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	Quebec Should Impose a Moratorium on Church Demolitions: Report By Jocelyne Richer Macleans [Canada] June 6, 2006 http://www.macleans.ca/topstories/politics/news/shownews.jsp?content=n060673A QUEBEC (CP) - The Quebec government should immediately impose a moratorium on the demolition of churches in order to protect the province's rapidly disappearing religious heritage, says a report released Tuesday. "It's a heritage that is in danger," Bernard Brodeur, head of the legislative committee tasked with looking into the issue, told reporters. "We heard from the authorities of the Catholic church, but also of many Protestant denominations, that their heritage is in peril." Although definitive numbers are difficult to come by, several dozen churches and other religious buildings have been sold off by Catholic dioceses in Quebec in recent years. Some have been converted into condos and others simply razed. Church attendance has declined across Canada over the past five decades but nowhere has the decline been greater than in Quebec. In the province where the Roman Catholic Church once dominated every aspect of everyday life, church attendance has dropped from about 85 per cent in the 1950s to less than 20 per cent today. Quebec's religious heritage has been increasingly abandoned by the faithful and reduced to a state of "great peril," said Daniel Turp, a Parti Quebecois member of the committee. On the island of Montreal, it has been suggested that as many as 100 of 285 churches could close over the next 10 years. To remedy the situation, the all-party legislative committee recommended the province take a proper inventory of all of Quebec's religious artifacts, including everything from statues and sacramental vestments to churches, convents and monasteries. The committee estimates the value of such artifacts to be between $3 million and $4 million. Among 33 recommendations included in the report, the committee said Culture Minister Line Beauchamp should immediately enact the ban, which should remain in place until 2008, enough time for the province to come up with ways to better protect the province's religious heritage. During that time, no churches could be demolished, even those that sit vacant, said the committee. It also recommended increasing the powers of the foundation that deals with religious heritage. This newly constituted council would oversee restoration and educating the public about the value of the province's religious history, said the committee. Other provinces have also seen the sell-off of church properties. Most notably, the Newfoundland diocese of St. George's sought bankruptcy protection and then bought back its own properties to raise $13 million to settle a class-action lawsuit by sex abuse victims. And the assets of the Christian Brothers of Canada, including schools and monasteries, were liquidated to compensate boys abused at the Mount Cashel Orphanage in St. John's, N.L.
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