I think you are interested in addressing the "cultural differences"
between French Canada(Quebec)and English Canada and how these cultural
differences affect/affected the perception one group has/had toward(s)
the other- specifically the role religious beliefs and the church
play(ed) in shaping these perceptions from the French Canadian point
of view in the time frame preceding the "quiet revolution."
"Religion in Canada: Theories about Protestants and Catholics
Garneau pointed out that in the seventeenth century, Protestants
(Huguenots) in France were given considerable freedom. But in 1685 the
Edict that had provided them with freedom was revoked. From an earlier
date Protestants were forbidden to settle in French America. The
result was that New France was almost exclusively Roman Catholic and,
from very early times, closed to Protestant immigration. Because of
the difference he saw between a liberal, Protestant, secularized
population and a conservative, spiritually-centred, Catholic
population he believed the prohibition of Protestant immigrants to
French North America was a great loss.
"How advantageous,," he writes, "would have been a massive emigration
of rich, enlightened, peaceful and industrious men, such as were the
Huguenots, to inhabit St. Lawrence shores and fertile plains of the
West....A baneful policy brought about sacrifice of all these
advantages to jealous views of a government armed, through the
alliance of the spiritual and temporal powers, with authority to allow
neither conscience nor intelligence to breathe. `If you and yours have
not converted before such and such a day, the authority of the king
will force you to convert,' Boussuet wrote to the schismatics. We
repeat, without this policy, we Canadians would not be forced to
defend our language, our laws and our nationality inch by inch against
a rushing tide." [François-Xavier Garneau, Histoire du Canada depuis
sa découverte jusqu'a nos jours, Québec, Napoleon Aubin, Vol. 1, 1845,
p. 494, quoted in Serge Gagnon, Québec and Its Historians 1840-1920,
(trans.) Yves Brunelle, Montréal, Harvest House, 1982, p. 24.]
Protestants were ruled out for a number of reasons. Not only did they
tend to quarrel with Catholics on issues that compounded social
difficulties, they were, after all, religious dissidents. And more.
Bishop Laval wrote: "Everyone knows that Protestants are not so
attached to His Majesty as Catholics.. To multiply the number of
Protestants in Canada would be to give occasions for the outbreak of
revolutions." [Bishop Laval, quoted in Sigmond Diamond, "An Experiment
in `Feudalism': French Canada in the 17th Century," in (ed.) J.
Bumstead, Canadian History Before Confederation, Essays and
Interpretations, Georgetown, Ontario, Irwin-Dorsey Ltd., 1972, p. 90.]
Protestant Superiority?
Garneau is quite clear in his own mind that Protestantism and even its
more intense evangelicals were important to the growth and development
of the USA. "The United States," writes Garneau, "owes part of its
greatness to the privilege granted the Bible, so to speak, to
fanaticize the national spirit more for things of this earth than for
those of heaven. Avid readers of the old laws of the Jews, they [the
people of the US] display the same enthusiasm as these in the
acquisition of wealth. Must we attribute to this reading the
superiority Protestant peoples generally show over Catholic nations in
matters of commerce, industry and material progress?" [Ibid., p. 299]
Max Weber's Thesis
Garneau's argument appears again very rarely, if at all, for a hundred
years after in Québec. But as theorists of Protestantism and
capitalism know the idea was in the air.
In 1904-05 Max Weber - unhappy with the Marxist idea of historical
determinism - published his historical study, The Protestant Ethic and
the Spirit of Capitalism. In it he developed a theory from what
Garneau and others had taken as true simply from observation and
"experience". Weber's work was not translated into English until 1930.
In that influential and controversial book Weber developed a cogent
argument to support his claim that religious and ethical ideas have
had strong social power in the West. He deals quite specifically with
the substance of Garneau's claim, though he, doubtless, had never read
Garneau. Indeed, the situation in Canada could have supplied Weber
with precisely the examples he needed of the different effects
Protestantism and Catholicism have on societies. But he does not
mention Canada.
Garneau's relation to Weber, then, rests in the fact that they were
both conscious of the effects of religion and ethics on the quality
and behaviour of societies. The argument put forth by Weber reveals
one of the deep, long-abiding differences between the cultures of
francophone and anglophone Canada. In brief, Weber argues that
Protestantism and capitalism have been intimately connected. He
suggests that a characteristic of modern capitalism is a desire for
the accumulation of wealth without the desire to use it for worldly
pleasures and display. That new and somewhat strange condition arises
out of the Protestant (and `puritanical') idea that the highest moral
obligation of the pious person is to accept his or her calling in life
and fulfil the expectations of that calling in the world.
The key to the differences between Protestant and Catholic societies
lies there. For Catholicism prizes the person who transcends the world
and its business. Catholicism raises up for special attention the
person who leaves `the world' or turns completely away from worldly
pursuits. It calls upon the members of a population to respond to the
world in quite a different way than Protestantism does. A part of that
fundamentally different call rests upon the ways in which the two
faiths view the cycle of sin, repentance, and forgiveness. For the
Catholic spiritual renewal is part of the activity of the faith. He or
she can regain grace and renew his or her Christianity through what
might be called the ordinary operation of the Church. Confession to a
priest, genuine repentance, faithful observance of the penance called
for, and then participation in Holy Communion - in which the penitent
receives God's grace symbolized by the communion wafer - completes the
cycle of renewal.
The condition of the puritan sects of Protestantism, especially, is
much different. Especially in Calvinism and faiths growing from
Calvinist development, the belief in the calling and in predestination
combine. That latter belief holds that only some are chosen to be
saved and the choice is predestined by God, the faithful being unable
to change God's choice. There is no way provided through the operation
of the faith that spiritual grace can be assured - or even confidently
offered. People bound by that faith, according to Weber, suffered
deeply, therefore, as one might expect. In the community of believers,
people were driven to act as if they were saved, as a sign of their
faith. Secondly, the signal to the world that the calling was not only
fulfilled but - in a sense - approved of by God was given through the
demonstration of good works.
Two results followed. The accumulation of wealth from sober, hard work
in the world was a sign of moral excellence. Indeed, being unable - as
the Catholic was able - to enact visibly the cycle of repentance,
confession, penance, absolution, and direct communion with God, the
Protestant with whom Weber was concerned was driven to demonstrate in
the world both rightness of calling and, apparently, an unchanging
condition of spiritual purity through an upright life and good works
in the world. From those forces Weber believed "the spirit of
capitalism" was born. That spirit was peculiar to Protestantism and
generally alien to Catholicism.
He goes on to argue that when the spirit of capitalism has used a
religious faith to gain social dominance, it will easily cast faith
aside. In such a situation capitalist activities become endowed with
an aura of moral sanction, but faith is not present to provide a
genuine structure of morality. He argues, in addition, that the
overall effect in Protestant behaviour - especially among puritan
sects - was the development of what we now call "the Protestant work
ethic". We mean by that the willingness of whole populations - as a
sign of their virtue and worth - to discipline themselves and make
capitalist economic organization effective and profitable, even though
most of the people doing it do not share in the profit gained.
Catholic countries, he and others claim, never submitted themselves to
the capitalist discipline familiar in Protestant countries. Finally, a
portion of the whole relation between the Protestant ethic and the
spirit of capitalism for Weber was the new and definitive thing about
capitalism that developed. For Weber, the spirit of capitalism is
marked by the continual accumulation of capital for its own sake.
As Weber writes: "Man is dominated by the making of money, by
acquisition as the ultimate purpose of his life. Economic acquisition
is no longer subordinated to man as the means for the satisfaction of
his material needs. This reversal of what we should call the natural
relationship, so irrational from a naive point of view, is evidently
as definitely a leading principle of capitalism as it is foreign to
all peoples not under capitalistic influence." [Max Weber, The
Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, trans, by Talcott
Parsons, London, Unwin Hyman, 1989, p. 53]
We don't have to trouble ourselves with the huge literature that has
grown up of attacks upon and defences of Weber. Perhaps it is enough
for us not only that François-Xavier Garneau recognized a condition
closely related nearly sixty years before Weber's observations, and
that a deep difference has existed between the anglophone and
francophone populations in Canada that relate closely to the
conditions Weber describes.
A Basis Of Difference
To begin, the Conquest of 1760 was effected by an English Protestant
group over a French Catholic group. With the conquest and with the
creation of the USA sixteen years later, the francophone Catholics in
Canada became a confirmed minority in North America. When the French
Revolution with its secularizing effect began in 1789, the
francophones in Canada found themselves alienated from France and
drawn closer to the centre of Catholicism in Rome. That bond, called
ultrmontanism, became a significant factor in Québec Catholicism.
The British wooed francophone loyalty with the Québec Act in 1774, as
we have noted. Quite reasonably, the British did not resist the
conservatism of ultramontanism and Québec's rejection of the
Revolution since both served British interests. Appalled at the
violence and terror ignited by the Revolution, the British, for the
most part, rejected it at home and rejected any sympathetic responses
to it in the new world.
Step by step, the Catholic Church, strong even before the Conquest,
was strengthened by major historical events in North America and
outside it. After the War of 1812, the event which probably most
firmly consolidated the power of the Church was the Rebellion of 1837
and its overt failure. That rebellion and its partner rebellion in
Upper Canada produced Lord Durham's visit to Canada and the famous
Durham Report.
Francophone Conservatism Reinforced
All of those events (even though Durham was a liberal and wrote a
strongly liberal Report from many English points of view) strengthened
the conservative Church in Québec. The failure of the Rebellion was a
failure of the liberal forces. Not only were expressions of liberalism
attacked thereafter, but the uniting of the two provinces of Upper and
Lower Canada and Durham's stated goal of assimilation increased the
threat to francophone Catholicism and the need among francophones for
solidarity and leadership.
To underscore the significance of Max Weber's theory to events and
cultures in Canada, we need only observe that while most of the
western world was moving in liberal directions, with both
Protestantism and capitalism gaining force and power, Québec was
becoming increasingly anti-Protestant, increasingly Catholic, and
increasingly drawn to explanations of Québec's uniqueness based upon
religion and the recognition of a spiritual mission in North America.
François-Xavier Garneau began his history before the Rebellions. It
was published in three volumes between 1845 and 1848. Not only a
liberal nationalist work ( a work critical of British powers and
actions), it was also often critical of clerical activity in Québec's
history. Rumour has it that Garneau withdrew the first volume or that
it was bought up and largely destroyed. After that, the volumes were
privately attacked as they came out but were much ignored publicly by
clerical critics. Even so, Garneau's own position seemed to change in
relation to the Church, partly perhaps because of opposition, partly
because he recognized the need for unity if the francophone Catholic
community was to survive.
The result in terms of our discussion was that Québec developed into a
very strongly Catholic community. As all students of Québec are aware,
the francophones were invited to see their mission as spiritual, their
work as agrarian, their lives as pious and simple. They were to find
themselves realized in the combination of the faith, the language, and
the land. They were invited to see their history as guided by God's
hand. In 1866 Mgr. L.-F.-R. Laflèche published a work considering the
relation between Québec society, religion, and the family. He writes:
"The obvious intervention of Providence when it kept such careful
watch over the colony's cradle; its wonderful protection in moments of
dread battle; the deep peace enjoyed under the shelter of the British
flag while the violent storm of the French Revolution was raging; the
wisdom that inspired our fathers into declining the advances and
solicitations of our powerful republican neighbour - all these facts
are like so many beacons leading us on our way and like comforting
testimonies of the gentle presence of Providence constantly watching
over us." [L.-F.-R. Laflèche, "The Providential Mission of the French
Canadians," in (ed.) Ramsay Cook, French-Canadian Nationalism,
Toronto, MacMillan, 1969, p. 98]
A Providential Mission
Continuing the providential claim in 1902, Mgr. L.-A. Paquet delivered
an address near the Champlain monument on the occasion of the Diamond
Jubilee of the Saint-Jean-Baptiste Society of Québec on June 23. He
declared a mission for the French Canadian people, a spiritual
mission. We have, he said, "the privilege of being entrusted with this
social priesthood granted only to select peoples. I cannot doubt that
this religious and civilizing mission is the true vocation and the
special vocation of the French race in America. Yes, let us not
forget, we are not only a civilized race, we are pioneers of a
civilization; we are not only a religious people, we are messengers of
the spirit of religion; we are not only dutiful sons of the Church, we
are, or we should be, numbered among its zealots, its defenders, and
its apostles. Our mission is less to handle capital than to stimulate
ideas; less to light the furnaces of factories than to maintain and
spread the glowing fires of religion and thought, and to help them
cast their light into the distance." He goes on a little later, "God
forbid that I should scorn the national benefits of Providence, my
brothers, or that I should go so far as to preach a renunciation to my
fellow citizens that would be fatal to the economic interests that
concern them so greatly. Wealth is not forbidden to any people or
race; it is indeed the reward of fruitful initiative, intelligent
effort, and persevering labour.
But let us be careful; we must not turn what is only a means into the
very goal of our social behaviour. Let us not step down from the
pedestal, where God has placed us, to walk commonly among those
generations who thirst for gold and pleasure. We must leave to other
nations, less inspired with the ideal, the kind of feverish
mercantilism and vulgar bestiality that rivets them to material
things. Our own ambition must aim higher; our thoughts and aspirations
must be loftier." [ Mgr. L.-A. Paquet, "A Sermon on the Vocation of
the French Race in America," in (ed.) Ramsay Cook, French-Canadian
Nationalism,Toronto, MacMillan, 1969, pp. 154 and 158.
An Anglo-Saxon Mission?
At the same time as the special Roman Catholicism of Québec was
developing and solidifying, English Canada, child of the dominant
imperial power of the day, had little reason to doubt the worth of its
own culture and its own mission. At one level that mission was
articulated by Lord Durham in his Report. Durham wrote: "A plan by
which it is proposed to ensure the tranquil government of Lower Canada
[Québec], must include in itself the means of putting an end to the
agitation of national disputes in the legislature, by settling at once
and for ever, the national character of the Province. I entertain no
doubts as to the national character which must be given to Lower
Canada; it must be that of the British Empire; that of the majority of
the population of British America; that of the great race which must,
in the lapse of no long period of time, be predominant over the whole
North American Continent. Without effecting the change so rapidly or
so roughly as to shock the feelings and trample on the welfare of the
existing generation, it must henceforth be the first and steady
purpose of the British Government to establish an English population,
with English laws and language, in this Province, and to trust its
government to none but a decidedly English legislature." [Lord
Durham's Report, An Abridgment of Report on the Affairs of British
North America, ed. Gerald Craig, Toronto, McClelland and Stewart,
1963, p. 146.]
Those words were written by Lord Durham, an English visitor to the
Canadian colonies. His intentions were not frustrated, however, by
francophones alone. In the legislature of the united Canadas,
anglophones allied with francophones to forge a progressive force. In
addition, anglophone Canadians took upon themselves very often the
task of obliterating the Conquest. They sought to elevate francophone
heroes to the same level as anglophone heroes, insisting both Wolfe
and Montcalm, for instance, were heroes of the Plains of Abraham.
Without question, large numbers of anglophone Canadians believed in
and worked for full and genuine equality.
But the fact remained, then as now, the cultures were significantly
different. Both lived amid proud proclamations of superiority. Each -
as Max Weber observes - produced people with fundamentally different
perceptions of human beings and the society in which they lived. Both,
because of language, custom, religion and history, tended to live
without significant reference to the other. Indeed, before
Confederation and after it, the education systems in each culture
either ignored or - without conscious ill-will - misrepresented the
people in the other culture."
The preceding essay is from a larger essay by Robin Mathews that might
also interest you:
http://www.ola.bc.ca/online/cf/module-5/q&c.html#RTFToC18
This is the home page of the complete work titled Canadian
Foundations:
http://www.ola.bc.ca/online/cf/add/toc.html
This is a great reference for your purposes. Good luck. |
