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I came across this item about the closure of Anglophone parishes. This reminded me of something I saw in Montreal which puzzled me. I went to Mass at St. Gabriel's one Sunday last November when I was visiting the city. It's a big church with another big church right next to it. I had assumed the other church was of another denomination and was surprised to discover that the second church was also Catholic -- Saint-Charles. St. G is an English-speaking parish and St-C is French speaking.
I understand that at one time people might have wanted to have separate parishes based on language but I don't see how that is sustainable now, given the huge drop in church attendance (really, I have trouble believing it ever made sense to build two churches right beside each other like that, especially back in the days when the Mass was mostly in Latin anyway). I guess the obvious move would be to consolidate parishes and have Masses in different languages in the same building, but I realize that closing a church is never easy.
Do Montreal's French- and English-speaking Catholics bridge the language gap and work together at the parish level? They seem to be able to do it some of at the major institutions (the Basilique de Notre Dame and St. Joseph's Oratory).
These days it's not a bitter cleavage but both groups like to have their own churches and all the stuff that goes along with that, so that they can be themselves in their own language.
Montreal also has Catholic churches that operate in other languages like Italian, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, etc.
All of them are part of the same archdiocese, which administratively operates in French.
Funny, I am reading a book published in 2003 titled Linguistic Conflict and Language Laws: Understanding the Quebec Question right now that suggests one of the root causes of this phenomenon. One of the chapters was written by a Concordia University professor and in it the professor explains that English speaking Catholics at one time wanted French Catholics to assimilate into English parishes so that Roman Catholicism was powerful enough to counter and possibly overcome the growing Protestantism that was coming in from Anglophone Canada and the States. The whole idea at the time was to defeat Protestantism with numbers. The French seriously objected to this and both political and religious leaders such as Henri Bourassa and Lionel Groulx worked hard to maintain French churches in defiance of the English Catholics in Canada, which might explain why there are two different Catholic churches side by side, one English and the other French. Anyways this is probably all history by now.
Funny, I am reading a book published in 2003 titled Linguistic Conflict and Language Laws: Understanding the Quebec Question right now that suggests one of the root causes of this phenomenon. One of the chapters was written by a Concordia University professor and in it the professor explains that English speaking Catholics at one time wanted French Catholics to assimilate into English parishes so that Roman Catholicism was powerful enough to counter and possibly overcome the growing Protestantism that was coming in from Anglophone Canada and the States. The whole idea at the time was to defeat Protestantism with numbers. The French seriously objected to this and both political and religious leaders such as Henri Bourassa and Lionel Groulx worked hard to maintain French churches in defiance of the English Catholics in Canada, which might explain why there are two different Catholic churches side by side, one English and the other French. Anyways this is probably all history by now.
This theory is a bit surprising.
While I suppose it was true that most English speakers thought at one time that the assimilation of the francophones to English was desirable, the idea that Catholics could at one point be outnumbered by Protestants (and therefore was something that needed to be countered) is a bit far-fetched.
Catholics have always outnumbered Protestants by a wide margin in Montreal and in Quebec.
Even when Montreal was majority anglophone for about 10-20 years in the mid-1800s, Catholics were still the crushing majority as many of the anglophones were Catholic (especially Irish).
The main reason for the closure of churches is declining attendance. I am sure that Protestant churches in Montreal are also closing. Some churches may be kept alive by immigrants.
I lived in Montreal for a few years and was deeply involved in the small Lithuanian community. They are overwhelmingly Roman Catholic and Anglophone. A Quebecois attended one of our events as he was dating a Lithuanian girl, and he was astounded as to why we operated in Lithuanian and English and not French. I didn't have an answer for him.
The main reason for the closure of churches is declining attendance. I am sure that Protestant churches in Montreal are also closing. Some churches may be kept alive by immigrants.
Old line Protestant churches are probably having the roughest time. I have been to a few Presbyterian churches for example, big churches that might have a couple dozen people (if that) in attendance. And you are right the few that are surviving are being kept alive by recent immigrants. Some evangelical sects and cults are going strong because of immigrants.
I lived in Montreal for a few years and was deeply involved in the small Lithuanian community. They are overwhelmingly Roman Catholic and Anglophone. A Quebecois attended one of our events as he was dating a Lithuanian girl, and he was astounded as to why we operated in Lithuanian and English and not French. I didn't have an answer for him.
This is not really surprising for anyone who knows the history of older waves of immigration to Montreal.
I lived in Montreal for a few years and was deeply involved in the small Lithuanian community. They are overwhelmingly Roman Catholic and Anglophone. A Quebecois attended one of our events as he was dating a Lithuanian girl, and he was astounded as to why we operated in Lithuanian and English and not French. I didn't have an answer for him.
Hey Acajack, I know that family. Alain's son is a very talented musician.
That aside, please enlighten me as to why the community would be more Anglo based on immigration waves. I was an Ontarian living in Montreal after all.
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