'We're fed up to the teeth' with dictatorship ... 'Ras Le Bol de la dictature'.Quebec City -- The province's politics of religious instruction borders on totalitarianism totalitarianism (tōtăl'ĭtâr`ēənĭzəm), a modern autocratic government in which the state involves itself in all facets of society, including the daily life of its citizens. , says Cardinal Marc Ouellet His Eminence Marc Cardinal Ouellet, PSS (born 8 June 1944 in Lamotte, Quebec, Canada) is a Canadian prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He is the present Archbishop of Quebec, and thus Primate of Canada. He was elevated to a cardinal on 21 October 2003. , in a news report in the Quebec daily, Le Soleil. "To put all religions on the same footing at school is not neutrality," he declared on February 16. "Rather, it is to neutralize neutralize to render neutral. the (Catholic) religion of the majority, that of 80% of the Quebec populace. Only totalitarian states Noun 1. totalitarian state - a government that subordinates the individual to the state and strictly controls all aspects of life by coercive measures totalitation regime prevent citizens from choosing what to teach children, (as Quebec does) even in private schools." "Just as the Church formerly was accused of taking too much space at the heart of the state," he said, "today it is the state that is treading invasively on the toes of the Church." Cardinal Ouellet refuses to accept that the government will decide what should be taught as religion, as Quebec has decided to do under its Law 95. "Now the state is embarking upon the interpretation of religious phenomena," he exclaimed. The Cardinal said he fails to comprehend the secularization ("laicization") being implemented by the state; it is not in the least envisaged by non-Catholic religious groups. Neither Muslims, nor Jews, nor anyone else, he points out, is requesting the removal from public places of the crucifix crucifix: see cross. and other symbols of Catholic culture. He held that the school must remain a privileged place for the transmission of religious values (Le Soleil, Feb. 16, 2007). A day earlier, Cardinal Marc Ouellet had expressed his belief that to relegate rel·e·gate tr.v. rel·e·gat·ed, rel·e·gat·ing, rel·e·gates 1. To assign to an obscure place, position, or condition. 2. To assign to a particular class or category; classify. See Synonyms at commit. Catholicism and Protestantism to the same degree of importance as the other religions implanted in Quebec is to risk bringing about the disappearance of the French-Canadian culture. The Cardinal recalled that the establishment and the development of the French-Canadian people are inseparable from Catholic and Protestant practices that predominated there. The history of Quebec Quebec has played a special role in Canada; it is the site where the French settlers founded the colony of Canada (New France) in the 1600s and 1700s. Its history has taken a somewhat different path from the rest of Canada. passes inevitably through the history of the Catholic and Protestant religions, he said. He believes that it is to disrespect this history when Catholicism and Protestantism are taught at school in the same manner as Judaism, Islamism or Buddhism (Le Soleil, Feb. 15, 2007). |
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