I’ve been known to joke about decorating my bedroom wall with a crucifix to express support for Roman methods of dispensing justice – or Roman methods of dealing with irritating street preachers, as I say when I want to make the joke a little edgier. It may be feeble as an attempt at comedy, but I think it’s a reasonable way to draw attention to the undeniable fact that a symbol can mean very different things to different people, or even to the same person when the symbol appears in different contexts.
In the overheated and seemingly endless discussions about the Charter of Quebec Values that have taken place on this blog and elsewhere, one of the more interesting points has been the view in some quarters that the (in)famous crucifix that hangs in Quebec’s national assembly should be allowed to stay put because it represents a component of Quebec’s heritage rather than being just one more religious symbol that potentially compromises the secular neutrality of the government. The Charter aspires to promote secularism “while making allowance for the emblematic and toponymic elements of Québec’s cultural heritage that testify to its history”. The cross in the national assembly, I guess, is considered an emblematic element falling into this category.
Many people take that whole line of argument as rank hypocrisy, a clumsy attempt to privilege Catholicism above other religions. I can see the logic behind their interpretation, but I don’t find it persuasive. Religious symbols can indeed take on a broader cultural significance that makes them available to unbelievers, and as a religion fades its symbols can be entirely subsumed by the surrounding secular culture. Nobody interprets the Canadian Medical Association’s Staff of Asclepius as a sign of commitment to Greek paganism.
The crucifix clearly hasn’t become equally detached from its religious meaning in Canada, a country in which Christianity remains alive and reasonably well, but it seems possible that recognizing the cultural significance of the crucifix might actually undermine its religious significance. Barbara Kay, of all people, expresses the idea beautifully:
Non-Catholics find the retention of the crucifix offensive because of the hypocrisy it illuminates in a government Charter promoting religious neutrality everywhere but in its own home. But practising Catholics should be doubly offended. For this heritage religion is held in extreme disrespect, one might even say contempt, by many members of Quebec’s political and chattering classes. The decision to keep the crucifix was a sop to aging francophone nationalists with lingering nostalgia for pre-diversity days. So it is there, but trivialized, as though it were any quaint cultural antique, like a pine butter churn or a birchbark canoe.
Kay doesn’t seem all that enthusiastic about trivializing the crucifix in this way, but I think it’s a great idea. Nudging the crucifix towards pine butter churn status would subtly undercut the potency of Catholicism as a force in modern Quebec, while acknowledging the simple historical fact of its place in the province’s heritage. And what’s not to like about that? Whether the crucifix will be allowed to remain in place seems to be currently up in the air, but I hope Quebec’s leaders leave well enough alone. If nothing else, hanging a birchbark canoe in the national assembly as a replacement would be a touch awkward.