PhD Candidate Jean-François Nault, in collaboration with Professor E.-Martin Meunier, has published an article in Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses, entitled "Is Quebec Still a Catholically Distinct Society within Canada? An Examination of Catholic Affiliation and Mass Attendance." The article explores Quebec and its relationship to Catholicism since the Quiet Revolution. The authors examine the determinants of Catholic affiliation and practice. The authors find that Quebec remains Catholically distinct compared to other Canadian regions but the gap between Quebec and the rest of Canada has been increasingly fading over the last thirty years.
Jean-François Nault is a Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Toronto. He has successfully defended his dissertation, entitled Culture and Private School Choice: Uncovering the Cultural Dimensions of School Choice as Action.
We have posted the citation and the abstract of the article below. The full text is available here.
Nault, J.-F., & Meunier, E.-M. (2017). Is Quebec Still a Catholically Distinct Society within Canada? An Examination of Catholic Affiliation and Mass Attendance. Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses, 46(2), 230–248. https://doi.org/10.1177/0008429817696298
Since the Quiet Revolution, Quebec has significantly transformed its relationship to Catholicism. Some commentators have even gone as far as discussing an increasingly important secularization within the province. Yet, an examination of the main indicators of religiosity in Quebec provides evidence for the permanence of a certain cultural Catholicism. However, this cultural Catholicism is tending to gradually fade over time, giving place to the reconfiguration of the regime of religiosity. Meanwhile, in the rest of Canada, Catholicism tends to grow, primarily due to the immigrant population in recent years. In this general context, is Quebec still a “Catholically distinct” society? To answer this question, the authors use a series of logistic models to examine the main determinants of Catholic affiliation and Mass attendance. Age, place of birth and mother tongue emerge as principal determinants of religious affiliation and practice. Based on the findings from these models, the authors show that Quebec remains a Catholically distinct society in comparison with other Canadian regions. However, the gap between this province and the rest of Canada seems to have been increasingly fading, at least over the last thirty years.