Catholic Church in Canada

The Catholic Church in Canada is part of the worldwide Catholic Church and has a decentralised structure, meaning each diocesan bishop is autonomous but under the spiritual leadership of the Pope and the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops. As of 2021, it has the largest number of adherents to a Christian denomination or religion in Canada, with 29.4% of Canadians (10.8 million) being adherents according to the census in 2021.

History First Catholics in Canada The first Catholic to set foot in Canada was Norse explorer Leif Erikson in the 11th century in Vinland, modern day Newfoundland. It is highly probable that Catholic masses were held in Vinland during settlement by the Norse. In 1497, when John Cabot landed on the island of Newfoundland on the Avalon Peninsula, he raised the Venetian and Papal banners and claimed the land for his sponsor King Henry VII of England, while recognizing the religious authority of the Catholic Church.P D'Epiro, M.D. Pinkowish, "Sprezzatura: 50 ways Italian genius shaped the world" pp. 179–180 A letter of John Day states that Cabot landed on 24 June 1497 and "he landed at only one spot of the mainland, near the place where land was first sighted, and they disembarked there with a crucifix and raised banners with the arms of the Holy Father and those of the King of England". On his third voyage in 1498, he may have been accompanied by Father Giovanni Antonio de Carbonariis, who may have established a missionary church at Carbonear on the Avalon Peninsula."First Christian settlement in North America?", CBN Compass, 18 May 2010.

Missionary work among Indigenous peoples began in the early 1610s as a stipulated condition to the colonization projects of the King of France. Historian Robert Choquette credits secular priest Jessé Fleché as the first to perform dozens of baptisms on Indigenous peoples, which impacted the religious landscape of Mi'kma'ki. Jessé Fleché's ministry was criticized by Jesuits who believed Fleché erred in baptizing neophytes without teaching them the Catholic faith beforehand.Choquette, Robert. Canada's Religions: An Historical Introduction. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press (2004) p.63 In 1611, the Society of Jesus started its missionary work in Acadia. Unlike their predecessor, the Jesuits began their work on Mi'kma'ki by learning the local language and living alongside the Mi'kmaq in order to instruct and convert them to Catholicism.Choquette, Robert. Canada's Religions: An Historical Introduction. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press (2004) p.74

In 1620, George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore purchased a tract of land in Newfoundland from Sir William Vaughan and established a colony, calling it Avalon, after the legendary spot where Christianity was introduced to Britain. In 1627 Calvert brought two Catholic priests to Avalon. This was the first continuous Catholic ministry in British North America. Despite the severe religious conflicts of the period, Calvert secured the right of Catholics to practice their religion unimpeded in Newfoundland, and embraced the novel principle of religious tolerance, which he wrote into the Charter of Avalon and the later Charter of Maryland. The Colony of Avalon was thus the first North American jurisdiction to practice religious tolerance.

British Rule in Canada In the wake of the Canada Conquest in 1759, New France became a British colony. Nevertheless, the Catholic Church continued to grow in Canada due to the flexibility imposed on the British regime in Canada by the Treaty of Paris (1763) on sovereigns of the United Kingdom who allowed the favour of the protection of Catholicism and French-speaking people in Canada. This historical perspective still influences Canadian society today.

In 1908, Canada, along with the United States and five Western European countries, were removed from the Propaganda Fide's jurisdiction and placed under a separate hierarchy.

Anti-Catholicism

Fears of the Catholic Church were quite strong in the 19th century, especially among Presbyterian and other Protestant Irish immigrants across Canada.J. R. Miller, "Anti-Catholic Thought in Victorian Canada" in Canadian Historical Review 65, no.4. (December 1985), p. 474+ In 1853, the Gavazzi Riots left 10 dead in Quebec in the wake of Catholic Irish protest against anti-Catholic speeches by ex-monk Alessandro Gavazzi.Bernard Aspinwall, "Rev. Alessandro Gavazzi (1808–1889) and Scottish Identity: A Chapter in Nineteenth Century Anti-Catholicism." Recusant History 28#1 (2006): 129–152Dan Horner, "Contesting Authority in the Aftermath of Montreal's Gavazzi Riot." Histoire sociale/social history 44.1 (2011): 29–52.

The major flashpoint was public support for Catholic French language schools. Although the Confederation Agreement of 1867 guaranteed the status of Catholic schools where they had been legalized, disputes erupted in numerous provinces, especially in the Manitoba Schools Question in the 1890s and Ontario in the 1910s.Margaret Prang, "Clerics, Politicians, and the Bilingual Schools Issue in Ontario, 1910–1917." Canadian Historical Review 41.4 (1960): 281–307. In Ontario, Regulation 17 was a regulation by the Ontario Ministry of Education, that restricted the use of French as a language of instruction to the first two years of schooling. French Canada reacted vehemently and resisted the implementation of the Regulation. This conflict, which was first rooted in linguistic and cultural questions, transformed into a religious divide. In 1915, Ontario clergy was divided between French Canadian and Irish allegiances, with the Irish supporting the position of the provincial government. Pope Benedict XV asked his Canadian representative to study the divide in order to reestablish unity among the Catholic church in the province of Ontario.Bock, Michel. L'Ontario français, Des Pays-d'en-Haut à nos jours. Ottawa: Centre franco-ontarien de ressources pédagogiques, (2010) p.147. Regulation 17 is among the reasons why French Canada distanced itself from the war effort, as its young men refused to enlist.Robert Craig Brown, and Ramsay Cook, Canada, 1896–1921: A nation transformed (1974) pp 253–62

Protestant elements succeeded in blocking the growth of French-language Catholic public schools. The Irish Catholics generally supported the English language position advocated by the Protestants.Jack Cecillon, "Turbulent Times in the Diocese of London: Bishop Fallon and the French-Language Controversy, 1910–18". Ontario History (1995) 87#4 pp: 369–395. Despite this, French language education in Ontario continues today in Catholic and public schools.

French versus Irish

The central theme of Catholic history from the 1840s through the 1920s was the contest for control of the church between the French Canadians, based in Quebec, and the English-speaking Irish Canadians (along with smaller numbers of Catholic Scottish Canadians, English, and others) based in Ontario.Terence Fay, A History of Canadian Catholics (2002) The French Catholics saw Catholics in general as God's chosen people (versus Protestants) and the French as more truly Catholic than any other ethnic group. The fact that the Irish Catholics formed coalition with the anti-French Protestants further infuriated the French.

The Irish Catholics collaborated with Protestants inside Canada, on the school issue: they opposed French language Catholic schools. The Irish had a significant advantage since they were favoured by the Vatican. Irish Catholicism was "ultramontane", which meant its adherents professed total obedience to the Pope. By contrast, the French bishops in Canada kept their distance from the Vatican. In the form of Regulation 17 this became the central issue that finally alienated the French in Quebec from the Canadian Anglophone establishment during the First World War.Robert Choquette, Language and religion: a history of English-French conflict in Ontario (Univ of Ottawa Press, 1975). Ontario's Catholics were led by the Irish Bishop Fallon, who united with the Protestants in opposing French schools. Regulation 17 was repealed in 1927.Jack D. Cecillon, Prayers, Petitions, and Protests: The Catholic Church and the Ontario Schools Crisis in the Windsor Border Region, 1910-1928 (2013) The French-speakers remain more liberal than the English-speakers to this day, and in addition are also leaving the faith much more quickly.

One by one, the Irish took control of the church in each province except for Quebec. Tensions were especially high in Manitoba at the end of the 19th century. In Alberta in the 1920s, a new Irish bishop undermined French language Catholic schooling, and removed the Francophile order of teaching sisters.Henry Wostenberg, "Language Controversy in the Red Deer Catholic Parish, 1924–1932" Alberta History (2013) 61#4 online

Newfoundland

In the Dominion of Newfoundland (which was an independent dominion before joining Canada in 1949), politics was polarized around religious lines, with the Protestants confronting the Irish Catholics.

The future Archdiocese of St. John's was established on 30 May 1784 as Catholics in Newfoundland gradually gained religious liberty, made explicit by a public declaration by Governor John Campbell. After a request from Irish merchants in St. John's to Bishop William Egan, Bishop of Waterford and Lismore, James Louis O'Donel was appointed Prefect Apostolic of Newfoundland. This was the first Roman Catholic ecclesiastical jurisdiction established in English-speaking North America.

In 1861, the Protestant governor dismissed the Catholic Liberals from office and the ensuing election was marked by riot and disorder with both the Anglican bishop Edward Feild and Catholic bishop John Thomas Mullock taking partisan stances. The Protestants narrowly elected Hugh Hoyles as the Conservative Prime Minister. Hoyles suddenly reversed his long record of militant Protestant activism and worked to defuse tensions. He shared patronage and power with the Catholics; all jobs and patronage were split between the various religious bodies on a per capita basis. This 'denominational compromise' was further extended to education when all religious schools were put on the basis which the Catholics had enjoyed since the 1840s.Frederick Jones, "HOYLES, Sir HUGH WILLIAM," in Dictionary of Canadian Biography vol. 11, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed 25 May 2015. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/hoyles_hugh_william_11E.html.

A series of sexual abuse incidents at Mount Cashel Orphanage, a home for boys run by the Congregation of Christian Brothers, and a police coverup were disclosed in 1989, resulting in the closure of the facility in 1990 after the last resident was moved to an alternate facility. The property was seized and the site razed and sold for real-estate development in the mid-1990s as part of a court settlement ordering financial compensation to the victims.

Newfoundland's denominational schools were funded by the province until the late 1990s. In the fall of 1998, Newfoundland officially adopted a non-denominational school system, following two referendums and judgements by the Supreme Court of Newfoundland and its Court of Appeal that constitutionally recognized the end of provincially-funded all religious denominational schools.The Collapse of Denominational Education" in Heritage Newfoundland & Labrador by Jenny Higgins, 2011. –, accessed 29 May 2018. https://www.heritage.nf.ca/articles/society/collapse-denominational-education.php

In July 2021, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. John's, Newfoundland announced plans to sell off assets in order to compensate victims of the Mount Cashel sex abuse scandal.

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