I was reading an article recently on the social tensions being experienced in Québec as a result of multi-cultural immigration. The Québec government spent five million dollars on a study of the issue, and the Premier has promised to implement the proposed solution put forth in the report by the members of the study group.
The study determined that because Québec is no longer predominately French Catholic, the solution to multi-cultural tensions is radical secularism. In de facto practice this means that any religious symbol is to be allowed in public life, with the exception of Christian symbols: “Crucifixes must be removed from the National Assembly and classrooms and Christian prayers banned from city council meetings but students should be allowed to wear their Islamic hijabs, Jewish kippas, Sikh turbans and even the ceremonial dagger called a kirpan.” According to the article I read, the report made one or two exceptions based on Québec’s long-standing Catholic culture: “‘Under the principle of the neutrality of the State, religious displays linked to the functioning of public institutions should be abandoned.’ But because ‘Catholicism has left an indelible mark on Québec's history,’ the huge crucifix on top of Mount Royal in Montreal and the town and village names derived from the Catholic calendar of saints can stay. These were deemed to ‘no longer fulfil an obvious religious function.’ The famous crucifix in the National Assembly ‘can be put in a room devoted to the history of Parliament.’” According to the article, these measures do not signify a radical change but only an adaptation: “‘What we are facing, instead, is the need to adapt’. The growth of secularism and the fading of the traditional French Catholic culture of Quebec means that greater accommodation must be made to non-Christian immigration. The proposed solution is radical secularisation [sic]. ‘Our society is sufficiently divided at present and we must seek to reduce splits and tensions instead of exacerbating them. The time has come for compromise, negotiation and balance.’”
What are we to think of radical State secularism being the “solution” for the problems of multi-culturalism? Not much! State secularism may sound very kind and “tolerant” but the truth is that it leads inevitably to State atheism. It is a matter of common sense: a State that recognizes every god in fact recognizes none, especially not the true God. We can already see symptoms of this State atheism in the Québec situation. The government is bending over backwards to make every religion, and god, feel welcome, except for the true religion and the true God. Muslims and Jews may wear the symbols of their religion, but Crucifixes and Catholic symbols are to be taken down and hidden away in lavender as relics of the past history of Québec. The Québec government stresses the need for “negotiation” and “compromise” but how is it possible to negotiate or compromise the truth? There can be only one true God and only one true religion. Truth is – period. If it is negotiated or compromised it is no longer truth, but just another manifestation of error. If every god is recognized by a State, then obviously no god is recognized as being true, and especially not the true God. The ramifications of secularization for government are enormous. Whether society wishes to believe it or not, God IS. And as God, He and His laws must be acknowledged and obeyed by governments as well as by private individuals. Those governments that reject God and His laws will be punished by Him, and rightly so.
Those already infected with this “tolerant” and implicit form of atheism known as secularism will ask how I know which God is the true one. It is very simple: He has revealed himself in Sacred Scripture, both the Old and the New Testaments, and in the Tradition of the Catholic Church. This Divine Revelation, Scripture and Tradition, is contained in the Deposit of Faith safeguarded by the Catholic Church whose Founder is God Himself. To reject or deny the Catholic Church as the true Church is to reject and deny her Founder, Jesus Christ. To reject Christ or to deny His claims is to call Him a mountebank, a deceiver. He said that He is God and He proved His claim by numerous and outstanding miracles, the greatest of which being His own resurrection from the dead. Who but God could resurrect Himself from death? Since Christ is God, to reject Him or to deny His claims is to fall into atheism.
Secularism, which appears as an innocent “tolerance”, is actually a most dangerous deception and an insult to the true God. It is certainly not a “solution” to multi-cultural tensions, but will only exacerbate the problem. The true solution is for society to recognize the claims of God and to live accordingly, converting those who do not know the truth to the true religion and to the true God.
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