Sts. Paul and Peter Catholic Church in Baie-Saint-Paul, near Quebec City. (CNS photo/Philippe Vaillancourt, Presence)
In a pastoral message released in December, Cardinal Gerald Lacroix of the Archdiocese of Quebec announced a dramatic transformation in how the Catholic Church in the province should understand itself. Faced with declining resources and a faithful but increasingly small cohort of weekly Mass attendees between 2 and 11 percent of the province, according to The Economist in 2016 Cardinal Lacroix called on the church in Quebec not to struggle to hold on to what it has left but to see itself as a mission church moving outward. “We must reorient our pastoral teams toward a more intensely missionary activity, turned toward the people and groups that we join too little,” the cardinal said.