The bite of time is hard on our churches. In twenty years, disorderly dismantling has led to the demolition, closure or requalification of a quarter of places of worship in Quebec. Those who are still holding on know that the end is approaching for many of them, if it is not already knocking on their decrepit doors. Isn’t it obscene to watch these buildings and their grounds fall into disrepair while we experience a housing crisis?
Our churches and their outbuildings are weakened by their unique, often energy-intensive architecture. Their needs far exceed what the dioceses and factory councils can deploy, even with the starving aid of the State and its underfunded Religious Heritage Council of Quebec (CPRQ) and despite the good will that exists. still releases individual donations, which no longer carry weight. For the citizen group Portes Ouvertes, the time is no longer for half-solutions. We have to move on to the next one, because there is no time to save them.
Certainly, the MRCs and municipalities have new powers in the management of their heritage. This is an essential step forward. But what are so many delegated powers worth if we do not take the trouble to provide significant resources to enable the latter to apply them? Above all, what is the point of this gained autonomy if the bearers of renewal see their hopes come up against insurmountable walls?
In their respective letters published in The duty, Open Doors and the Assembly of Catholic Bishops of Quebec deplore the impossibility for lay people and religious people to work together to design tomorrow. The Factories Act, which regulates church property, prohibits many citizens from serving on the board of directors of their neighborhood church. A poor understanding of the Law on Secularism has the opposite effect, immediately forcing the exclusion of factories from reconversion projects carried out by citizens, NPOs or cities.
Have we forgotten in our salutary — and infrangible — quest for secularism that our religious communities have years of miracles in health and education written in their DNA? Do we fully understand the effects of a premature cut depriving us of their detailed knowledge of these places with particular needs during this transition? Above all, do we measure the ideas and expertise that we deprive them of by keeping civil society outside their walls?
Condemned to begging left and right, the defenders of our religious heritage find themselves sadly isolated, each in their own well-defined square. How short-sighted! However, we know how complex the restoration of a church is, even one intended for shared uses, a complexity which goes up several notches for a complete reconversion. There is nothing to be gained by keeping these locks in place. Above all, we have a lot to lose.
There is a severe lack of affordable housing for Quebecers with lower incomes and for students from here and elsewhere. There is not enough adapted or supervised housing for elderly and vulnerable clienteles, not enough houses and condos at reasonable prices for our young households who dream of property, not enough decent places to house the immigrants to whom our governments opened the door without thinking about tomorrow. We can no longer count the community and municipal organizations, creative studios or distribution spaces pushed onto the streets by the force of a real estate market with limitless appetites.
However, there are plenty of examples of conversion. But often at the cost of a long obstacle course, as evidenced by the conversion of the former Kermaria convent of the Daughters of Jesus, in Trois-Rivières, to house autonomous and semi-autonomous seniors. After seven years of minor logistical, financial and political miseries, the first shovelful of earth will probably be given at the beginning of 2024, if all goes well. This example, like dozens of others, illustrates the need to develop a common vision and above all to inject oil, a lot of oil, into the gears.
Are there a need for States General, as the bishops suggest? The idea deserves to be examined seriously, because as it stands, the restoration and reconversion of our churches are real stations of the cross. Champion of flexibility, the Legault government should not need to be too pressured to conclude at least on the need to relax the pooling of active forces which are already active without benefiting from the effect of the number and the consultation.
At least 2,000 churches in Quebec are threatened with the worst in the very near future, according to architectural historian Luc Noppen. Let us not delude ourselves, not everyone can be saved. However, let’s not hesitate to save as many as possible. These neighbors are intrinsically part of our history, let’s not exclude them from the next chapters, rather let’s draw them together, in our image and likeness.