Understanding the Consecrated Life in Canada: Critical Essays on Contemporary Trends

By Wilfrid Laurier University Press

Part I: Numbers and Definition

The authors trace demographics and definitions of religious life in Canada.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier University Press
• Release date: Dec 21, 2015
• ISBN: 9781771121392

Book preview

Zuidema

1

INTRODUCTION

LIVING THE CONSECRATED LIFE IN CANADA

Jason Zuidema

INTRODUCTION

Maybe we have to die in order for the consecrated life to live, a French-speaking sister told me in interview.¹ A surprising strategy, but one that might make the most sense considering the continuing decline of the numbers of Catholic religious in our country. Perhaps the religious life is in such dire straits that nothing less than the miracle of a resurrection could make it live again. No doubt, resurrections are possible in Catholic theology! Yet, those who are made alive have to die first. Is this truly the state of religious life in Canada?

J.-M.R. Tillard, OP, a French Dominican who served in Canada, made this same point in the introduction to his important theological study of religious life, Devant Dieu et pour le monde:

In flipping through the pages of this hefty book on the shelf of a bookstore, many will shrug their shoulders with, no doubt, a smile of pity for the author: in our present world, only great ignorance or lack of contact with reality could explain, one could think, why we should take time to study a form of Christian life that is going extinct. The only good from this study is that it seems to provide the last survivors some hope with what one religious writer termed theological morphine.²

Tillard’s words were written in 1974. Perhaps they are even more forceful forty years later as the decrease in numbers accelerates.

The numbers are striking: there are roughly eighteen thousand men and women religious in Canada—a number that will decline by roughly a thousand per year for at least the next decade, almost exclusively among Roman Catholic religious.³ One need not be too familiar with math to see that the decline is radical.

Why do we raise this issue of decline at the outset of this volume? Probably for the same reason as Father Tillard at the beginning of his book: we want to acknowledge the proverbial elephant in the room from the outset. That is, we want to recognize and appreciate these numbers right away so that we can better nuance them and, more importantly, see what other stories ought to be told about the consecrated life in Canada.

Are we witnessing the final chapter in the long and important history of the religious life in Canada? Perhaps not; but it is the end of a significant chapter for sure.⁴ Yet most men and women religious, a fair number of whom are represented among the writers of this volume, think there is still a place for their kind life in our country. Though it might not be appropriate to speak of strategies for the continuance or renewal of that life, there are certainly a host of opinions about it and concerted efforts are being made to preserve it.

Nonetheless, the opinion that religious life is in terminal decline is widely shared. Many Catholic men’s and women’s institutes, especially those once involved in education and health care, are saddled with the care of large, impractical buildings and a rapidly aging membership. What strategies are needed for the future? What deaths must happen for new life to arise? Who will pick up the torch? Who will, to borrow a phrase recently used by Abbot Martin Werlen of Einseideln Abbey in Switzerland, find the embers under in the ashes?⁵

Judging from statistics alone, the place of those living the consecrated life in a number of communities of religious in Canada—variously known as monks, nuns, brothers, sisters, religious, or consecrated, depending on their internal categorization—has become considerably less important in the last two generations. Many Roman Catholic communities established before the 1960s have experienced significant decline in the decades since, some decreasing in size by a small percentage, and others by so much that they have had to merge with other groups or see their active ministries come to an end.⁶

Though the overall numbers are in decline, there are many kinds of consecrated life in major religious traditions that have shown stability or even a modest increase. Using a representative sample of those living the consecrated life in Christianity and Buddhism, this volume explores these narratives of decline, stability, and renewal using multidisciplinary scholarly perspectives. Indeed, while Roman Catholic communities show marked decline, Buddhist monasticism, to use one example, is starting to experience a period of flourishing. At the point where Roman Catholic communities started to decline, Buddhist temples and meditation centres were established. In the last generation, true Buddhist monasteries have been built across Canada. It would be incomplete to tell a story of decline without seeing the rise of similar forms of life, even if they appear in other religious traditions. The essays in this volume tell these intertwined stories.

Though other types of religious communities might be evoked in essays, this volume seeks to address the state of religious communities dedicated to religious virtuosity normally characterized by formal promises of chastity, poverty, and obedience. The essays presented here cover a broad range of topics having to do with the general state of consecrated (or religious or monastic) life in contemporary Canada in Christian or Buddhist traditions. They will range in focus from narrowly defined (i.e., concerning one religious house or leader) to broadly interpretive. Since the major concentration of Catholic religious have historically been and still are in French-speaking Canada, a large number of essays in this volume treat their communities. This preponderance of essays on French-speakers, therefore, addresses the reality of religious life in Canada’s history.

HISTORIOGRAPHY

The problem with situating our collection of essays in a narrative of decline is that it all too often becomes programmatic instead of simply descriptive. Indeed, there is a caricature about the consecrated life in twenty-first-century Canada that informs a great deal of public and private discussion in our country: that the consecrated life is stagnant or in irreversible decline. Moreover, says this caricature, the consecrated life belongs to the pages of history, not modern reality. Such a caricature, though not often stated in a scholarly way, does not represent the findings of many researchers, nor, indeed, the experience of those living the consecrated life. Although certain communities have lived or are living through significant numerical decline, many others are stable or have, relative to other similar types of religious or community organizations, rather dynamic programs. Various forms of the consecrated life have been around in world religions for millennia. However, many communities have undergone more recent and significant changes in a Canadian setting. Certain of these communities have played very significant roles in the history of our country, and some might still deeply impact it. This volume adds to the growing body of literature tracing the dynamics of these communities.

This being said, the present book is not intended to be a thinly veiled promotion of religious life. Rather, the main aim of these essays is to be descriptive of the diversity of forms and experiences in the consecrated life as it has been lived in recent Canadian history. Some contributors to this volume might have personal attachments to what they are studying, but these connections are usually clear from the outset. Hence, these essays are not only about the facts and figures of the consecrated life in Canada, they also try to give an honest assessment of the intellectual and social resources available to it.⁷ Otherwise stated, we want to be able to locate the varieties of religious life physically, but also intellectually and socially in Canada. For example, it is numerically certain that religious communities in French Canada have been in decline for the last generation, but might we still see their intellectual or social imprint on contemporary debates?

A significant amount has been written on the history and theology of the consecrated life more generally, some even dealing with Canadian developments. However, much of the material on Canada is already quite dated or covers a period long before our own. The endnotes in the chapters throughout this collection point to much of the relevant literature. Many Catholic consecrated life groups, for example, have something written on or by them, but there are still a number of groups that have little or nothing. Moreover, some groups have short histories about them, but they are often written from fairly uncritical or non-scholarly perspectives. More significantly, many important groups have almost nothing written on them. For example, the literature on Buddhist monasticism in Canada is very thin. This volume seeks to fill the void by studying representative examples of groups that are not found in recent literature.

Hence, our purpose in this volume is to study the consecrated life in the variety of settings in which it is lived in Canada. This does not mean that we will only study what is happening in Canada; rather, we might also need to study how the religious life in other parts of the world has influenced or interacted with Canadian movements. Furthermore, as an interdisciplinary and interconfessional discussion, we seek the perspectives of scholars working not only on the consecrated life in Western Christian history, but also on its relation to issues in education, social welfare, and ecology, to name but a few.

THE OBJECT OF OUR STUDY

As with any scholarly study, we need to define our object. Though our title has a relatively strict geographical focus, Canada, its primary concept is the consecrated life. One is not alone if he or she is ill at ease with the manner in which this term is mixed and matched with others. This is not done without reason or without consequence. From the very outset of our research program, our research team was faced with the questions of definition and research object. Rather than adopt one particular definition, we have continued to explore the various meanings of the term. Indeed, one feature of modern consecrated life is that it is a concept that is continually revised and tested.

We have chosen to define the consecrated life broadly as those religious communities dedicated to religious virtuosity normally characterized by formal promises of chastity, poverty, and obedience. By this definition we do not mean to set up authoritative limits, but rather simply to provide a heuristic device to help us compare and contrast our research. This definition no doubt owes much to sociological categories passed down in research from Max Weber and Ernst Troeltsch to our time.⁸ Though these sociological analyses have significant limits, especially when it comes to theological precision or correlation to recent Catholic canon law, they have continued to prove helpful for a number of stimulating research essays in the past generation.

Within Catholicism, the strict definition of the consecrated life is of relatively recent vintage. In fact, the limits of that life have been tested and redrawn more or less continually in the last millennium. Many of the religious orders that might seem ancient were at one point new, testing the limits of accepted definitions. It is especially in the latter part of the twentieth century that a plethora of new communities within Catholicism necessitated not only new canonical categories, but also significant theological adjustments. This has been seen in discussions in the post–Vatican II era right to our time.⁹

More broadly in Christianity, these categories are not always clear. In Eastern Orthodoxy, the consecrated life is more clearly limited to monasticism. However, in Protestantism, the consecrated life can be almost entirely secularized. One might argue that at the time of the sixteenth century Reformation, the concern among Protestants was not so much to abolish completely everything monks did, but, rather, to make that life accessible to all Christians. As such, one can easily argue that definitions of the holy life within Puritanism, for example, are only a kind of democratization of religious virtuosity.¹⁰

Finally, we have made the strategic decision to include multiple religious traditions in our study. This decision is not based on fundamental theological concerns for confessional pluralism or a reduction of all religious life to some presumed basic common features.¹¹ Rather, two concerns guide us. First, we realize that despite significant confessional differences, groups that live the consecrated life in Canada often share the same social experience. For example, in relation to the various levels of Canadian government, these groups share a vast common experience, even if that common experience is not fully recognized.¹² Second, we realize that though we have no forum for dialogue, religious groups themselves might want it. Hence, it would not be representative of the situation of religious across Canada to present the consecrated life in hermetically sealed conceptual containers.

SOME DYNAMICS OF CONSECRATED LIFE IN CANADA

Representation

In his essay on theories of presence, Cormac Power makes the following argument: In the contemporary western world, our knowledge of the environment is increasingly shaped, not by personal experience or interaction, but by media images and representations.¹³ For his part, Power is speaking about how that which surrounds us in reality, the environment in which we physically live, is made present in live theatre productions. However, his comment helpfully highlights the way the institutions and the people that surround us are presented in all forms of media. So much of what we know about our society has, indeed, been filtered or even presented by stylized representations.

Lest this comment be left sounding too harsh, consider the argument of Jane Iwamura’s Virtual Orientalism: Asian Religions and American Popular Culture.¹⁴ In this book Iwamura analyzes America’s fascination with Eastern spirituality in the last half century. Iwamura suggests that by the representation of the solitary monk, who kindly and purposefully shares his knowledge with the West, Eastern religion is made manageable for popular consumption. She writes:

Growing tolerance toward Asian peoples and cultures was fostered in a mass mediated environment in which the role of the visual image took on increasing importance. While this environment allowed a popular engagement with Asian religious traditions, it also relied on and reinforced certain racialized notions of Asianness and Asian religiosity. These notions form patterns of representation that, because they are linked to such positive images, go unchallenged and unseen.¹⁵

Iwamura’s significant point is that despite the many opportunities to interact with the real nuances of Eastern consecrated life it is this stereotypical Eastern religious form presented in popular media that stubbornly continues to influence true engagement by Westerners.

These comments on Eastern religious help us frame the texts in this present volume. Modern depictions of religious in popular and even in some more scholarly writings are not made after having engaged with them, but rather based on second-hand or stylized understandings. Inasmuch as this is true for Eastern religious, it is also true of the depiction of Western religious men and women. In contemporary discussions of the future of women religious, to name one example, much is made of the wisdom of using what seem to be pre–Vatican II practices, especially wearing the habit. As the focus of critique from those who think they are retrograde and trying to repristinate a pre–Vatican II form of life, these younger women continue to attract vocations.¹⁶ In her still-relevant sociological monograph, The Rise and Decline of Catholic Religious Orders: A Social Movement Perspective (1994), Patricia Wittberg, SC, heard this critique frequently. She remarks that it does not accurately represent a self-understanding of the members of these new orders: the young men and women who enter these communities do not personally remember pre–Vatican II religious life, and do not necessarily believe that what they are doing is the same thing.¹⁷ Wittberg’s comments are important for our method: though we want to be descriptive, we also need to listen. Religious men and women are certainly not simply as they are represented in popular media. But also, they might not be how they are presented by those within their own traditions. In the latter three parts of this present volume a number of authors engage with communities either with a wide-angle lens, or a tight focus on one institute, publication, or community.

Decline and Renewal

It might seem paradoxical, given our goal to study the dynamism of consecrated life in Canada, but it is important for us to pay close attention to the narrative that religious communities are in decline. Clearly, this narrative has merit, for most religious communities have a fraction of their membership of a half century ago; and some have closed. Yet we need to pay attention even to the closure of a religious house. It is hard to think of the closing of a monastery as dynamic, but it does represent a significant happening. In fact, the story of closings, almost-closings, and re-establishments is an important concern for our research program. For the dynamics of religious life are consonant with the overall trend in statistics when looking at other historic Christian groups in Canada in the last half century.¹⁸ The research of Guy Laperrière, Kathryn Sawyer, and Gilles Routhier in Part I of this volume help us frame and understand the narratives of decline.

A re-examination of our understandings of the narrative of decline of older communities is helpful. A specific example of a reimagined narrative: in the course of research we visited the completed monastery of Val-Notre-Dame near St-Jean-de-Matha in Lanaudière, Quebec. This monastery was being built by the Trappist order (OCSO) that was located for more than a century near Oka, Quebec. The interesting point is that this community was one that was supposed to be, according to many armchair observers, on life-support. The kind of comments heard in the press at the time of the building of the new monastery revealed this popular caricature of the situation. Many observers were stunned that a supposedly almost-dead community was building a new monastery. Why would they make such an investment in a community that seemed to have no future? Needless to say, the abbot and the community had a significantly different vision of the situation. This vision merits study. In previous studies we asked ourselves the questions: How might moving change the perception and life of this community? What difference does the architecture of the new location make on the community? Does the move really open a new chapter in the community’s life or is it a subplot of a larger chapter?¹⁹

But in addition, there are many new communities in Canada that have not been sufficiently studied. The essay by Rick van Lier explores their classification and their significant impact on contemporary monastic life and thought. Some are mixed communities, with both men and women, and have a rhythm of life that is quite different from classic forms of the consecrated life (even if some of these forms were themselves once new movements in their own right!). Here we speak not only of communities in Roman Catholicism, but also of those in other religious traditions. These might not be new per se, having a long history in their region of origin, but they are certainly new in Canada. Even in Protestantism in Canada there is a kind of new monasticism that merits some study (the essay by Martha Downey examines developments across English-speaking Protestantism making their way also into Canada).

In the essays of this volume we explore what other internal and external resources and factors have shaped and continue to shape the narrative. No doubt the experience and continued relevance of Vatican II on Catholic religious is critical: essays by Michael Attridge, Rosa Bruno-Jofré, Elizabeth Smyth and Patricia Kmeic, and Heidi MacDonald and Emily Burton all investigate people or institutes that helped shape post–Vatican II religious life in Canada. A number of contributions in this volume examine the impact of Vatican II and note that it will continue to shape religious life in Canada for a long time.

The basic fact that the average Catholic religious is elderly is clear. Yet we note that the majority of those living the general story of decline are only reaching its most critical stages at this time. Setting aside a few noteworthy exceptions, most communities have had to deal with oversized buildings and radically dwindling numbers—a reality common especially for the many religious orders that were previously involved in education and health care. However, all groups are faced with the challenge of dealing with members who have increasingly complex heath issues and who are living for a longer time, and with the reality of fewer energetic young members.²⁰ Indeed, the essays by Elizabeth McGahan, Yvon Pomerleau, Dominique Laperle, Gabrielle Lachance, Robert McKeon, Darren Dias, Cory Labrecque, and Claude Auger all explore from different angles how various institutes, publications, and projects are facing the dynamic of decline. One detail to go along with those essays, however, is that the newness of the present story of decline is not that there is a decline (this has happened many times in the history of religious life), but that so many of those who lived through the radical increases of the post–World War II era are living so long. An admittedly ungentle (and obviously overstated) way to express this paradox is that continued living is putting as much stress on these communities as is dying.²¹

From Culture to Subculture

The broad range of essays in this volume points to the fact that since the 1960s communities of those living the consecrated life have continued to have a place in Canadian culture. The chapters by Robert McKeon and Cory Labrecque, for example, provide other conceptions of these communities that are based not only on numbers of participants, but on other contributions to Canada’s religious and cultural mosaic.

Furthermore, those living the consecrated life in Canada are not alone in declining numbers: many traditional Christian groups have suffered major numerical losses in the decades following the period of social friction in the 1960s. Whether in Canadian census reports or as interpreted by scholars such as Canadian sociologist Reginald W. Bibby, the statistics indicate a significant drop in affiliation particularly in Roman Catholicism and mainline Protestantism. Yet Bibby’s analysis has been particularly important to help nuance the apparent reality of decline. Most recently he has noted that, despite the great increase in agnosticism among Canadian youth, for example, there is still significant openness to religion and anticipation that religion will play a role in their lives at key junctures in the future (at marriages, births, or death).²² Bibby’s research is confirmed by others—that religion in general continues to have a place in Canadian society, even if not in its traditional structures. The point here is that numbers—whether speaking of religion in general or the consecrated life in particular—need to be nuanced. First, we know that decline in the numbers of those living the consecrated life is not a new phenomenon.²³ The consecrated life has often seen periods of significant decline, only to be followed by transformation and growth. And second, it is useful to frame the decline or transformation of consecrated life by looking at patterns of decline and transformation in Canada’s religious setting more generally.

Some changes in Canada’s religious landscape can be attributed to the ongoing debate and struggle over the place of religion and spirituality in public life and society. Yet much change has to do with external factors quite separate from the viewpoints of the various religious groups pushing for more public space, or of their secularizing counterparts. For example, in the last several generations there has been a marked increase of immigrant groups in Canada that have brought to society an array of diverse social assumptions and religious practices. Some of these immigrant groups bolstered the ranks of already-existing Canadian religious organizations, but others brought significantly new forms of religion to Canada. For example, many recent immigrants from Southeast Asian countries have greatly increased the population of many Roman Catholic dioceses in Canada, but others have also contributed to the growth of large Hindu, Buddhist, and Muslim communities in the major urban areas.

As subgroups of major religious traditions in Canada like Roman Catholicism or Buddhism, communities living the consecrated life have not been immune to this larger statistical flux. And as groups that typically demand significantly more from their members than the average religious participant, these communities have often seen an even more radical decline. However, a fact often missed in studies on religion in Canada is that there have also been communities that have experienced considerable growth, diversification, and influence. Some of these are referenced in Parts III and IV of this volume.

It is important to note that those living the consecrated life do not form a monolithic block, but have quite noteworthy differences, even among those who share a similar theological heritage. In her edited volume on Roman Catholic women’s religious orders in Canada, Elizabeth Smyth notes that to the secular observer, one congregation may seem identical to the next; however, each is unique, operating according to a set of goals and a vision, called a charism.²⁴ This uniqueness and diversity can also be seen in men’s orders in Roman Catholicism, as well as in communities of other religious traditions like Buddhism. Indeed, the present and continuing diversity of some communities—monks, nuns, brothers, sisters, religious, or consecrated—is as much a part of the story of the consecrated life in Canada as is the significant decline of others.

A growing body of literature is taking note of the place of minority religious communities in the larger secular culture, both historically and in our time. Much has focused on their place in the wider history of the secularization of the West. In his monumental work, A Secular Age, Charles Taylor explores a third kind of theory about secularization that points not simply to the separation of church and state or to a falling off of religious belief and practice, but to a move from a society where belief in God is unchallenged and indeed, unproblematic, to one in which it is understood to be one option among others, and frequently not the easiest to embrace.²⁵ Hence, those living the consecrated life no longer enjoy the privileges of a time when church and state were intimately linked, but now are faced with the challenge of situating and promoting themselves among all other spiritual options.²⁶

CONCLUSION

These few examples show the continued validity of the kind of research we are presenting in this collection of essays. The research is timely. Above we noted the caricature concerning the consecrated life, which says that it seems to be in palliative care. On the one hand, there is some truth to this statement. A large group of religious priests, brothers, and sisters will in fact pass away in the coming decade. Is anyone going to remember? Do we need to remember their contributions? We think this very important.

Yet, it is also important to not put the whole of the consecrated life on the palliative care shelf, just as we should not put the idea of religion there. Anyone who studies religion or spirituality knows that various forms of religiosity are still very powerful in our society. These kinds of projects give us a chance to concretize our general feelings. They allow us to speak about cross-confessional religious developments while examining a field of research that is not vast beyond comprehension.

Finally, the caricature of decline is often most poignantly revealed in public discussions. We have heard the phrase religion belongs in a museum anyways directly from the lips of a public official after the transformation of a religious house into a public building. This opinion might be shared by many others, but it does not represent the self-definition of many individuals or communities of those living the consecrated life. The goal of this book is not to promote these communities directly, but to inform the discussions that animate our common life.

NOTES

1 Personal interview, 16 February 2011.

2 J.-M.R. Tillard, OP, Devant Dieu et pour le monde : Le projet des religieux (Paris: Cerf, 1974), 7. My translation.

3 For more detailed statistics, see the essay by Kathryn Sawyer in this volume.

4 An important recent book to understand this chapter in religious history, especially that of women religious in Canada, is Elizabeth M. Smyth, ed., Changing Habits: Women’s Religious Orders in Canada (Ottawa: Novalis, 2007). In the introduction Smyth rightly notes the timeliness of this important collection of essays:

The current generation of scholars of women religious has the chance to capitalize on exciting scholarship that is occurring in this segment of the larger field of history in both a national and international context. In addition, these scholars have a rare opportunity to study the lives and enterprises of their subjects at a critical juncture in their history. As the essays in this collection demonstrate, this is a time of continuity and change in the lives of women religious. Women religious are at the end of one phase of their history and the beginning of another. They have left behind their large institutions but have retained their mission of operating both on the margins and in the centre of secular and religious societies. (18)

5 Christa Pongratz-Lippitt, Swiss Abbot Makes Fiery Appeal for Church Reform, National Catholic Reporter, 20 December 2012, http://ncronline.org/news/global/swiss-abbot-makes-fiery-appeal-church-reform. Werlen’s comments are reminiscent of those in American Benedictine Joan Chittister’s important book The Fire in These Ashes: A Spirituality of Contemporary Religious Life (Franklin, WI: Sheed and Ward, 1995).

6 An example from one congregation, with both French and English chapters, exemplifies the downsizing, but also new vocations: http://www.pbsisters.on.ca/who-we-are/history.

7 Such is the argument of my essay More than Numbers: Monastic ‘Presence’ in Contemporary Canada, American Benedictine Review 63, no. 2 (June 2012): 112–21; and in French translation: Au-delà des effectifs : La présence monastique dans le Canada contemporain, En Son Nom (Nov. 2012): 300–12.

8 A significant exploration of these sociological categories is in Paul-André Turcotte’s essay in this volume and in his article Le monachisme dans la sociologie de Max Weber et de Ernst Troeltsch, Claretianum 52 (2012): 405–503; see also the uses of the category of religious virtuosity in Patricia Wittberg, SC, The Rise and Decline of Catholic Religious Orders: A Social Movement Perspective (Albany: SUNY Press, 1994). Further discussions are found in Mary Johnson, SNDdeN, Patricia Wittberg, SC, and Mary Gautier, New Generations of Catholic Sisters: The Challenge of Diversity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). See also the introduction to Adeline Herrou and Gisèle Krauskopff, eds., Moines et moniales de par le monde : La vie monastique au miroir de la parenté (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2009).

9 Besides the chapter of Rick van Lier, OP, in this volume, see also his Comme des arbres qui marchent : Vie consacrée et charismes des fondateurs (Montreal: Novalis, 2007), 12n2.

10 For more on the Protestant critique of monasticism and its continuation, see my article Peter Martyr: Protestant Monk? Reformation and Renaissance Review 13, no. 3 (2012): 369–81. Compare with the introduction to Kelly Kapic and Randall Gleason, eds., The Devoted Life: An Invitation to the Puritan Classics (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004), and Chapter 52 in Joel R. Beeke and Mark Jones, A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2012).

11 Many monastic studies of the last generation have attempted to find some common monastic outlook. The most well known is Raimon Panikkar, Blessed Simplicity: The Monk as Universal Archetype (New York: Seabury, 1982). For comment see: Matthias Neuman, OSB, "New Approaches for Benedictine Studies: A Review Essay of Raimundo Panikkar’s Blessed Simplicity," American Benedictine Review 35, no. 2 (1984): 128–45; and Bernard Sawicki, OSB, Glenn Gould—An Anonymous Monk? On Some Possibilities of Applying Monastic Categories to Modern Culture, in Monasticism between Culture and Cultures, ed. Philippe Nouzille, OSB, and Michaela Pfeifer, OCist. (Rome: Pontificio Ateneo Sant’Anselmo, 2013), 427–28.

12 For example, consider Phase One (2010) and Phase Two (2011) of the Calgary City Soul project by the Cardus research group (www.cardus.ca). The project argued that development plans of the city centre may create an unintended disincentive to diversity, to the distribution of vital social services, and to continuing widely accepted social virtues (20 October 2010, http://www.cardus.ca/research/socialcities/publications). Interestingly, most of the buildings remaining in the city core are Christian churches, but one is a Buddhist temple (see Lina Verchery’s chapter, below). Though the buildings under study were varied confessionally, they were united in this study as examples of those who would suffer due to poor urban planning.

13 Cormac Power, Presence at Play: A Critique of Theories of Presence in the Theatre (New York: Editions Rodopi, 2008), 6.

14 Jane Iwamura, Virtual Orientalism: Asian Religions and American Popular Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).

15 Iwamura, Virtual Orientalism, 5.

16 For a critique of this notion see James Martin, SJ, LCWR Orders Receiving ‘Almost Equal’ Numbers of Vocations as CMSWR, America, 7 August 2012, http://americamagazine.org/content/all-things/lcwr-orders-receiving-%E2%80%9Calmost-equal%E2%80%9D-numbers-vocations-cmswr-orders.

17 Wittberg, Rise and Decline, 270.

18 See, for example, a 2012 poll by Forum Research published in the National Post: http://nationalpostnews.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/na1222_religionpoll940c.jpg.

19 See my essays Monks on the Move: The Effects of Relocation on a Cistercian Monastic Community in Quebec, Canadian Architect (March 2010): 16–18; More than Numbers: Monastic ‘Presence’ in Contemporary Canada, American Benedictine Review 63, no. 2 (June 2012): 112–21; "Understanding Decline and Renewal in the History of Life Under Benedict’s Rule: Observations from Canada," Cistercian Studies Quarterly 47, no. 4 (2012): 455–69; Spending to Remember Convivium 1, no. 5 (November 2012): 38–39.

20 Fr. Sylvain Mailhot, OCSO, sees a major problem in the aging of communities and the absence of recruitment which he says often lead to the difficult transition from large communities to smaller ones, with all the restructuring that that entails (L’identité contemplative cistercienne et les défis de la culture contemporaine, La vie des communautés religieuses 54 [1996]: 299).

21 On this phenomenon see Vladimir Gaudrat, Aging and the Renewal of Communities, Cistercian Studies Quarterly 36 (2001): 473–79. Gaudrat notes, quite interestingly, that aging communities are a rather new problem in the history of religious life. Monks need to be taken care of for much longer in a time when life expectancy has been significantly lengthened in the West: Our communities are not prepared and have not seriously thought out the problem of extreme old age. We are, or shall be, faced with problems of total dependency (aging, bed-ridden, and dependent brothers). It is a relatively new phenomenon, which may well increase (475).

22 Reginald Bibby, The Emerging Millennials: How Canada’s Newest Generation Is Responding to Change and Choice (Lethbridge: Project Canada Books, 2009).

23 See Patricia Wittberg, SC, From Piety to Professionalism and Back?: Transformations of Organized Religious Virtuosity (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2006).

24 Smyth, Changing Habits, 8.

25 Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Belknap, 2007), 3.

26 Though written in a European context, an example of a theological exploration of this line of thought is by Ghislain Lafont, OSB: Riflessioni sulla Comunità monastica considerata nel contesto di una Chiesa minoritaria, Un monastero alle porte della città. Atti del convegno per i 650 anni dell’Abbazia di Viboldone (Milan: Vite e Pensiero, 1999), 39–50.

PART 1

NUMBERS AND DEFINITION

2

LE NOMBRE DE RELIGIEUX AU QUÉBEC

POURQUOI EST-IL MONTÉ AUSSI HAUT AVANT 1960 ET DESCENDU AUSSI BAS APRÈS 1965 ?

Guy Laperrière

Cet article est né de l’écoute d’une entrevue donnée par Rick van Lier à Radio-Ville-Marie sur l’évolution des communautés religieuses au Québec¹. Il y dit l’importance d’examiner la question sous l’angle de la longue durée. Et il découpe alors l’histoire des communautés en quatre périodes : la Nouvelle-France (1608-1759), le régime britannique (1760-1839), l’essor (1840-1960) et depuis Vatican II (1960 à nos jours). Pour la Nouvelle-France, van Lier montre des débuts fort humbles, avec des effectifs religieux peu nombreux. Le régime britannique constitue une période de crise. Puis vient l’essor, lancé avec l’action vigoureuse de Mgr Bourget : le nombre de communautés comme le nombre de religieux et de religieuses augmente de façon vertigineuse, et ce, pendant plus d’un siècle, jusque vers 1960.

Connaissant le déclin qui survient par la suite, van Lier estime qu’il est trompeur de comparer le nombre de religieux depuis 1970 avec les chiffres exubérants de la période antérieure : ces années fastes, d’après lui, ne sont pas la normalité, et une comparaison avec les deux siècles qui précèdent, et donc une vision sur la longue durée, amène une perspective beaucoup plus équilibrée. À la limite, bien plus que celle d’aujourd’hui, avec ses chiffres réduits, c’est la période 1840-1960, avec sa pléthore de religieux et de religieuses, qui constitue un phénomène d’exception.

Même si je suis habituellement d’accord avec les analyses de Rick van Lier, je ne puis partager la vision des choses qu’il présente ici. J’ai donc mis sur papier les quelques réflexions qui suivent, fruit de mes recherches sur l’histoire des communautés religieuses au Québec². Je poserai d’abord rapidement une question de méthode et j’analyserai ensuite les différentes périodes de l’histoire des communautés, en insistant sur le rôle qu’elles tiennent dans la société.

UN POINT DE MÉTHODE

Il me semble qu’il est malsain en histoire de chercher la « normalité ». On a beaucoup reproché en effet aux historiens québécois de ma génération d’avoir tenté de présenter l’histoire du Québec comme celle d’une société « normale³ ». Or, le rôle de l’histoire n’est pas tant de chercher à poser des jugements moraux ou de tenter de discerner ce qui est « normal » de ce qui pourrait être « anormal » ou « exceptionnel » que d’analyser les causes et les circonstances qui permettent de comprendre les phénomènes observés.

Appliquée au cas qui nous occupe, cette méthode consistera donc à tenter d’expliquer la présence numériquement importante de religieux au Québec entre 1840 et 1960, et sa diminution rapide à partir de 1965. Ou, dit autrement, pourquoi le nombre de religieux au Québec est-il monté si haut avant 1960 et descendu si bas après 1965 ? Reprenons donc les grandes périodes de l’histoire des communautés. Je m’attarderai particulièrement à celle qui va de 1840 à 1960, qui est celle que je connais le mieux.

LA NOUVELLE-FRANCE : LES FONDATIONS

Est-il vrai que le nombre de religieux n’était pas très élevé en Nouvelle-France ? Les premiers arrivants sont certes peu nombreux, mais rapidement, la proportion de religieux dans la population est considérable, comme le montrent les chiffres patiemment compilés par Louis Pelletier⁴. Ce dernier recense 961 religieux et 712 religieuses entre 1615 et 1764 dans la vallée du Saint-Laurent. En termes relatifs, la proportion de religieux par rapport au nombre de fidèles est très élevée : jusqu’en 1725, elle ne dépasse pas 1 pour 70⁵. De plus, les autorités de la colonie, le roi en particulier, veillent à limiter le nombre de religieuses, pour contenir les frais.

Les premières fondations se font dans un contexte de ferveur religieuse ardente : celui du 17e siècle religieux français, avec les Bérulle, Olier et autres Vincent de Paul. C’est ce qui explique l’arrivée relativement hâtive des premières communautés : récollets, jésuites, augustines, ursulines, hospitalières de Saint-Joseph, sœurs de la congrégation de Notre-Dame ou sulpiciens, sans oublier le séminaire de Québec. Tous ces groupes sont venus au Canada poussés par un vif désir missionnaire⁶. Ces communautés ont été souvent célébrées et plusieurs de leurs membres font figure de héros : les martyrs jésuites (dits « les saints martyrs canadiens »), Jean de Brébeuf, Marie de l’Incarnation, Mgr de Laval, Jeanne Mance, Marguerite Bourgeoys. S’y ajouteront au 18e siècle les frères Charon et la haute figure de Marguerite d’Youville, fondatrice des sœurs grises.

Les religieux jouent alors un rôle de premier plan, tant pour les premiers contacts avec les Amérindiens que pour la mise sur pied des premières institutions de la colonie naissante.

UNE PÉRIODE DE CRISE : 1760-1840

Avec le régime britannique, on a raison de parler d’une période de crise pour les communautés religieuses. Le recrutement français des ordres masculins est interdit. Le séminaire de Québec perd, à toutes fins utiles, son caractère de communauté religieuse, récollets et jésuites s’éteignent progressivement. Seuls subsistent les sulpiciens, en nombre restreint : ils ne reçoivent un nouvel apport français que grâce à la révolution de 1789, qui leur envoie près d’une vingtaine de sujets. À cause des services qu’elles rendent, les communautés féminines peuvent poursuivre leur action, mais leurs effectifs restent limités.

Il ne faut pas cependant exagérer la portée ni la durée de cette crise et faire de cette période une ère de noirceur sur laquelle se lèverait subitement en 1840 le soleil de l’essor. Le réveil de 1840 est précédé de signes qui annoncent la montée de la puissance religieuse. Le meilleur est la création de collèges ou de séminaires, qui se multiplient depuis le début du 19e siècle. Pour ne nommer que ceux qui persisteront, on peut mentionner les séminaires de Nicolet (1803), de Saint-Hyacinthe (1811), de Sainte-Thérèse (1825), et les collèges de Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pocatière (1827) et de L’Assomption (1832), qui viennent s’ajouter aux institutions de Québec et de Montréal. Il y a là des pépinières du clergé qui annoncent l’essor à venir.

Arrive d’ailleurs à la fin de cette période, en 1837, une communauté de frères enseignants qui connaîtra un grand essor, de fait la plus importante communauté de ce type, les frères des Écoles chrétiennes, dont la venue était cependant préparée depuis de nombreuses années par les sulpiciens⁷. Le contexte des années 1815-1830 est d’ailleurs particulièrement favorable à l’essor des congrégations religieuses, notamment en France, avec la poussée du romantisme, qui valorise beaucoup les ordres religieux et qui voit toute une série de fondations de communautés, tant masculines que féminines. La majorité des congrégations venues de France au Québec a été fondée à cette période, en particulier celles de frères enseignants ou de religieuses vouées à la fois à l’éducation et à diverses tâches sociales. Avec des personnalités comme celles de Lamennais, Lacordaire ou Montalembert, ces années sont donc propices à un renouvellement, à une nouvelle ferveur religieuse qui annonce et prépare la forte poussée qui se poursuit après 1840.

L’ESSOR DE LA PÉRIODE 1840-1960

L’une des principales manifestations de ce que l’on a appelé le réveil religieux de 1840 est la multiplication de nouvelles communautés religieuses, à l’instigation surtout du deuxième évêque de Montréal, Ignace Bourget. Au cours de deux voyages en France, en 1841 et 1847, il attire à Montréal les oblats de Marie-Immaculée, les jésuites, les dames du Sacré-Cœur, le Bon-Pasteur d’Angers, puis les clercs de Saint-Viateur et la congrégation de Sainte-Croix. Il pousse par ailleurs à la fondation sur place des sœurs de la Providence, de celles des Saints-Noms de Jésus et de Marie, des sœurs de Miséricorde et des sœurs de Sainte-Anne. D’autres communautés se fondent aussi ailleurs, que ce soient des sœurs de la Charité à Saint-Hyacinthe, à Ottawa et à Québec ou des sœurs du Bon-Pasteur dans cette dernière ville. Et le mouvement se poursuit sans discontinuer jusqu’au début des années 1960.

Quels sont les facteurs principaux qui expliquent cet essor ? Au-delà de l’action des personnes, comme Mgr Bourget ou telle ou telle fondatrice, j’en identifierais trois. Le premier est l’élan religieux de la société. Malgré quelques résistances, assez fortes d’ailleurs, de la part des Rouges, par exemple, la société canadienne-française devient plus « religieuse ». Notamment, on associe la religion catholique à la nation canadienne-française. Lisons Les Mélanges religieux de 1843 : « Le catholicisme est le premier élément de notre nationalité⁸. » Le renouveau est surtout marqué dans les années 1840 à 1880, et les effets s’en prolongent pendant une centaine d’années⁹. La multiplication des communautés et des vocations religieuses constitue l’une des principales manifestations de cette vitalité religieuse¹⁰.

La deuxième cause de cet élan, ce sont les besoins religieux, éducatifs et sociaux de la société canadienne-française. On l’oublie trop souvent : le Québec du 19e siècle est encore largement une société traditionnelle, une société d’ancien régime. La Révolution française n’est pas passée par là. Dans cette société – et cela est aussi vrai des catholiques que des protestants – l’éducation, les soins de santé, les hôpitaux, les services sociaux (pauvres, orphelins, infirmes, vieillards) ne relèvent pas de l’État ou du gouvernement, mais bien des Églises, dont ils constituent, à côté des services proprement religieux, un aspect essentiel des activités. C’est d’ailleurs la raison pour laquelle ces services ne sont pas vus comme des activités séculières, mais bien comme des actes avant tout religieux. Soigner un malade, c’est voir le Christ souffrant en lui ; éduquer un enfant, c’est lui donner l’enseignement nécessaire pour son salut ; aider un pauvre, c’est encore réaliser une prescription évangélique. Dans ce contexte, on conçoit facilement que des personnes qui ont voué leur vie à Dieu soient les mieux placées pour exercer ces éminentes fonctions, qui se trouvent ainsi sacralisées.

C’est ce qui explique en particulier la multiplication des communautés féminines, beaucoup plus importante que celle des communautés masculines. Certes, les besoins religieux proprement dits sont assurés d’abord par les prêtres – et il existe des communautés de religieux prêtres. Mais la plupart des services, éducation, santé, services sociaux, sont dispensés par des femmes. Pour l’éducation, les tâches sont plus partagées : les sœurs s’occupent surtout des filles ; les frères et certains pères, des garçons. Mais pour les hôpitaux, les hospices, les orphelinats et autres asiles, ce sont presque uniquement des femmes qui sont mises à contribution et en très grand nombre.

Un troisième facteur est la valorisation de l’état religieux et notamment de la vie consacrée, présentée comme l’état le plus noble qu’on puisse imaginer. Oui, les religieuses sont le plus souvent chargées de tâches très modestes, mais ces lourds travaux, ces privations, sont faits ad majorem Dei gloriam, pour la plus grande gloire de Dieu. Ils sont auréolés de la mission religieuse, en réalisation de la parole de l’évangile, à propos de gestes de compassion : « Chaque fois que vous l’avez fait à l’un de ces petits, c’est à moi que vous l’avez fait¹¹. » Ou encore, en référence à la vie religieuse ellemême, la parole de Jésus au jeune homme riche : « Va, vends tout ce que tu as, donne-le aux pauvres, puis viens et suis-moi », suivie de la promesse de la vie éternelle¹².

Cet idéal religieux suscite de nombreuses vocations. D’autres sont peut-être attirées plutôt par les métiers eux-mêmes : c’est ce qu’on appellera plus tard des vocations « sociologiques ». Ces approches ont été mises en valeur surtout par des chercheuses féministes, qui ont étudié les tâches réalisées par les religieuses¹³. Nicole Laurin et ses collègues montrent que le sommet des vocations féminines est atteint dans les années 1930, au moment de la crise, et que le bassin géographique le plus générateur de vocations à mesure qu’on avance au 20e siècle est celui des régions périphériques, dont on peut penser que les habitants sont souvent moins riches¹⁴.

UN FAIT NÉGLIGÉ : LA DEMANDE DÉPASSE L’OFFRE

À ceux et celles qui croiraient qu’il y avait peut-être trop de religieux ou de religieuses entre 1840 et 1960, il faut rappeler que la demande a toujours dépassé l’offre. Dès qu’on voulait ouvrir une école, un hôpital, un orphelinat, un hospice, on faisait appel à une communauté religieuse. Les évêques et les curés multipliaient les demandes en ce sens. Les archives des communautés contiennent une correspondance abondante et régulière de refus de fondations, pour une foule de raisons dont la principale est le plus souvent le manque de sujets. Puisque la prise en charge d’une institution par une communauté était perçue comme le gage de son succès et de sa pérennité, on comprend les efforts faits dans plusieurs milieux pour se l’assurer.

Alors, oui, Borduas peut bien invoquer au début du Refus global « l’invasion de toutes les congrégations de France et de Navarre », il reste que, loin de s’en plaindre, plusieurs paroisses auraient souhaité qu’il y en ait bien davantage, pour répondre aux besoins religieux et sociaux qui augmentaient avec la progression de la population. Ajoutons cependant qu’à des congrégations qui voulaient s’implanter dans leur diocèse, les évêques ont souvent opposé une fin de non-recevoir, parfois pour des raisons de concurrence, souvent pour des raisons matérielles, notamment dans le cas de communautés contemplatives, et à l’occasion, même, pour éviter que la multiplication des communautés ne provoque des critiques comme celle de Borduas, d’un trop grand nombre de communautés. Écoutons, par exemple, l’archevêque de Québec, Mgr L.-N. Bégin, en 1903, au moment de l’afflux des congrégations françaises expulsées de leurs couvents en France : « Notre petite ville de Québec est déjà remplie de maisons religieuses ; il y en a dans presque toutes les rues. Elles sont même trop nombreuses déjà pour le chiffre restreint de notre population. Si j’allais