Catholic Bishops | Multicultural Meanderings

“Légiférer sur la laïcité met à risque les guignolées, craignent les évêques du Québec”

2026/02/05 Leave a comment

Reminder of the risks of overly broad approaches:

“Les activités caritatives, comme les guignolées ou les comptoirs alimentaires, pourraient-elles devenir des victimes collatérales du projet de loi du gouvernement Legault « sur le renforcement de la laïcité » ? C’est du moins ce que craignent les évêques catholiques québécois.

Dans un mémoire qui sera présenté mercredi en commission parlementaire, l’Assemblée des évêques catholiques du Québec (AECQ) lève un drapeau rouge : « la définition des “pratiques religieuses” qui est utilisée dans le projet de loi est trop large et doit être précisée, car elle risque de limiter l’action charitable de plusieurs organismes de bienfaisance ».

Déposé en novembre, le projet de loi 9 « sur le renforcement de la laïcité au Québec » prévoit l’interdiction, dans une panoplie d’édifices publics, de toute « pratique religieuse ». L’usage de la voie publique ou d’un parc à des fins de « pratique religieuse collective » est également proscrit, à moins d’obtenir une autorisation exceptionnelle de la municipalité.

“Quand je me réfère à notre expérience ici, à Saint-Jérôme, au centre-ville, la cathédrale a donné plus de 20 000 $ pour des paniers de Noël. Elle a réalisé ça, entre autres, avec une guignolée au coin des rues par les Chevaliers de Colomb », a observé l’évêque de Saint-Jérôme-Mont-Laurier, Raymond Poisson, en entrevue avec Le Devoir en prévision du passage en commission de l’AECQ. « S’il fallait qu’on arrête de faire ça… »

Devant le ministre responsable de la Laïcité, Jean-François Roberge, mercredi, l’AECQ défendra l’idée que, plutôt que la « pratique religieuse », ce soit « l’enseignement religieux et le culte de toute profession religieuse » qui soient interdits dans les édifices publics et dans les rues. Sans quoi, estime Mgr Poisson, cela pourrait sonner la fin des activités caritatives pour plusieurs regroupements.

« Il y a des organismes qui nous offrent des subventions pour nos comptoirs alimentaires et vestimentaires. On en a dans beaucoup, beaucoup de nos églises », a-t-il ajouté. « Pendant la pandémie, ici, on a continué à livrer 200 boîtes de nourriture aux familles et ce sont les employés municipaux qui les livraient. On ne voudrait pas perdre ça. »

“Dans les neuf recommandations contenues dans leur mémoire, les 23 évêques membres de l’AECQ demandent le maintien des locaux de prières dans les universités et cégeps. Ils souhaitent aussi le retrait d’une disposition du projet de loi 9 prévoyant rendre conditionnel le financement public d’écoles religieuses.

« On a une liberté d’expression et c’est reconnu par des chartes. Je pense que l’État, peut-être, déborde de sa juridiction, ou a un peu trop d’ambition », a affirmé Mgr Poisson au téléphone cette semaine.”

Source: “Légiférer sur la laïcité met à risque les guignolées, craignent les évêques du Québec”

“Could charitable activities, such as puppets or food counters, become collateral victims of the Legault government’s bill “on strengthening secularism”? At least that is what Quebec Catholic bishops fear.

In a report that will be presented on Wednesday in the parliamentary committee, the Assembly of Catholic Bishops of Quebec (AECQ) raises a red flag: “the definition of “religious practices” that is used in the bill is too broad and must be clarified, because it risks limiting the charitable action of several charities”.

Tabled in November, Bill 9 “on the strengthening of secularism in Quebec” provides for the prohibition, in a range of public buildings, of any “religious practice”. The use of the public road or a park for the purpose of “collective religious practice” is also prohibited, unless exceptional authorization is obtained from the municipality.

“When I refer to our experience here in Saint-Jérôme, downtown, the cathedral gave more than $20,000 for Christmas baskets. She achieved this, among other things, with a puppet around the corner of the streets by the Knights of Columbus, “observed the bishop of Saint-Jérôme-Mont-Laurier, Raymond Poisson, in an interview with Le Devoir in anticipation of the passage through the AECQ commission. “If we had to stop doing this…”

Before the Minister responsible for Secularism, Jean-François Roberge, on Wednesday, the AECQ will defend the idea that, rather than “religious practice”, it is “religious education and the worship of any religious profession” that are prohibited in public buildings and on the streets. Otherwise, according to Bishop Poisson, this could ring the end of charitable activities for several groups.

“There are organizations that offer us subsidies for our food and clothing counters. We have them in many, many of our churches, “he added. “During the pandemic, here, we continued to deliver 200 boxes of food to families and it was municipal employees who delivered them. We wouldn’t want to lose that. ”

“In the nine recommendations contained in their report, the 23 bishops members of the AECQ ask for the maintenance of prayer rooms in universities and CEGEPs. They also want the withdrawal of a provision of Bill 9 to make the public funding of religious schools conditional.

“We have freedom of expression and it is recognized by charters. I think the State, perhaps, overflows its jurisdiction, or has a little too much ambition, “said Bishop Poisson on the phone this week.”

Filed under Interculturalisme, Laïcité, Multiculturalism Tagged with Catholic Bishops, Quebec

Bishops to supplement rather than revise Faithful Citizenship voter guide

2018/06/18 Leave a comment

Good debate and discussion. But if seems a bit ingenuous not to undertake a more fundamental revision given the times:

After nearly 90 minutes of fraternal debate about the future of their voter guide, Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship, the U.S. bishops opted to supplement rather than revise or issue a new document, resisting a push from a group of bishops who believed the current version is outdated in light of “a radically different moment” brought by the presidency of Donald Trump.

The bishops voted 144 to 41, with one abstention, to complement the current version of Faithful Citizenship with a short letter and videos aimed at inspiring prayer and action in public life; an amendment added to the proposal also holds the efforts to apply the teaching of Pope Francis to present times.

The U.S. bishops have been issuing Faithful Citizenship documents, reflecting on election issues, every four years since 1976. The current document was crafted in 2007; a new introduction for it was written in 2011 and some revisions made in 2015.

The proposed supplemental elements were put forth by a working group of chairs of a dozen bishop committees, led by Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez, vice president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

In introducing their proposal, Gomez said their goal was to increase the document’s influence and reach more Catholics through it. He said the working group viewed the document as having “lasting value” as a resource for state Catholic conferences, priests and fellow bishops, but that it was “too long and not particularly accessible or practical in helping the ordinary faithful individuals.”

“In the process of learn, pray, act, Faithful Citizenship does a good job of helping our people to learn,” he said. “So the task for us is to motivate the faithful to pray and to act.”

Once the proposal opened to debate, disagreement broke out about whether the document, as it stood, still held relevance absent revisions in light of the teachings of Francis and the country’s political climate.

While his name was never said, the agenda of Trump was acutely in the mind of bishops pushing for a new or heavily modified Faithful Citizenship document.

One by one, they took to the microphone to make their case why simply reissuing Faithful Citizenship would miss the mark.

“I think it would be a missed opportunity and a big mistake not to move forward with an entirely new document,” said Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich, who led off the floor discussion saying he would vote against the proposal.

A new document is necessary, he said, in order to integrate the body of teachings from Francis — highlighting the issues of climate change, poverty and immigration — into the bishops’ own teachings and guidance. Cupich also said a new document would allow an opportunity for bishops to model how public discourse over issues of disagreement should play out during this time of political polarization.

“Even if it means that we have to stand up, and discuss, and yes, disagree with each other, we can do our people and our nation a great favor to model how that should take place,” Cupich said.

Bishop John Stowe of Lexington, Kentucky, argued there is a “different context that we find ourselves in after the last national election.”

“Even though our teachings don’t change, the context changes and the priority of issues change,” he said.

Stowe referenced the U.S. withdrawals from the Paris Agreement on climate change and Iran nuclear deal, and the increased focus on issues of gun control and immigration. The latter two issues he noted are important to young people.

“Even if it means that we have to stand up, and discuss, and yes, disagree with each other, we can do our people and our nation a great favor to model how that should take place.”

— Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich

“I think if the church doesn’t have something to say about those issues, we’re missing a very important opportunity, especially if we want to reach out to youth and incorporate them more fully in the life of the church,” Stowe said.

“There’s not much in the document about Pope Francis,” said Bishop Michael Warful, adding that in his Diocese of Great Falls-Billings, Montana, Faithful Citizenship is viewed as stale.

San Diego Bishop Robert McElroy pressed his fellow bishops that the “radically different moment” the country finds itself in requires from them a comprehensive statement “from the whole of the body, reflecting upon the signs of the times that we’re in.”

“We are living in a moment in which we witness the greatest assault upon the rights of immigrant people of the past 50 years. We live in a nation with racial and geographic and regional divides in which people of color feel victimized by institutional prejudice and violence and many white, working-class men and women feel dispossessed. We live in a time in which children are afraid to go to school because they may be killed. We live in a time in which we have the great challenge of bringing to the millennial generation an understanding that the instrumentalization of human life, at the beginning of life and at the end, is unacceptable and why laws should touch upon that,” he said.

“And yet, we see our institutions, legal and political, being distorted and atrophy. We need to speak to these questions and we need to speak as a collective body of bishops.”

McElroy said that Faithful Citizenship in its current form does not reflect Francis’ recent apostolic exhortation Gaudete et Exsultate (“Rejoice and Be Glad”) and that stated issues such as poverty, migration and the environment are not secondary but among “primary issues of claim upon the conscience of believers in public policy.”

More fundamentally, he said, the document has nothing to say about present moments “that traumatize us as a country.”

“Regarding the recision of DACA, it is silent. Regarding Charlottesville, silent. Parkland, silent. Faithful Citizenship of 2015 cannot be our response to the moment we are living in. It cannot engage with the signs of the times, it can only engage with the signs of the past and we should not move it forward,” McElroy said.

In response to calls for updating the document, Gomez and other members of the working group argued the document would only become longer and take more time to produce. Issuing videos from the current text, they said, could reach a new segment of Catholics who haven’t read Faithful Citizenship.

“We very much want to reflect this great Franciscan shift in emphasis,” said Los Angeles Auxiliary Bishop Robert Barron. “Our fear is that we have to retain a lot of the things in Faithful Citizenship, which are very well presented, well argued, we’d just be making a much longer document.”

Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark, New Jersey, suggested that perhaps a new process was necessary, since the current one delays the conference’s ability to make “prompt and thorough and reflective responses” to what’s happening in the public square.

“Here, we’re a year and a half out from the elections, and we’re saying we don’t have enough time. I think that the process at least has to be questioned. And if this is the best process, we’ll stick with it. But maybe there’s a better way of doing things,” Tobin said.

A number of bishops took to the floor to voice support for packaging the same Faithful Citizenship in new, more accessible forms. Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois, noted on his flight to the conference he saw few fellow passengers, if any, reading; rather, most were staring at some type of screen.

Still, other bishops pushed back, saying that reissuing the same message, regardless of medium, would fall short of its stated goals of articulating to Catholics that faith comes prior to political leanings, they’re called to be faithful citizens at all times and not just during elections, and the need for respectful, civil discourse.

“Faithful Citizenship of 2015 cannot be our response to the moment we are living in. It cannot engage with the signs of the times, it can only engage with the signs of the past and we should not move it forward.”

— San Diego Bishop Robert McElroy

Bishop John Michael Botean, head of the Romanian Catholic Eparchy of St. George in Canton, Ohio, said the bishops have developed a reputation of taking too long to address issues facing the country.

“I think we are running the risk of it appearing that we don’t care or aren’t paying attention,” he said.

At one point, amendments were proposed to allow for revisions, to scrap Faithful Citizenship entirely from the vote they were considering and to table the motion until their November meeting.

The latter two failed. The motion to table was defeated in a vote, but the text was edited from stating “rather than revise or replace” to simply “rather than to replace,” apparently leaving an opening for revisions at some point. A clause was also added stating the new elements for Faithful Citizenship would “apply the teachings of Pope Francis to our day.”

Source: Bishops to supplement rather than revise Faithful Citizenship voter guide

Filed under Citizenship Tagged with Catholic Bishops, Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship, USA