French Canadian - Religion

Religion

The pre-revolutionary kingdom of France forbade non-Catholic settlement in New France from 1629 onward and almost all French settlers of Canada were Roman Catholic. In the United States, some French Catholics have converted to Protestantism. Until the 1960s, religion was a central component of French-Canadian national identity. The Church parish was the focal point of civic life in French-Canadian society, and religious orders ran French-Canadian schools, hospitals and orphanages and were very controlling of every day life in general. During the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s, however, the practice of Catholicism dropped drastically. Church attendance in Quebec currently remains low. Rates of religious observance among French Canadians outside Quebec tend to vary by region, and by age. In general, however, those in Quebec are the least observant, while those in the United States of America and other places away from Quebec tend to be the most observant. There are also French Canadians who have Canadian citizenship and whose mother tongue is French whose families arrived in Canada over the last 75 year who are not Christian. There are many people from France, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia, and other countries whose mother tongue is French and are either Muslim or Jewish.