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Archbishop Peers says Canada forcing religion out of public life
2002-005-3
1/9/2002
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[Episcopal News Service]
Archbishop Michael Peers of the Anglican Church of Canada says that the nation is moving dangerously close to eliminating all mention of religion in public life.
In a New Year's Day sermon in Ottawa's Christ Church Cathedral, Peers said that Canada prides itself on its multiculturalism yet is moving to eliminate references to the faiths that underpin that culture. 'Imagine telling Sikhs and Muslims that their culture is respected in this country but the society has no place for their faith. Faith and culture are intimately connected,' he said.
In the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, prominent Canadians have suggested that what defines the country is 'secularism, pluralism and democracy,' he charged. That creates 'a powerful and potentially very serious conflict' because secularism is increasingly being defined as elimination of all religious references in public life, out of fear that religion will cause division, he said.
That would lead to what he called 'not only a suppression of our pluralist reality, but also folly of the worst sort for our society.'
Peers said that without some understanding of faith, Canadians would never be able to understand the current conflicts between India and Pakistan or between Israel and the Palestinians.
Suppression of religion does not work, he said, and 'eventually that kind of suppression implodes on itself because it is a broad denial of things that run far, far deeper than material life.'
Peers concluded that 'a truth suppressed always takes its revenge,' predicting that, just as many Christian denominations moved beyond their disputes and began working together, so the world's major faiths will also enter into deeper relations during this century.
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