Trump coveted Canada as 51st state. Most Canadians differ with him on religion’s role in public life
Montreal (AP) – During its new era, Opening AddressPresident Donald Trump said that he was “saved by God” to make America wonder again. In Canada, Prime Minister Mark Carney is rarely listened to the public; The victory speech in April never used the word God. “Canada forever. Vive Le Canada,” he said.
As Canada and the United States now collide Trump’s tariff threats and occasional bullying, the discourse of the leaders reflects a striking difference between their nations. Religion plays a much more suppressed role than its southern neighbor in Canada.
Trump posed in front of a vandalized bishopric congregation house Dragging the Bible. He invites the priests to the Oval Office to pray with him. His ally, Home speaker Mike JohnsonHe says that the best way to understand his own worldview is to read the Bible.
So high level Religious themed screens In Canada, where Carney’s last premises – like his last premises, which prevented the public from discussion of the public opinion, would not be possible and almost popular. (It is a Catholic that supports abortion rights.)
There are wider differences. The rate of participation in the regular church in Canada is much lower than the US’s Evangelical Christians, and there is no place in the south of the political influence in Canada. There is no big campaign in Canada Send ten orders Putting into force in public schools or sweeping abortion bans.
Kevin Kee, a professor and former dean at the University of Otawa, wrote about the opposite religious landscapes of the USA and Canada, American Evangelist Billy Graham To be the confidant of many US presidents.
Kee said Christianity did not penetrate modern Canadian politics to this extent.
Kee said, iz We have a political leadership that keeps the religion quiet, ”he said. “To make such a statement in Canada is a US/these is to create the situation. There is no easy way to make everyone happy, so people remain silent.”
Dramatic Catholic power loss in Quebec
Quebec province, which is mostly spoken in French, presents a distinguishing example of Canada’s slope towards secularism. The Catholic Church was the dominant power of Quebec in most history, and had a comprehensive effect on schools, health and politics.
This has changed significantly in the so -called silent revolution of the 1960s, when the provincial government seized the control of educational and health services as part of a wider campaign to reduce the power of the church. Normal ratio Among Quebec’s Catholics, the church fell From one of the highest of Canada to the lowest.
Religiously among the religious Canadians, in Quebec and other provinces, some of them are sincere in a large extent in a secular country.
After joining a conservative reform Baptist Church in Saint Jerome, about 30 miles (about 50 kilometers) north of Montreal, 22-year-old Mégane Arès-Dubé said, “Our traditional Christian views do not act in old-fashioned or time.”
“Unlike the United States, where Christians are more represented in elected authorities, Christians are not really represented in Canada,” he added. “I pray for Canada to wake up.”
Pascal Denault, the church’s senior priest, has mixed emotions about the heritage of the silent revolution.
“This was good for many aspects,” he said. “Before that, the Catholic clergy who controlled many things in the province, so we didn’t have religious freedom.”
However, Denault wants a more positive religion in Canada.
“Sometimes secularism becomes a religion within itself and wants to close any religious speech in the public sphere,” he said. “What we hope is that the government will realize that religion is not an enemy to fight, but it will realize that it is a more positive force to encourage.”
Denault recently hosted a Podcast section that focused on Trump; Later, he shared some thoughts about the President.
“We think that Trump uses Christianity as a tool for his impact rather than a real Christian,” he said. “But Christians, I think, appreciate some of their stances on different things.”
Denault said Trump’s tactics of religion-such as posing with the book-Book-he would not go well with the Canadians.
Denault said, “They saw this as a wrong thing. The public official should not be identified with a certain religion,” he said. “I don’t think most Canadians will vote for such politicians.”
Church buildings reorganized in Montreal
In the Montreal neighborhood of HocELAGA-Maisonneuve, the crossing with the crosses in the silhouette bell towers, but most of these churches are not used or reused.
For decades, factory and port workers worshiped at the Saint-Mathias-Apotre Church. Today is a restaurant that offers daily affordable meals for more than 600 calm.
Manager Le chic resto popMarc-Andre Simard has grown Catholic, and now, like his staff, is defined as not religiously connected. However, he is still trying to honor some fundamental values of Catholicism in the restaurant that protects the original wooden gates of the church and even confessed cabins.
“Being together, there is still space to have some kind of congregation, but not around the beliefs, but around food.” Simard said he was sitting near the old church during a lunch break.
Simard says how much the Catholic Church controls the public life in Quebec.
“We have experienced what the US is experiencing now,” he said.
In other parts of Montreal, a building, once a Catholic monastery, often contains the meetings of the Quebec Humanist Association.
Michel Virard, the founding partner of the group, said the French Canadians knew what a clergyman is in his work first.
Now, Virard is trying to use the clergy in Canada to manipulate the state power arms and to use the money of taxpayers to support a certain religious perspective. ” Says.
History reveals why the role of religion in the USA and Canada is so different
Canada and the United States, in terms of the role of religion in public life, so many neighbors who share so many cultural traditions and priorities?
According to academics who think about this question, their dates offer some answers. The United States, which has independence from the UK, chose not to have a dominant, federal church.
Meanwhile, the Catholic Church in Canada raided in Quebec, and the Church of England, which was finally called the Canadian Anglican Church, was strong elsewhere.
Professor Darren Dochuk, a Canadian who teaches history at Notre Dame University in Indiana, says that religion in the United States “makes religious life more dynamic”.
“This is a country where free faith communities are allowed to compete in the market for their shares,” he said.
“In the 20th century, you had a lot of religious groups competing too much for access to power throughout the spectrum.” “More recently, the Protestants really dominate it.… Religious conservatives impose their will to Washington.”
Dochuk said that there was no equivalent belief in Canada, and that Canada’s secularization produced a rapid decline in the power of religion as a great operator in politics ”.
Carmen Celestini, a professor of religious research at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, said that they adopted a cultural approach, even when Canadian politicians prefer faith-based social assistance, for example, they visited the Sikh, Hindu and Jewish worship houses and Christian churches.
He said that Trump’s speech on being the 51st state of Canada has fueled a greater sense of national unity between most Canadians and weakened the relatively small part that describes it as Christian nationalists.
“Canada came together more as a nation, does not see differences with each other, we are proud to see each other as Canadians and who we are as a nation and a nation,” he said. “When we look at what Canadians are in America, the concern that we don’t want to be here.”
___
Crary reported from New York, between 1995-99, the AP’s Canadian office chief.
___
Associated Press scope of religion receives support through EPs partnership The conversation is only responsible for this content with the financing of Lilly Fewment Inc.
