselves Catholics.  In 2001, however, they made up 83% of the population of Quebec.  Today 82% declare that they never go to church except on special occasions such as funerals, baptisms, Easter, Christmas or weddings.  For only 46% of those polled, Jesus Christ is truly the Son of God, whereas for the others he is “an ordinary man” (24%), “a prophet” (14%), “a philosopher” (10%), an enlightened man” (7%).

Furthermore, 58% of the individuals polled think that religion is “not important or not very important” in their life.  As for the Catholic respondents, only 32% say that they are Catholics because they have faith and only 40% of them speak “regularly” or “occasionally” about religion to their children.

During an interview by the website www.radio-canada.ca on March 28, Martin Meunier, a sociologist of religions at the University of Ottawa, thinks that Quebeckers “used to be Catholics and now are disaffiliating themselves from that institution.”  He goes on to say:  “Just as quickly, we see that we have entered into a new phase.”

(Sources:  apic/radio-canada – DICI no. 295 dated April 25, 2014)

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