LETTER TO THE EDITOR

The rejection of Christ leads toward violence

Posted

TO THE EDITOR:

On Thursday, March 21, the mayor of Montréal, Valérie Plante, made the decision to remove the crucifix from the hôtel de ville (city hall), which had been present there since 1937. A larger, more iconic cross, representing the one placed by Paul de Chomedey, Sieur de Maisonneuve in 1643, continues to illuminate Mont-Royal. The crucifix continues to remain (at least for now) in the Assemblée Nationale in Québec City, in a place of honor above the deliberations of its delegates. As Archbishop Christian Lépine noted, “the crucifix … .express[es] and encapsulat[es] what fortifies the population of Montréal since its foundation, a legacy of which we can be proud.”
The very next day after this removal, during the 8:30 a.m. Mass at L’Oratoire Saint-Joseph (built by sometime Rhode Island resident Saint André Bessette), the rector of the Oratory, Father Claude Grou, was stabbed while celebrating at the altar. By all accounts, Father Grou remains in stable condition and certainly appreciates all prayers.
The two incidents share a very sad connection. Over the past 60 years, the province of Québec, from whence came many immigrants to Rhode Island (my own family included), has undergone an aggressive program of secularization. Beginning with the take-over of Catholic schools by the Commission Parent and provincial elites, Catholic health care is also now virtually nonexistent. Once-flourishing parishes and religious communities have become dessicated. A province which once boasted outstanding levels of religious understanding and practice currently has a rate of Sunday Mass attendance in the single digits. Religious education in schools has been replaced in the past decade by a program of “ethics and religious culture.” Subjectively, for many Québécois, modernization of society has been conflated with de-Christianization. Effectively, Christ has been uncrowned.
In all phases of Western history since Our Lord’s Incarnation, the Church has remained a great (perhaps the greatest) civilizing force. Furthermore, the history of the 20th century reminds us that the rejection of Jesus Christ leads towards violence. In the religious void left in present-day Québec, such attacks have sadly become more and more common. Tertullian affirmed that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church. May the witness of Father Grou help to revive the Church in French Canada.

Rev. Albert P. Marcello, III, J.C.L., Sacerdos Diocesis Providentiensis