For a new contract with the churches
Julie Favreau-Lavoie
There are those that fall into ruin, those that are sold to the highest bidder, those few that still welcome their faithful, and then those that are burning these days. For every church that is reinvented, a dozen are demolished. Yet, in addition to being an important part of our heritage, our churches are above all a vast network of infrastructures at the service of their communities, located in the heart of each Quebec village. What if, in order to reshape Quebec, we made them an engine of economic and social development for our communities?
The last inventory of the Conseil du patrimoine religieux du Québec dates back to 2003: at that time, we counted 2751 churches scattered throughout the territory. This does not include convents, presbyteries and other religious buildings. These buildings were very often sold by parishes or religious communities when they have reached the end of their financial and human capacities, delivered in an uncertain state and in a climate of urgency - a very bad way to make decisions. The risk of wasting these iconic places is enormous, most of them being located in the middle of village hearts or in the center of commercial arteries - prime real estate like no other.
From these 2751 places, we must remember two things. First, we will not save them all. The effort would be colossal. With limited resources, our efforts must be strategic and aligned with our collective priorities. Second, the potential is enormous. To fully capture its beneficial effects, the intervention of a centralized actor is essential. The State must get involved.
It must get involved, on the one hand, by encouraging the empowerment of local communities and supporting the emergence of concerted projects. On the other hand, by offering owners the technical and legal support necessary to plan the transfer of buildings while respecting their social missions and heritage characteristics. Finally, by mobilizing existing infrastructure support programs to create a leverage effect and multiply the benefits of each dollar invested.
But this "church plan" will only be possible if the other main actor is also invited to the table: religious communities. To be viable, projects must imagine ways not only to secularize our religious buildings, but also to cohabit with them. Why not allow ourselves to imagine a place shared between worship activities, affordable housing, daycare and a neighborhood grocery store? Concluding a new contract with the parishes means reimagining a Quebec on the church square: dreamed in the image of where we are going, in coherence with where we come from.