Quebec : Sharp decline of church weddings

Following the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s , a movement of massive secularisation emptied the churches in Quebec. Religious weddings, however, remained common practice until recent times. But even this sacrament has suffered a huge diminution in the Belle Province, as the recent statistics published by the diocese of Valleyfield, South-West of Montreal, attest. In the diocesan newsletter Cœur et âme for January 2010, it is claimed that religious weddings have diminished by 30% in barely six years, despite the fact that nearly 80% of the population call themselves Catholics. In 2003, 344 religious weddings were celebrated; six years later, there were only 242. From year to year the trend continues: last year, in twenty-five out of the fifty-nine dioceses in Canada, no religious weddings were recorded at all. (Source : apic - DICI n°211 du 06/03/10)