RECHRISTENED SPACES
Deteriorating Catholic churches in Quebec are being sold and finding unexpected new lives in secular world
MONTREAL— Quebec’s church-owned real estate is being sold off and transformed for secular purposes at an alarming rate, raising concerns about the protection of the rich religious heritage of a province once partially run by priests and nuns.
Nurtured in Catholic faith, Quebec has largely left behind religion in the halfcentury since the Quiet Revolution, which, among other things, ended the practice of priests and nuns administering the education and health systems.
Now Quebec is faced with a glut of under-used churches that can’t be maintained or upgraded on the meagre donations of congregants. The result: a record 92 churches were sold in 2014, according to Quebec’s Religious Heritage Council.
Former churches in Quebec are now home to concert halls, circus schools, climbing gyms, libraries, palliative-care centres, condominiums, community centres and daycares. One downtown Montreal church serves as a nordic spa and gym. Another, in the town of Coaticook, near Sherbrooke, has been turned into a glow-in-the-dark mini-golf course.
While the idea of a putting green in a century-old church might displease purists, the alternative — letting churches rot and eventually be demolished — is worse, said the Université du Québec à Montréal’s Lyne Bernier, who holds a Canada Research Chair in Urban Heritage.
“If we don’t try to come up with plans to try to reuse these buildings . . . then we’re demolishing them to put up new buildings that are insignificant in comparison and I think a society would be poorer as a result,” Bernier said.
“In many villages, the church is the most beautiful building around.”
In Quebec, there is now a cadre of developers, architects and planners schooled in church renovations struggling to think up new ways to repurpose such specific buildings.
One of the recent projects by Montreal architect Ron Rayside involved transforming the main body of Église Notre-Dame-du-Perpétuel-Secours, a Catholic church built in 1914, into a venue for concerts and events, and turning the basement into a training centre where struggling 18- to 35-year-olds learn to become lighting, sound and video technicians.
Joëlle St-Louis, a spokeswoman for Groupe Paradoxe, the company behind the project, said work is being completed this summer on 12 apartments for its trainees, with some of the on-site rooms set aside for singleparent families.
There are headaches and costs that go along with converting a 100-yearold heritage building. But the advantages are also significant, St-Louis said.
“It’s a unique, out-of-the-ordinary experience when you come to see a show. There are other churches that host concerts, but they’re not specially converted for it,” she said. “Here the sound is extremely good . . . . We had a heavy metal concert and I’m not a fan of heavy metal but it sounded so good that even I enjoyed it.”
Rayside favours conversions with a social purpose, because they maintain a church’s deeper mandate of bringing people together and because such projects can also draw on government subsidies that help to pay the sometimes considerable bills.
But the future promises only more complex challenges for Rayside and his ilk, who anticipate that costs of operating and repairing some of Quebec’s major churches and cathedrals will eventually outstrip the ability of religious authorities to pay.
Already this year, a 150-year-old cathedral in Rimouski was forced to close when it was judged a security risk. Then in May, Quebec City’s Église St-Jean-Baptiste, built in 1883, was shut down to avoid the $10-million repair bill and the $175,000 in yearly costs.
The larger the building, the harder it is to find deep-pocketed buyers or imaginative developers who can think up a use for such a space.
Such cases need the guidance, support and possibly even the finances of municipal and provincial governments, who have so far shown only discomfort in tackling any matter that brings together the political and spiritual realms, said UQAM’s Bernier.
“It’s not about subsidizing religion, but we need to think about new uses for these buildings. If not, we’re going to lose them all,” she said.
“In many villages, the church is the most beautiful building around.” LYNE BERNIER UNIVERSITÉ DU QUÉBEC À MONTRÉAL