The crucifix as a patrimonial object
and not of faith
I am interested in the debate on the secularism of the state, the law 21, the wearing of the veil and all related issues. Following the article by Mylène Crête published on July 18, " The Catholicism of the State " , I came to the conclusion that I do not agree with the demands of the Mouvement laïque québécois ( MLQ), which denounces the protection afforded to the crucifix in public places by the government under the law 21. We are talking here about the object hanging on the wall and not the small cross worn around the neck by a Christian person .
Today, we want a secular state and freedom of religion for everyone. However, I believe that the crucifix exhibited in many places in Quebec does indeed belong to the heritage and is no longer directly related to religion. I make the following distinctions: the crucifix of which one speaks does not represent, for the person who looks at it, the institution to which it belongs or that leaves it in place, an affirmation of its current faith, but a reminder of that on what or how our society has been erected in the past. In addition, a scarf, a turban, a small cross or any other visible religious sign worn today by a person refers to the present faith of the person in question (except, I presume).
Religious heritage
My husband and children are anticlerical. In the summer, we spend a week's vacation at a historic site belonging to the Provancher Natural History Society of Canada, which, although founded by lay people in 1919, is named after one of our most eminent naturalists, Father Léon Provancher, priest, the first Quebec botanist (1820-1892). Brother Marie Victorin (a brother of the Twentieth Century Christian Schools) visited and inhabited this place in the 1930s. The three cottages of the place exhibit a large crucifix above the kitchen door, even larger than those I have always seen at my grandparents, uncles and aunts, and even at my brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law who are not practicing or even believing. No one in my family is complaining about this heritage object hanging in the cottage - which is also rented by many other families during the season -
and yet my family members rarely miss an opportunity to ridicule religion ...
Without the Clerics of the Holy Cross, without the Brothers of the Christian Schools, without Father Provancher and Brother Marie-Victorin, neither the Circle of Young Naturalists, nor the Montreal Botanical Garden, nor our "refuge" of plants and plants.
birds would have been founded or flourishing. That's part of our story.
So, from my point of view, the crucifix, a Christian religious symbol exhibited in hospitals, classrooms, etc. - and more particularly adopted by Catholics in Quebec - represents our heritage and not our faith, which, as we know, is above all a fact of the past that allowed the cohesion of French Canadians.
Founding mothers
By extension, I mention that it is equally impossible to deny the benefits brought from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century by our founding religious mothers and oh! how good are Mary of the Incarnation, Catherine of Saint Augustine, Marguerite Bourgeoys, Marguerite d'Youville, mother Gamelin, Marie-Rose Durocher and mother Cadron-Jetté (I certainly forget it) in the fields of education (general and ... musical), health and social work.
By amalgamating the concepts, the facts, the ideas and even the centuries - it is much more from the twentieth century that the multiple human drifts of several religious blackened the image of the religion in Quebec - by force To erase religious heritage or to ignore it, we drown everything on the surface and caused an indistinct and vague cloud of our history and the founding project of New France (Quebec City and Ville-Marie).
The crucifix hanging on some walls in Quebec can remind us of this founding project, as well as the positive and cohesive effect that religion had in the 18th and 19th centuries, while highlighting our resilience after the Conquest and the Treaty. from Paris.
Today, we want a secular state and freedom of religion for everyone. However, I believe that the crucifix exhibited in many places in Quebec does indeed belong to the heritage and is no longer directly related to religion. I make the following distinctions: the crucifix of which one speaks does not represent, for the person who looks at it, the institution to which it belongs or that leaves it in place, an affirmation of its current faith, but a reminder of that on what or how our society has been erected in the past. In addition, a scarf, a turban, a small cross or any other visible religious sign worn today by a person refers to the present faith of the person in question (except, I presume).
Religious heritage
My husband and children are anticlerical. In the summer, we spend a week's vacation at a historic site belonging to the Provancher Natural History Society of Canada, which, although founded by lay people in 1919, is named after one of our most eminent naturalists, Father Léon Provancher, priest, the first Quebec botanist (1820-1892). Brother Marie Victorin (a brother of the Twentieth Century Christian Schools) visited and inhabited this place in the 1930s. The three cottages of the place exhibit a large crucifix above the kitchen door, even larger than those I have always seen at my grandparents, uncles and aunts, and even at my brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law who are not practicing or even believing. No one in my family is complaining about this heritage object hanging in the cottage - which is also rented by many other families during the season -
and yet my family members rarely miss an opportunity to ridicule religion ...
Without the Clerics of the Holy Cross, without the Brothers of the Christian Schools, without Father Provancher and Brother Marie-Victorin, neither the Circle of Young Naturalists, nor the Montreal Botanical Garden, nor our "refuge" of plants and plants.
birds would have been founded or flourishing. That's part of our story.
So, from my point of view, the crucifix, a Christian religious symbol exhibited in hospitals, classrooms, etc. - and more particularly adopted by Catholics in Quebec - represents our heritage and not our faith, which, as we know, is above all a fact of the past that allowed the cohesion of French Canadians.
Founding mothers
By extension, I mention that it is equally impossible to deny the benefits brought from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century by our founding religious mothers and oh! how good are Mary of the Incarnation, Catherine of Saint Augustine, Marguerite Bourgeoys, Marguerite d'Youville, mother Gamelin, Marie-Rose Durocher and mother Cadron-Jetté (I certainly forget it) in the fields of education (general and ... musical), health and social work.
By amalgamating the concepts, the facts, the ideas and even the centuries - it is much more from the twentieth century that the multiple human drifts of several religious blackened the image of the religion in Quebec - by force To erase religious heritage or to ignore it, we drown everything on the surface and caused an indistinct and vague cloud of our history and the founding project of New France (Quebec City and Ville-Marie).
The crucifix hanging on some walls in Quebec can remind us of this founding project, as well as the positive and cohesive effect that religion had in the 18th and 19th centuries, while highlighting our resilience after the Conquest and the Treaty. from Paris.
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