The Catholic Church in Canada and the USA
I always negotiate to advantage the near concatenation of the national holidays of the two countries between which I divide my time – the United States and Canada – to ensure that I maximise vacation time.
July 1 is Canada Day and July 4 Independence Day and since I lead a trans-border existence I have reasoned why not exploit the opportunity for an extended break by celebrating both national holidays.
Both national sovereignties have much in common and yet remain very distinctly different political realities. They also provide some instructive examples on how the Catholic Church defines itself in markedly discrete jurisdictions.
For instance, the Catholic population in Canada remains relatively constant, if not with a slight decline, in the early 40% range. This is a significant percentage although public practice of the faith is less than sterling and approaches European rates. Once profoundly Catholic areas of the country, Quebec specifically with its near hegemonic and tightly controlled clerical history, have weekly Mass attendance records in the single digits. From a traditional Catholic institutional perspective Quebec is a wasteland, its hospitals, schools, and universities either non-existent, on life support, or marginalised. This is the result of the Quiet Revolution that began inauspiciously in 1959 and revved its engines in the 1960s, with many of its primary drivers Catholic clerics of enlightened vision keen on loosening the clerical grip that kept the province bound to an increasingly antiquated and reactionary Catholicism. But revolutions breed unanticipated consequences and the near wholesale rejection of the Catholic heritage has been far from an ideal development. In fact, it has been disastrous with few willing – secularists and religionists alike – to fully gauge the socio-cultural implications of the Robespierre-like abandonment of the past.
Vibrant
The Roman Catholic Church in the United States, by contrast, has not experienced anything like the Quebec phenomenon.
Canadian Catholicism was once a progressive force within international Catholic circles, its episcopal leaders among the most eloquent advocates for liberal causes in the post-Vatican II Church, its theologians and biblical scholars world leaders. Think Gregory Baum, David Stanley, R.A.F. Mackenzie, J. M. Tillard (shared with France), and Bernard Lonergan. It was a vibrant, collegial, and inspirational Church. Following several decades of Roman centralisation, episcopal appointments drawing from a decidedly deferential corps of prelates, a financially catastrophic debt following Toronto's World Youth Day, and years of demoralisation around clerical sex abuse, the current Canadian Church is a pale reflection of its former self. It is still capable of some robust and charismatic leadership – Charles Taylor and Jean Vanier, for instance – but the number of younger luminaries on the horizon is sparse.
American Catholicism is a more seriously polarised or riven Church but not diminished in the same way as its Canadian counterpart. There remain several journals of vigorous Catholic opinion, an expanding Catholic university presence (although various alignments of the smaller structures is likely the only way forward for universities without the intellectual elan and handsome endowments of the Notre Dames, Georgetowns, etc.) and a growing presence in the corridors of power. Catholicism is now the largest single denomination in the country, six of the nine Supreme Court justices are Catholic, including the Chief Justice, the Vice-President, the Democratic and Republican leaders of the Congress, a sizeable number of the state governors, and opinion-makers of consequence on the national stage like E. J. Dionne, Ross Douthat, and Garry Wills.
Although Canada and the United States share the same North American landmass (Mexico is also part of this land configuration but is more often seen in relation to Central America than with its neigbours to the north), and although they have many historical and political commonalities, economic interdependencies, and ethno-linguistic continuities, they are national states with much that differentiates them. One way in which this is true is the colourations of the Catholic fact in each country.
One is on the descendent and the other on the ascendant.