The Evolution of the Representation of Catholicism in Québec's Political Discourse

The gradual social decline of Catholicism in the Canadian province of Québec since the 1960s, although manifested unevenly across the categories of belief, belonging, and behavior, is well documented. In the 21st century, researchers have noted the intensification of this phenome-non, where secularization and pluralization have accelerated Catholicism’s cultural marginalization and demographic path towards becoming a minority in the province (Wilkins-Laflamme, Legault-Leclair and Meunier, forthcoming). To cite a noteworthy statistic, the percentage of people identifying as Catholic in Québec decreased by almost 30 points between 2001 and 2021, going from 83% to 54% (Statistics Canada, 2022). How is the decline in the sociocultural importance of Catholicism manifested in Québec poli-tics? In other words, how have elected officials from different provincial parties talked about Catholicism—including its meaning, symbols, and heritage—in their speeches over the years? Based on content analysis of the debates in the National Assembly of Québec since the secularizing school reforms of the late 1990s, this paper observes the changes and continuities in the framing of Catholicism in Québec politics. The results bring nuance to research that addresses the "patrimonialization" of majority religions in the West, as well as the rise of secularism as a public and identity issue and the new roles that Christianity plays in the evolution of secular national identities in Europe and North America (Zubrzycki, 2016; Tremblay and Cherblanc, 2019; Rocher, 2023).