Public Prayer Ban in Canada? Fr Cristino Explains What’s at Stake

Is Canada on the verge of banning public prayer? A Catholic priest explains what’s at stake for religious freedom, faith, and culture.
As Quebec moves toward legislation restricting public prayer, Catholics are asking a serious question: can prayer be pushed out of public life?

A proposed bill in Quebec would ban public prayer in streets, parks, and other public spaces. In this in-depth interview, Fr. Cristino offers a Catholic response to the growing push for radical secularism—explaining why this issue goes far beyond one province and why it matters for all Canadians.

This conversation explores the religious freedom implications of banning public prayer and asks whether secularism has quietly become a replacement religion in modern society. Drawing on Catholic teaching, philosophy, and the history of Quebec, Fr. Cristino explains why faith cannot be confined to private spaces without serious consequences.

KEY QUESTIONS ADDRESSED:
– Is banning public prayer a violation of human rights and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms?
– Can a government decide where and when prayer is allowed?
– Does forcing religion into private spaces increase division and radicalization?
– Why has Quebec moved from deep Catholic roots to hostility toward public faith?
– What should faithful Catholics do when unjust laws are proposed?

This video is essential viewing for anyone concerned about Catholic teaching on prayer, religious liberty in Canada, and the future of faith in public life.

Transcript

Father Christina, welcome back. Thank you, Ken. Today, I'd like your thoughts on this proposed ban on prayer, public prayer. Mhm. In Quebec. Did you hear about this? Yes, I have heard about this. So, it's a it's concerning. It's like Quebec wants to ban God, right? Cancel God. So, the article that I came across was CBC. I want to read you the article and get your action on that. Sure. Yes. Secular minister Jean Franuis Rober said in a statement Thursday that the proliferation of street prayer is a serious and sensitive issue. The premier of Quebec has given me the mandate to strengthen secularism and I'm determined to fulfill this mandate diligently. He said this fall we will therefore introduce a bill to strengthen secularism in Quebec in particular by banning street prayers. Premier Franis Lgo said seeing people pray in the streets in public parks is not something we want in Quebec. LGO said in December saying he wanted to send a very clear message to Islamists. When we want to pray, we go to a church, we go to a mosque, but not in public places. And yes, we will look at the means where we can act illegally or otherwise. So, Father Christino, as a priest, when you hear this, what is your reaction? uh anger, frustration, disbelief that there could be such a depth of ignorance. That's what I think drives uh the proposed uh bill that they're talking about here. It's ignorance. It's ignorance of what they're saying, of the implications of what they want to enforce and of their diagnosis that they they think they have found a problem. Uh people don't want this in Quebec. What do they mean by that? People don't want this. Clearly, the people who do that want it or they wouldn't be doing it. So, right away, you're excluding a percentage of your population by saying people don't want this in Quebec. Who is that? who have who are they talking to that says that they don't want that uh in previous conversations that we've had on talking about culture. We've also talked about uh where culture comes from which is from worship. Quebec also has a very robust ministry of culture. They are obsessed in that province with maintaining and preserving the French culture that are the origins of that province. uh while standing apart from all of the rest of you predominantly anglophone Canada and their culture is not just about the French language language can hold a culture together but it does not give birth to one and so they are fighting desperately to maintain something that is it's like a stool you you if it only has one leg it's not going to stand. You cannot sit on it. There have to be all of the necessary legs to hold up the thing that you're trying to do. They are pitting secularism against religion. But secularism is just another form of worship. It is what they have replaced Catholicism with. But Catholicism is a religion. So you can't replace it unless you've replaced it with something like it. Secularism is just another form of worship. It is the worship of self that I am the object of my worship because I give myself what I want. And we live by the utilitarian rule that as long as I'm not hurting anyone else, I should be allowed to do whatever I want. It's a kind of of individualism and radical libertarianism that pays no attention to the common good and that does not ask whether or not the absence of something also could potentially harm others even if it's not clear that its absence is the cause of the harm. What harm might be caused to Quebec by banning public prayer? they they haven't actually conceived of the possibility that getting rid of it introduces a different problem because they would say that either that's not a problem or they would blame it on something else. So what do you see the potential problems with down the road with this the privatization of religion driving religious people into spaces where they are told this is the only place where you're allowed to do this. It divides people first of all, but then that's what gives birth to radicalization. And I'm not just talking about radical Islam. Anyone can practice their religion or any of their their phil philosophical beliefs radically. And when we talk about something becoming radicalized, I think what we're saying is we acknowledge the goodness of the thing in itself, but when taken to a particular extreme, it begins to no longer resemble what it was meant to be in the first place. And radical secularization, which would have begun by saying we're just not going to have an official religious stance, is now turning into the condemnation of religion. And that is not what secularism is supposed to be. What is sec secularism supposed to be? Well, even in the word the etmology secular comes from the the Latin word uh sec secular which is what we would call uh like century a century. It's a way of talking about time. It's saying that for something to be secular it's of the time. It's what's what's predominant now basically is is a kind of way that you could describe what secularism is about. It is seen as the alternative to religion. And that's why I'm saying it's a fundamental misunderstanding. You can't have an alternative to religion. Human beings were made to worship. You will worship something. You may not worship God. You may not worship Jesus Christ as God. But you will worship something. And in a civilization of rampant individualism, what do you think? We begin to worship ourselves. So to say that secularism is an alternative to religion so that no religion gets to have the upper hand or dominates a population like the people of Quebec would say that they were dominated by the Catholic Church for so long. Okay, free yourself of that then say you have to go away and hide in your little private space and then what will happen? something will give rise to the reaction that comes from having been driven into a ghetto. Sometimes that looks really ugly and that's the only thing we ever think about. But other times I think it actually also just gives it power. We witnessed in Quebec something happened this year earlier this year around the feast of Corpus Christi. a eucharistic procession took place which was customary decades ago but has not been customary as you can imagine for a very long time and if I remember correctly they processed from St. Patrick's Basilica down Renolic Boulevard to the cathedral and there must have been thousands of people who were flocking behind the blessed sacrament being brought in procession down this very busy major thoroughfare. I'm not surprised that the reaction to that was to say this kind of thing can't happen here because it looks religious. I'm saying all of the effort that they've put into driving religion out of society is precisely what gives birth to a desire to do that. If that was treated as something not only normal, not merely acceptable, but as actually a characteristic element of our culture, then it would just be taken to be normal. It it's not radical. It's how you manage radicalization by letting things just be normal. So they are undermining exactly what they say they're doing this for which is we don't want to appear like we're some kind of radical religious society. That's exactly what they're going to get. So if this bill does go forward, what are the implications for the Catholic Church in Quebec? Well, I guess it depends how much the Catholic Church in Quebec would decide to try and push back against it. And numerically speaking, there there is just not the manpower of committed faithful Catholics in Quebec to actually, I think, put up a sufficient stand to say we will not accept this. We are being excluded. You you say that people in Quebec don't want this. Well, we're people in Quebec and we do. So don't tell us that you don't want this. Your government doesn't want this. Premier Lego is a hypocrite. I I hate to put it that way, but he was all about having Pope Francis come to the province of Quebec. And we had to bend over backwards to do things to showcase Quebec when the Pope came to Canada. And you were part of it. I was part of it. I was uh having I wasn't directly at the table with Premier Lgo having these conversations but I know what was going on because I was helping to organize the program and who turned out next to no one. I went to a concert on Canada Day when I was in Quebec on my last visit there before the Pope was going to come. I was finalizing details and there must have been 50 or 60,000 people in the plains of Abraham watching this uh French musician perform. It was really exciting. I thought, "Wow, do you think I wonder like are we going to fill the plains of Abraham when we bring the pope through here?" No, not a chance. People just didn't come. How many people were there? I I don't know. A few thousand. Not 10,000. Definitely not 50,000. Really? So, I didn't know that. That is shocking for a variety of reasons. But what would be the reason to be glad to bring the pope to your province when one of your main concerns is driving out of the public eye anything to do with religion. It's a contradiction. He also Lego was quite concerned about getting a private audience with the pope which had to be facilitated for him at the airport before the pope could even leave. So I just think that it is it's disingenuous and it is insincere to claim that this is for the best interests of our province uh because people don't want this when in actual fact it is merely the approval of one kind of religious expression which you pretend isn't a religious religious expression when in actual fact it's just what you're trying to replace religion with. That's a contradiction. I I think you have a greater grasp on the um Canadian Bill of Charter of Rights and Freedoms than I do. I I know it seems to be like an interest. Am I Mhm. Okay. So, I haven't read as much as you. I'll admit that. So, when we talk about the banning of public prayer, isn't that a violation? Some especially American uh friends watching like how can you ban public prayer right in Canada? Is it different than it is in the United States when it comes to this area or is this a clear violation of our our rights and freedoms here in this country? Well, it's absolutely a violation of our inherent rights and freedoms just as a human being irrespective of anything the government has ever written down on paper. we were made to worship. And you can say, well, that's just your religious belief. And I would say, no, it's not because we will worship something. And here you worship the decaying culture that you think you're fighting to preserve and defend. You will worship something. And so we were made for this than to say that we must do it only ever in private. That no one else should ever be subjected to seeing you worship God as you understand God is meant to be worshiped. That's ludicrous. Why is that supposed to be hidden? Why is that inappropriate or offensive to someone? If you don't like it, don't watch. We have a all sorts of parades nowadays that I find offensive and the response to me is that's your problem. Why why would we allow picketing for people that are going on strike? Why would we have any other kind of external demonstration if the possibility of offending someone is present and therefore we shouldn't be allowed to do it? It's cherry-picking. Mhm. and saying, "No, we just don't want this." Other things, that's fine. In fact, we'll even promote them. We don't want this kind. Don't tell me a pride parade doesn't have a kind of religious element to it as well. It absolutely does. It's the ritualization of something that you want to be brought forward for the public to be confronted by. You call it pride for a reason. Pride isn't hidden. Pride isn't secret. I don't think the government of Quebec has any intentions about getting rid of those because they are offensive to the sensibilities of some people who see them happen. In fact, they would probably turn it on the people who are offended and say, "You have a problem. You're what's wrong with society because you get offended by that." Well, then why wouldn't we give that same answer to people who would say that they're offended by watching Muslims pray or Catholics processed on the street with the blessed sacrament? This seems so odd. Uh Canadians know, but maybe Americans watching don't, that Quebec is the motherland of Catholicism for our country. It it's it was continent for Okay, thank you for the clarification. It was so important. Quebec was Catholicism. And I mean, I I I did a little bit of research and there was a one point in Quebec where nearly 90% prior to the 1960s, 90% of Catholics went to mass in Quebec every Sunday. Every Sunday. Now it's two or less than 2%. There's just an absolute plummeting loss of faith. Uh I often wonder like what in the world happened like and now it's not just a loss of faith it's almost like a hatred of the faith you are not we are we don't want to see this we don't want to remember this right it Quebec has lost their memory yes I don't know if they've lost their memory or they're choosing to forget I think those are And to know that the province you love and the culture that you seek to preserve is intricately woven in with Catholicism whose teachings most now would despise. You you have to reconcile that somehow. How can I keep this but get rid of that? And I think a variety of of efforts have been made for however long since something that took place that we would call the quiet revolution, which was really just an a a quite rapidly spreading societal rebellion against the prominent role that Catholicism played in Quebec. And there was a sense in which I think you could justifiably say particularly the hierarchy of the church was exercising an influence that it was not appropriate to have. Uh especially in in political affairs uh the church this this concept of the separation of church and state that that might be a whole other topic of conversation but it doesn't exist. The church and the state are not capable of remaining separate. They're not supposed to be separate. The state should be informed by the church. And the church should uphold the the rights and the duties of the state. They are complimentary. They should be capable of working together because in the gospel, our Lord himself made it clear that these things are not mutually exclusive from each other. So yet again, another one of these concepts that well, we're just going to make the separation of church and state the law of the land here. No, you won't. You can't. It's impossible. One will just have a ballooned or or conflated uh source of power compared to the other one. And there was a period of time when I think you could argue justifiably that the church's influence in Quebec was it was beyond what it ought to have been. And so it provoked a reaction that is still having its effect to this very day. However, I don't know that it needs to remain that way. Uh I'm in contact with a number of uh Catholic movements that are really taking off in Quebec where young people are now in such a desperate state. They look around the world and they just don't even know what to make of what they're seeing going on around them. They're looking for something. I witness this all the time in my little town of 14,000 people. Young people just walking in off the street to come into our church and ask if they can just look at it or or sit in it for a few minutes. People are really desperate. So, I don't think they know that they're going back to their roots. I think they're looking for roots. And I wonder if a generation of legislators in the province of Quebec right now think that this is our last chance to stomp this out once and for all. That's not going to work. Wow. So, uh let's say this, uh goes forward, the bill is passed. What's the response of the church then at that point? Do you do you say, "Oh, we're still going to have a Corpus Christi celebration?" Well, on the one hand, you could say, "Yes, we ought to do that." Uh but at the same time, the police potentially being called will only be just following what they're being told that they have to do. That this this public demonstration isn't allowed to be happening or these roads aren't allowed to be blocked. So, I'm not sure that uh showing that you're being so forward in your rebellion uh will accomplish the desired effect. Uh but I think still doing things visibly and in public would be very important. Can you give an example? I would say that uh you're not causing any harm to anyone to be in a public space where it could be heard that this group of people are praying the rosary together. Go to a picnic area. Everyone is free to choose a picnic table. Well, you sit down and someone starts the rosary and and what are you going to do about that? Are the police going to come to a park and take people who are at picnic tables away because of the things that they're saying, the the sound that's coming out of their mouth? Because that's not allowed to happen here right now. If you want to get on the table and sing at the top of your lungs, that's fine. But not praying, it's uninforcable. And so I think the church would be very wise to say we will push this to the absolute limit that we can wherever we can to say we will not comply with this unjust law. So I mean the pope came to Quebec. I presume that there was some sort of public displays of prayer. I didn't follow exactly what happened in Quebec. I mean like so if this bill passed I'm guessing that the Pope could come next time if you wanted to but he just come prayed publicly. Can you imagine? Sorry holy father you're very welcome here. We'll have a private but if you please just keep it in private. Now sadly that's that would have worked just fine because we did not even fill the basilica of St. Endo Prey. There was we anticipated the possibility that there could be as many as 15,000 people around the outside of the basilica and on the other side of the highway. They just weren't there. Wow. So, and there's a variety of reasons, like I said, but there is such a such a pervasive cooling throughout the province of Quebec towards the Catholic faith. Uh, but I don't believe that that that's the end of the story there. It doesn't have to be. Uh and I know that there are people who are refusing to let it be. Uh and that that's all it takes. That's how the church has always grown. Some even few committed faithful Catholics, they can uh put forth an outcome, a desire, a fervor that is unstoppable uh if only they choose to. And I know that there are people there in that province who choose to. Would you have any concern if this bill is passed that there's then something else around the corner like perhaps a policing of what can be said and or not said within within a church now? Well, we're already there. the the the threat the the limits that are being put on free speech. Uh instead of defining and having a civil debate about what constitutes speech, right? We never define our terms. We never talk about first principles. We only ever talk about outcomes. You're not allowed to hurt people's feelings. So, we're going to have to limit people's speech. Who that? That's a pretty big gap in between those two things. This is just yet another example of that. Because of this desired effect, that's going to be our solution. That's our path forward. And instead of evaluating is this even a justifiable thing to say that people should not be subjected to, I you can't control people's feelings. So how can I make sure that you don't get your feelings hurt? That's impossible. And so the the imposition upon religion that the government has decided religion causes X, Y, and Zed. So it's going to have to be done in private. It's in the government any government is incapable of making that kind of assessment. It's arbitrary. But I I feel like if I was in Quebec, it would be like, well, if this is this goes through, what's next? Absolutely. And I think that's a legitimate concern. Uh would you have any concern about that then spreading to other places in other provinces in Canada or is Quebec kind of like isolated in their own thing? Quebec has often been just a kind of isolated entity uh from apart from the rest of the country but it's it is still very much a trend and we see it actually I think spreading more rapidly in places like Europe uh than we would see it at least in Western Canada you know our we have kindred provinces I think in Alberta and Saskatchewan that just wouldn't fly here people just not only would they not accept it there's there's It's just not a ground swell of people asking for it. You're not going to find uh a prepoundonderance of the population of of either of our provinces saying we're offended when we see people praying in public. We have, I think, sensible people here who would say, "Well, if I'm offended, then I'm going to have to leave." Mhm. If you go to a movie and you don't like the content of the movie, you have to go. You don't get the theater to turn it off and put something different on. So that's that's how real life works. Having the government come in and decide how they're going to control people's feelings is absurd. And I don't I don't expect I'm not sure that this bill will even go forward. And if it does, it will be contested and undermined and uninforced more than you can imagine. [Music] But that it's being attempted is what's offensive. Mhm. So in response to this, what should faithful Catholics do? Well, as in any situation that a a right or a uh a a duty even is being contradicted, uh I think it should be spoken out against. So at the very least, faithful Catholics should publicly voice their opposition to something like this being put forward. Uh but then obviously in addition to the supernatural means of praying and fasting and all of that the the preparedness to say we just won't tolerate this. And I hope that they will find the backing and support of their of their pastors and bishops to say we don't accept this. An unjust law is no law at all. And not only is this an unjust law, it is an unjustifiable law. They can't even find a way to make it just. It is an arbitrary imposition of a particular government's will on an entire population. And faithful Catholics need to be prepared to stand up and call that out and contradict it. Well, thanks for your words today. Thank you. [Music]