Louis O'Neill has been a Catholic priest, a Parti Québécois cabinet minister, a husband and a father of two children."I hope some day priests will be able to be married," O'Neill said after testifying Wednesday at the Bouchard-Taylor commission on reasonable accommodation of religious and cultural differences.
He said he favours a formal end to priestly celibacy. "I didn't wait. But it doesn't mean that I'm not trying to be a good Catholic."
O'Neill, 82, told the commission Quebec society needs more diversity.
But he also favours the continued teaching of Catholic, and other religions in Quebec schools, noting that Section 41 of Quebec's Charter of rights and freedoms gives parents the right to ensure the religious education of their children "in conformity with their convictions."
In the 2008 fall term, denominational teaching of religion in Quebec schools will be replaced by religious ethics and culture, a course drawing on the teachings of seven major religions, but taking no point of view.
"A (rights) charter should be more stable than that," O'Neill said. "I don't understand why there isn't freedom of choice. Here we are cutting down everything. That bothers me."
He said about 80 per cent of Quebec Catholics define themselves as "believers who don't practise." But most of them still prefer Catholic instruction for their children, he said.
"There has been a rupture," he said, referring to fallout from Quebec's Quiet Revolution of the 1960s when O'Neill was an outspoken reformer.
"People all of a sudden have in front of them people from other cultures, other religions which are very strong, very affirmative and they are ill at ease because they have broken with their (own) past."
The soul-searching exercise that led to the naming of the Bouchard-Taylor commission began with a series of incidents, given sensationalist media coverage, highlighting tension between old-stock Quebecers and newcomers.
One of the first incidents was the decision of the YMCA on Park Avenue to frost its windows, at the request of its Hasidic neighbours, who objected that passers-by could see women in form-fitting exercise garb.
O'Neill noted that the Hasidim have been in Montreal for at least a century without any major friction.
"It is a source of problems today and it was not a source of problems 50 years ago," he said, explaining that the problem is rooted in the uncertainty of Quebecers "who don't feel at ease with their own history, their own past, their own tradition, their own faith. And they are confronted with people who seem to be so sure of themselves, so convinced."
On Tuesday Cardinal Marc Ouellet, who is primate or titular head of the Roman Catholic church for Canada, prescribed a return to the faith to reduce tensions in Quebec society between the francophone, and historically Catholic, majority and newcomers.
On Wednesday, Sylvain Salvas, communications director of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, took exception to The Gazette saying Ouellet "heads the Roman Catholic church for all of Canada."
Salvas said Ouellet's title Primate of Canada is "honorary," indicating he is the bishop of the first diocese founded in Canada.
"Each Bishop is autonomous and heads his own diocese," Salvas added. "There is no head of the Roman Catholic Church in Canada."
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