Off the beaten path: God and faith in post-Christendom Quebec

By Jenna Smith and ChristianWeek | July 29, 2014

A local parish. A homeless ministry. A filmmaker. ChristianWeek talks to three ministries about how Quebecers are practicing their values in a post-Christendom society.

L’Église Sainte-Agnès
Lac-Mégantic, QC

During a midnight mass at Sainte-Agnès parish, the whole of Quebec commemorated the one-year anniversary of the Lac-Mégantic tragedy. L’Église Sainte-Agnès overlooks a part of town that was razed to the ground by the train derailment on July 6, 2013. Sainte-Agnès was, during the weeks to come, at the heart of the Lac-Mégantic’s post-traumatic recuperation, opening their doors 14 hours a day and officiating many of the funerals.

Father Steve Lemay is a young priest who oversees the care of Sainte-Agnès. He stated, in an interview with the Quebec Catholic Church press (ECDQ.TV) that his parish became a “space of encounters and gatherings. In a time when these spaces are fewer and fewer, Sainte-Agnès, untouched by the flames, became a symbol of resistance in the face of catastrophe…It was charged with significance.”

His reference to space is not to be dismissed. In Quebec, one Catholic parish closed its doors every week during 2013. The diocese of Lac-Mégantic had already made difficult decision to close down the parish of Notre-Dame de Fatima a few months before the accident. It was demolished in April 2014.

The closing of one church stands in stark contrast to the ministry of community that took place in another. Father Charles Vallières had only been ordained one month when he was sent to Sainte-Agnès in July 2013. “I couldn’t even get through my services, because people just kept coming up to me, wanting to talk.” He said to ECDQ, “there was a reflex, in Quebec, during that time to go to the church. I understood the need for a priest. They had no voice, no words and so their reflex was to turn to God.”

The Open Door Today
Montreal, QC

The Open Door Today is a 26-year-old ministry to the most vulnerable in Montreal: homeless, victims of addiction and many aboriginal (notably Inuit) itinerant people. While The Open Door has operated under the radar for most of its life, it has gained visibility in the past 18 months, due to a major construction project in the neighbourhood, resulting in the closing of the local Cabot Square. When the city announced these changes, a network of local agencies pleaded for additional resources to be given to The Open Door to help them deal with the overwhelming needs of its now displaced population.

The result, says director Caleb Clark, was some new partnerships with the Burrough of Ville-Marie and Makivic Corporation. The funds that were leveraged allowed for longer opening hours, additional staff and a community office put to the disposal of YMCA street workers, nurses and social services.

“The partnerships were sometimes tricky,” states Clark, “certain entities were not familiar or comfortable working with a Christian organization. But others recognized the impactful elements of The Open Door being Christian in its approach.”

He notes that Makivic, a non-Christian organization, donated Inuktituk Bibles and is looking into funding for an Inuit Anglican priest who can offer chaplaincy in Inuktitut to their Inuit members.

“Partners such as this recognize the needs of the clients, including the spiritual, even if they do not have a religious mandate themselves. Basically, it comes down to a concern for the people wanting to offer greater help, which takes priority over worrying how it will look to work alongside a Christian organization.”

Guillaume Tremblay

Guillaume Tremblay is a young filmmaker whose documentary, L’Heureux Naufrage: L’ère du vide d’une société post-chrétienne (The Fortunate Shipwreck: the era of the void in a post-Christian society) premieres September 12 on Radio-Canada.

L’Heureux Naufrage reflects on the state of Quebec’s Christian heritage through interviews and testimonies of the province’s symbolic figureheads such as Oscar-winning Denys Arcand or singer Ginette Reno. This film holds no hard data or statistics. Rather, it is a portrait of a people dealing with what it means to believe, or not, in a post-churched world.

This is, says Tremblay, a subject matter full of taboos; people talking about the spiritual emptiness in a society that purposefully overturned institutionalized faith, and at times questioning the rejection of this faith, can be uncomfortable.

Tremblay admits to having made a film that mirrored his own spiritual journeying, “I needed to vulgarize what I was living; the void that I felt and that I know so many others do to. I interviewed people whose reflections and hesitancies inspired me. I wanted to give a voice to those who are questioning and journeying. Transcendence—this is fundamental to Christian spirituality—is in the quest.”

Will the audience identify with a film that reflects so deeply about matters of religion and spirituality? “They will identify with this work because it is honest,” says Tremblay. “It is personal and it is transparent. No easy answers, simply questions. This is a film for those who are searching.”

Jenna Smith lives in Montreal. She directs Innovation Youth, an inner-city centre for children, teens and families. Her first book, A Way: The Story of a Long Walk, came out in May (urban loft publishers).