Canada s Primate calls for a re-awakening in Quebec. (News in Brief: Canada).

Quebec City--Newly installed Archbishop Marc Ouellet of Quebec City, who is also Primate of Canada because the Archdiocese is the oldest in the country, spoke about Quebec's negligible birthrate and the crisis of faith in the province in his inaugural homily on January 26. He is the first Quebec bishop to do so in a long time in a province where the hierarchy even supported the secularization of Catholic schools in 2000 against the wishes of Catholic parents. The archbishop has been active outside Quebec lately, even as secretary for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome. A portion of the Primate's inaugural homily follows:

"The time is short; it is time to reawaken consciences and the decision of faith. Quebec languishes far from the values that were the strength and glory of her ancestors. The just desire for cultural survival runs up dramatically against our negligible birthrate and the catastrophe of teen suicide. These incomprehensible suicides tear us apart and alarm us about the situation of the families and the values that should give meaning to our life. Aren't these signs of the most serious improverishment which strikes at Quebec society: the forgetting of its spiritual heritage...The preservation of our cultural inheritance is a well recognized priority, but how much is it necessary to ensure education in the spiritual virtues and attitudes which form the souls and the destiny of a people!....It is not too late to seek together, as pastors and faithful, as citizens, the means of regenerating the Christian culture which shaped Quebec of yesterday and today" (LifeSite News, Feb. 14/03).