{"id":7418,"date":"2022-10-25T11:32:03","date_gmt":"2022-10-25T15:32:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/diocesemontreal.wp.vortexdev.com\/en\/news\/news-2\/mission-week-quebec-passing-faith\/"},"modified":"2022-10-25T11:32:03","modified_gmt":"2022-10-25T15:32:03","slug":"mission-week-quebec-passing-faith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/diocesemontreal.wp.vortexdev.com\/en\/news\/news-2\/mission-week-quebec-passing-faith\/","title":{"rendered":"Mission Week: In Quebec, passing on the faith"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Source<\/a> – VaticanNews.va (translated by the Archdiocese of Montreal)<\/em><\/p>\n\n

Although it had a strong presence in Canada historically, religious practice is being gradually eroded in Quebec. The observation comes from Paul \u00c9mile Durand of Laval,  a city in the north end of the Island of Montreal. And yet, he points out the attachment that some of the population still have to the Catholic faith: \u201cAt Christmas, the churches are crammed full of people.\u201d Streets and villages, too, bear the names of saints, and Christian references are even found in the profanities used in Quebec. All of these elements represent for him remains of the Christian faith that should be pointed out.<\/p>\n\n

Passing on the faith<\/h4>\n\n

For Paul-\u00c9mile Durand, the problem with our mission of evangelization lies primarily \u201cin faith education and how the intelligence of faith is passed on.\u201d The Church has been regarded as merely dispensing moralizing lectures, while not providing enough explanation of Christian logic. He clarifies: \u201cThere are logical arguments in the Christian religion, there are rational components that can help people.\u201d We must go back to the fundamentals of faith, says the young Canadian seminarian, and he lists a few: \u201cWho was Jesus, what did He do, why did He do it, who is the Church and who are the Apostles?\u201d <\/p>\n\n

Remembering these fundamentals and discovering the Canadian culture, for Paul \u00c9mile Durand, allows for an encounter with the Christian religion. \u201cSo many young people I know have converted after reading French-Canadian writers of the 20th century,\u201d he asserts, \u201cand discovering that our culture and Catholicism are intrinsically tied together.\u201d He also sees a missionary opportunity in multiculturalism: \u201cIn the congregation on Sundays, there are young families from Africa, others from Asia and from South America.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

Opening the churches<\/h4>\n\n

In order to carry on the work of evangelizing, Paul-\u00c9mile Durand stresses the importance of acts of evangelization, sometimes quite simple ones – such as opening churches. \u201cWe are advocating to get the churches open physically. The weather in this country is not mild, and therefore a great many churches remain very often, if not always, closed.\u201d And so, some parishes have instituted a permanent reception person. \u201cJust the fact of having someone present in the church and having it open physically does so much good. People are happy to see their churches, which incidentally are often the most beautiful piece of architectural heritage in the neighbourhood.\u201d
\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source – VaticanNews.va (translated by the Archdiocese of Montreal) Although it had a strong presence in Canada historically, religious practice…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7417,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nouvelle"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/diocesemontreal.wp.vortexdev.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/diocesemontreal.wp.vortexdev.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/diocesemontreal.wp.vortexdev.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diocesemontreal.wp.vortexdev.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diocesemontreal.wp.vortexdev.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/diocesemontreal.wp.vortexdev.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7418\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diocesemontreal.wp.vortexdev.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/diocesemontreal.wp.vortexdev.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diocesemontreal.wp.vortexdev.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diocesemontreal.wp.vortexdev.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}