One of Canada’s most influential and controversial theologians, among the few remaining living links to the Second Vatican Council, has died.

Gregory Baum, author of the first draft of Nostra Aetate, was 94 years old.

Baum was admitted to St. Mary’s Hospital in Montreal Oct. 8. “I’m disappearing inside,” he told a friend. He decided not to continue the dialysis treatment which had kept him alive the last four years.

As a young theologian, Baum shot to prominence in the early days of the Second Vatican Council, mentored by Cardinal Augustin Bea. A key ally of Pope St. John XXIII, Bea looked for credible Catholic experts on Catholic-Jewish relations and found his man in Baum.
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According to a story often repeated in the diocese of Quebec, when the first Anglican bishop, Jacob Mountain, arrived in Quebec City in 1793, he was greeted on the dock by his Roman Catholic counterpart, Bishop Jean-François Hubert.

“Your people are waiting for you,” said Hubert, welcoming Mountain to his new home.

While relations between French Catholics and English Protestants in Quebec have not always been so cordial, the leadership of the two churches have long understood the practical need to work together in a province where religion historically has played an outsized role in public life.
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With the decision to close one of its largest and most important churches, the Archdiocese of Quebec is sending a clear message: The future of even the most majestic churches cannot be guaranteed anymore. On May 24, one last Mass was celebrated in renowned St. John the Baptist Church. Dedicated to the patron saint of French Canadians, the church stands among the high-profile churches of both the archdiocese and Quebec province. Built in the 1880s, it is recognized as a major heritage church. Its seating capacity of 2,400 compares to St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York. But such a marvel comes with a steep price: It needs renovations estimated at $10 million, a gargantuan amount for a parish that has been accumulating deficits for years. Even with the help of the archdiocese, the Catholic Church of Quebec simply doesn’t have that kind of money. Not anymore. Over the past decade, the dioceses of the Quebec province had to close churches in response to the new secularized reality: less faithful, less money, yet too many churches. But still, some of the buildings were considered “untouchable.” With the closing of St. John the Baptist, parishioners realize change is afoot. “It’s sad, obviously,” said Quebec Auxiliary Bishop Gaetan Proulx. “It’s the signal that we’re moving toward something else, with smaller communities. The model for our Church is changing.” Proulx compared St. John the Baptist to a lighthouse, because its high steeple can be seen from all around the city. “It was the symbol that the Catholic faith is well established here,” he said. “But it also symbolizes a legacy. Churches are to the province of Quebec what castles are to France.” And it seems the Catholic Church in Quebec will not be able to save all of its castles.

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My grandmother and my great-grandmother, both Quebecers, both died on Good Friday. They were Protestant anglophones in a majority Catholic francophone world. In my grandmother’s day, Catholics would cross the street to avoid passing in front of a Protestant church for fear of damnation. As for my great-grandmother, who lived in La Baie on the Saguenay, her Catholic maid was famously heard to say what a kind person my great-grandmother was, and what a pity she was going to hell.

I hope all of them, including the maid, can see what their descendants were doing this Good Friday in Quebec. Four different Christian denominations in Quebec City got together to walk with a huge cross through the streets. In total silence we walked from church to church, United Church, Anglican, Presbyterian, and Catholic, stopping in each one to pray and sing and read some more of the Passion story.

It was a warm evening, and people stopped on the street to stare. Teenagers giggled together with embarrassment, militant atheists muttered with contempt, old women smiled happily. Some quietly joined us, mostly immigrants from countries where people still go to church. Would-be anthropologists took pictures of us, with our Catholic cardinal in red and our white-robed Anglican bishop, to put on their Facebook pages, the way they might post pictures of Amazonian tribes: “Didn’t know there were any left! Didn’t even have to take malaria pills to see this!”
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After the Quiet Revolution, the Catholic Church lost its stronghold in Quebec. Despite this decline, or perhaps because of it, contemporary Catholic thought in Quebec exhibits a bold creativity. In Truth and Relevance, Gregory Baum introduces, contextualizes, and interprets Catholic theological writing in Quebec since the 1960s, and presents this body of work for an anglophone readership.

Baum shows how Catholic theologians, inspired by the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), uncovered the social meaning in the Christian message, allowing them to address many problems and concerns of contemporary society. With reliance on the Gospel, they supported Quebec’s new self-understanding, embraced its nationalism under certain conditions, fostered social solidarity, criticized the unregulated market system, demanded gender equality, and called for respect of new religious and cultural pluralism. Leaving behind the Catholicism of Quebec’s past, these theologians embraced the humanistic values of modern society, recognizing their affinity with the Gospel, while at the same time revealing the destructive potential of modernity, its individualism, utilitarianism, relativism, and its link to empire and capitalism.
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The Presbyterian Church in Canada‘s Presbytery of Montreal has adopted a response to Bill 60 – the Québec Charter of Values.

“We acknowledge and celebrate the unique identity of Quebec as a Francophone nation and province within Canada, and acknowledge the particular religious and cultural history that has shaped its values, laws, and social fabric. We also acknowledge and celebrate the presence of other linguistic and cultural communities within Quebec – including a large Anglophone minority – and celebrate the contributions such communities have made to the history, identity, and success of Quebec as a liberal democratic polity. We believe that Quebec has been enriched by this diversity.”
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Montreal Archbishop Christian Lépine has warned against the Parti Quebecois’ plans to enshrine Quebec values in a charter.

Once Quebec “values” are enshrined in such a charter, they are “frozen in time” and the charter “puts pressure on everyone, on institutions and individuals,” Lépine said in an interview from Montreal.

On Sept. 10, the Quebec government released details of the proposed Charter of Quebec Values that would prohibit public servants from wearing visible signs of religious belief such as Jewish skullcaps, Muslim hijabs, Sikh turbans, large crucifixes or Star of David jewellery. The government released a chart showing that small symbols such as a tiny crucifix around the neck or on earrings or a small Star of David ring would be allowed. These rules would apply to everyone employed in the public sector. The charter would also bar people whose faces are covered from providing or receiving public services.
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