This story should interest some readers in Goa and everyone who cares about how society changes and new trends take shape. By chance, I came across a video called ‘How Canada’s Faith Quietly Died — and No One Noticed’.
As you can guess, it’s the story of Christianity in the northern part of North America. From its title, you can guess what it’s about. But there’s no substitute for watching the video yourself, which can be accessed here: [https://shorturl.fm/53zvF] or searched for on YouTube by name.
The video makes a convincing case: “For generations, Canada’s moral and cultural identity was shaped by Christianity — from the hymns sung in prairie towns to the cathedrals of Quebec. But today, religion has nearly vanished from public life. Churches stand empty, priests retire without replacements, and entire denominations dissolve.”
Figures at the pan-Canada level are also reflected in smaller towns across the country. Religion once played a major role there. It found expression in church picnics, meal deliveries to the needy, networking to help parishioners get jobs, and even helping people facing disaster. But now the institution is too small to take on such roles. People have other options too.
This is not a rant. It goes on to give fact after fact, image after image, and detail after detail to argue its case.
It starts with Montreal’s Notre-Dame Basilica. The church bells ring as they have for long, but hardly 300 people take part in Sunday service each weekend. The basilica was built to accommodate 3,800.
Canada has become one of the most secular nations. In 1946, the Census showed that only 0.4 per cent (four in a thousand) said they had no religion. In 2021, the same Census question recorded 34.6 per cent as having “no religion”.
As the thought-provoking video puts it, an entire nation lost its faith without a single shot being fired. The story continues in small towns across Canada. Sunday attendance is dropping; young families are not coming, while grandparents and parents did attend.
Religion fades out as life improves? This is one argument that is often put forth. The video takes up that argument too. It seems to make sense. When you have modern medicine, you don’t need prayer for healing. When you have insurance, you don’t need the church community for support. When you have entertainment, you don’t need church socials.
But this video dismisses that explanation as “simplistic”. Instead, changes are seen in terms of the church’s response to contraception (and the Winnipeg Statement). There’s even a reference to multiculturalism, brought in by Trudeau Senior, and how that could have had an impact.
So, in a word, Christianity in Canada is not just shrinking, but also ageing fast. Figures are given to show the drop in the number of those self-identifying as Christians, and how this is even more acute among the younger generations.
So much for Canada. The issue there is important for us in Goa too, for two reasons. Firstly, quite a few Goans have ended up migrating to Canada. The video above talks about migrant Christian communities (it mentions the Philippines and Korea) coming in and filling the gap, to a very small extent. But it also notes that, in a generation or two, even the migrant Christians do not continue to be as religious. They turn out “Canadian” in that way.
In a sense, what’s happening in Canada is reflected — maybe in a less noticeable way — in Goa too. But it is different as well.
In countries like Canada, it can be argued that Christianity’s decline has been due to secularisation, immigration diversity, and disaffiliation from organised religion. (The video above counters some of these traditional explanations, though.) In Goa’s case, demographic and social factors have changed things.
For instance, in Goa there has been higher out-migration among Catholics, lower birth rates among that community (for complex socio-economic reasons), and population growth from in-migrants from other Indian states. But it would be shortsighted not to see similar shadows here too.
Two points remain: issues of religion need not be seen from a communal prism alone. This is not about numerical strength, imagined vote banks at election time, and such concerns. Rather, it has more to do with understanding what changes are taking place, and why.
In hindsight, the late Pope Francis was wise enough to understand why a large organisation like the Catholic Church also needed to change — for the better, and in a hurry. By undertaking some reforms and managing to reinvent the image of the papacy, he succeeded in bringing more credibility to the institution. Few religious leaders have taken such risks.
In Canada, there are sharply falling religious vocations. Religion is showing signs of becoming irrelevant. Such trends have emerged in recent decades. Religion is now seen as failing to “speak to modern life” anymore. Incidentally, all this happened without any forced secularisation as in France and Spain (or even Mexico).
Churches have become community centres, luxury condos, climbing gyms, and more. One has become a brewery. This happens after the congregation ages and shrinks, and the place can no longer be maintained.
Another question has been raised: as religion fades away, what will replace it? France replaced religion with republicanism. In Soviet Russia, it was replaced by Marxism and atheism. In China, Maoism filled the gap. These ideologies, even if totalitarian, gave people meaning, community, and purpose. In Canada, was it filled by liberal individualism, consumerism, or a “vague commitment to being a good person”? Was it a collapse of religion or a collapse of the pressure to go to church?
So much food for thought, as we ponder the changes that are happening even before we notice them....
