In Quebec, religion is a taboo subject. And it is not uncommon for citizens to hide their belief or association with religion from their own family members. This is one of the conclusions of the investigation carried out by a team led by anthropologist Deirdre Meintel, across the regions of Quebec, including Montreal.
This is also what we discover in the test Religious Plurality in Quebecpublished after ten years of field research, and edited by Deirdre Meintel.
In fact, the conclusions of the survey dismantle certain persistent myths in contemporary Quebec society, which sometimes systematically attribute the practice of religious worship to immigrant communities, and a persistent agnosticism to the Quebec host community.
In general, moreover, it is reported that more and more Quebecers declare themselves to have no religion. And this trend is observed particularly among newcomers.
“There are tendencies that become more pronounced over time,” Deirdre Meintel said in an interview. For example, the number of people who say they have no religious affiliation or no religion, who do not identify with a tradition, is growing. »
Great diversity in the region
The research, which brings together several field surveys, focuses as much on Montreal as on the other regions of Quebec. “Which complicates things”, continues Mme Meintel. “It plays out differently in the regions,” she says. We do not practice in the same way in Saguenay, Rawdon or Montreal, for example.
“We found that each of these regions presented a distinctive religious landscape, where different religions and spiritualities predominated, and had its own history in terms of religious pluralism,” reads the article. Religious Plurality in Quebec.
“In the religious, we include all that we call spiritualities”, specifies Deirdre Meintel. There is as much interest in Christianity or Islam as in Druidism or neo-shamanism, for example.
“Despite the decline in attendance at places of worship among Catholics, the charities of the Church are still very present and active. Places of worship, especially evangelical and Islamic, continue to multiply.
A Quebec peculiarity
In this context, Quebec presents a particular configuration, due to its recent history, in particular the transition from what is now called the “Great Darkness”, marked by the preponderance of the Catholic Church, to the Quiet Revolution , which took off in the 1960s.
“This combination of taboo, vitality and invisibility of religion seems to us to be a specific characteristic of religious behavior in Quebec, directly linked to the long and complex history that the province has with the Catholic Church and more broadly with religious authorities”, write Deirdre Meintel and Geraldine Mossière.
In the course of the investigation, the researchers noted a very great discretion of Quebecers with regard to their beliefs or their religious practices.
“Almost all the time, people said that they spoke little or didn’t speak at all about their beliefs or their associations with their loved ones, so as not to argue with their family or with their spouse. We have found that people are very discreet for fear of causing either quarrels, or being ridiculed or scandalizing. Some professionals, who frequent lesser-known fringe groups, are afraid of scandalizing their clients,” she says.
Deirdre Meintel sees it as “a difficulty in coming to terms with Quebec’s past”.
An integration tool
Moreover, the authors note that religious organizations are not an obstacle to integration into the host society for immigrants, but rather a tool for integration into this society. Indeed, there are many services offered to newcomers by community organizations, in collaboration with religious groups.
“More generally, religious leaders play a mediating role between newcomers and government, municipal and other institutions, offering assistance with administrative procedures, providing legal advice and familiarizing newcomers with the norms of host society. They also act as cultural intermediaries to help loyal immigrants integrate while maintaining their religious standards. The group and its place of worship constitute a first space of sociability for recent immigrants which allows them to avoid isolation and to recreate a network of mutual aid and belonging, especially when the links with the country of origin are weakened or broken”, note Claude Gélinas, Deirdre Meintel and Daniela Moisa.
In an interview, Deirdre Meintel also evokes “great interreligious collaborations”, sometimes uniting the representatives “of a Catholic parish, a mosque, and a synagogue” in welcoming certain groups of immigrants in difficulty.
It also points to the role of religious groups in welcoming refugees or unaccompanied minor immigrants. “Our workers in the field have seen, for example, unaccompanied minors arriving from Congo. Often young people would ask to see an evangelical pastor or a Catholic priest,” she says.
Religious groups, she says, are part of the host society. “In this sense, their role is perhaps underestimated. »