Where the Rubber Hits the Road

Working as I do within the beauty of the Ottawa Valley, I see many cars pass by from “la belle province” emblazoned with the phrase “je me souviens” imprinted on each license plate. These words are a testament to the desire of this francophone people to always “remember” the struggles of “la révolution tranquille” (the Quiet Revolution) which transformed the Quebec society into a modern secular state. Under  vigorous new secular leadership, and faced with a wholesale ecclesiastical retreat from public affairs, the francophone population of the past 50 years, seemingly all at once, turned a deaf ear to the voice of the Quebec Church within their culture. They've chosen instead to consider only the siren cry of the  secularist project and modern consumerism. The church's counsel is no longer welcome in the public square. This sudden shift rendered the Catholic Church  both impotent and irrelevant in the minds of the overwhelming majority of the Quebec population. In just on...