A History of Canadian Catholics (Volume 20)

by Terence J. Fay

In A History of Canadian Catholics Terence Fay relates the long story of the Catholic Church and its followers, beginning with how the church and its adherents came to Canada, how the church established itself, and how Catholic spirituality played a part in shaping Canadian society. He also describes how recent social forces have influenced the church. Using an abundance of sources, Fay discusses Gallicanism (French spirituality), Romanism (Roman spirituality), and Canadianism - the indigenisation of Catholic spirituality in the Canadian lifestyle. Fay begins with a detailed look at the struggle of French Catholics to settle a new land, including their encounters with the Amerindians. He analyses the conflict caused by the arrival of the Scottish and Irish Catholics, which threatened Gallican church control. Under Bishops Bourget and Lynch, the church promoted a romantic vision of Catholic unity in Canada. By the end of the century, however, German, Ukrainian, Polish, and Hungarian immigrants had begun to challenge the French and Irish dominance of Catholic life and provide the foundation of a multicultural church. With the creation of the Canadian Catholic Conference in the postwar period these disparate groups were finally drawn into a more unified Canadian church. A History of Canadian Catholics is especially timely for students of religion and history and will also be of interest to the general reader who would like an understanding the development of Catholic roots in Canadian soil.

392 pages, Paperback

First published May 9, 2002

Reviews

[Czarny Pies · Rating 2 out of 5]

Terence J. Fay's "A History of Canadian Catholics" does not appear to have been very widely read. I am the first person to rate it on Goodreads and only the second to review it. Sadly, it must be acknowledged that that the book fully deserves the miserable fate that it has suffered.
"A History of Canadian Catholics" is purely a work of synthesis history. Fay freely acknowledges that he conducted no archival research for it. His secondary research is also thin and the reader wonders if Fay spent more time writing the work than he did researching it.
"A History of Canadian Catholics" is at best a dreary political history. Fay carefully examines the relations of the Catholic Church with the colonial governors, federal politicians and provincial politicians. However, he shows virtually no interest in the pastoral activities and social mission of the Catholic Church. He provides no statistical tables on the number of parishes, parishioners, catholic schools, students, or hospitals. Fay describes the political lobbying to obtain funding for catholic schools but never describes what happens in the class rooms.
The best feature of Fay's book is that it contains an integrated a history of the Francophone and Anglophone Churches in Canada squarely addressing the disputes and infighting between the two factions.
Fay's big thesis is that the Roman Catholic Church in Canada has gone through three phases: the Gallican, the Roman, and the Canadian.
The Gallican period was that of the French Regime when the Catholic Church was under the rule of the French king and the bishops were drawn from the upper nobility. Fay, may, however be reversing the roles when he argues that that the Catholic Church was executing the policy of the Crown during the French era. The French monarchs in fact understood like Voltaire Canada was neither of economic or military value. Had the Church not been so committed to having a base for evangelization in the New World, the French Crown might well have abandoned the colony or significantly scaled back the resources allocated to it. In a similarly myopic manner, Fay never acknowledges what a disaster the suppression of the Jesuit order was to the missionary work of the Church in North America.
Fay's second section "Romanism" covering the period from the English Conquest to the outbreak of WWI is very strong. He gives a subtle portrait of the internal conflict between the French and English speaking groups. He also stresses that both groups were very ultramontane in that neither was influenced by connections to either aristocracy or royalty. Both the French and English sides of the Church worked only for the pope. Both strongly supported nineteenth century devotional practices such as the rosary.
Fay however runs into problems in the final section "Canadianism" which is really about the manner in which the Canadian Church coped with modernism. Fay analyzes certain issues very well such as the Church's relationship to Communism and Fascism. In other areas, he is quite weak. On Duplessis era her ignores the arguments made by Conrad Black the leading English-speaking historian on the period and those of Robert Rumilly, the leading French-speaking historian whose book does not appear in Fay's bibliography . Finally Fay lets himself slip into the dissenter camp in the last 70 pages of the book where his comments suggest that he is for contraception, neutral on abortion and in favour of the ordination of women. As a member of the faculty of the St. Augustine Seminary, Fay comes dangerously close to arguing against the formal positions of the Catholic Church. If the number of the book's readers is as small as I think it is, one can only be thankful.

[Allan Savage]

Fay provides a good orientation within his subject matter for the reader and new student. Selecting from published materials he presents a chronology of the growth of the institutional Catholic presence in Canada by assessing, analyzing and interpreting of information in an ecclesiastical framework. He says that "many colleagues and students have let me know that an outline history of the Canadian Catholicism is needed now" (p.ix). The title, A History of Canadian Catholics, however, led me to expect a disclosure of some personal thoughts or motivations of the individuals who have left their mark on Canadian Catholic Church history. Rather, I discovered their views to have been presented through an ecclesiastical filter. To my mind, the book could have been entitled, An Ecclesiastical History of Catholics in Canada, since it is the corporate identity that provides the threat that links his subject matter. Fay has made choices in presenting his material and has remained faithful to his theme. He has chosen to cite individuals whose contributions or comments impinge directly on a corporate influence of the Church. His book does meet a current need in understanding Canadian Catholicism and I will recommend it accordingly.