Unlike some commentators, I'm not very surprised by the decision of Judge Gerard Dugré, appointed in 2009, in the case brought by the Loyola High School who wishes to teach the course on Ethics and Religious Culture (RCTs) a religious perspective. On the one hand, we have a two tier school system that allows the denominational private schools. On the other hand, the Constitution Act of 1982 begins as follows: "Whereas that Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law. " (In 1982, when Pierre Elliott Trudeau drafted the Charter of Rights and Freedoms , Conservative evangelicals have been pushing to add text to this reference to God.) Even if Article 2 of the Constitution provides for freedom conscience and religion, it was clear to me that opponents during RCTs would rely on the preamble and, perhaps, come across a judge who would give them reason.
The most disconcerting in the decision Dugré, what are some of his comments on During RCTs that demonstrate, once again, how judges are poorly trained for their task. Fortunately, in the case of ongoing RCTs remain the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court. By cons, there still find
judges ... In its ruling, Dugré says the program of Loyola is comparable to that of the Ministry of Education (MELS). Yet, while the first objective is to transmit and promote the Catholic faith, are those of the second "to explore, depending on age, different manifestations of Quebec's religious heritage present in its immediate or remote; to know the elements of other religious traditions in Quebec to flourish in a society which combines multiple values and beliefs to flourish in a society which combines multiple values and beliefs. "
Moreover, the judge said we should allow the Loyola School to teach all subjects according to the confessional approach. Thus, it has opened the door, for example, the teaching of creationism in biology classes. Then if a religion believes that math was created by Satan, it will happen.
Finally, he asserts that the obligation imposed by the MELS to teach the CRE so secular "is a totalitarian character equivalent to the order given to Galileo by the Inquisition to recant the Copernican cosmology. The Inquisition ordered Galileo to deny science in the same manner as the judge allows the school Dugré Loyola to deny the scientific approach of the course RCTs on behalf of religious principles.
Would you care for your teeth to a mechanic? Your hair done in an actuary? Yet, in this case, we asked a judge specializing in taxation to comment on questions of law, certainly, but also education, religion and political philosophy. And it crashed! Today, knowledge of the law is no longer enough to become a judge. Society is complex and requires that those who make the justice decode and understand. It may be time to unleash justice solely in the hands of lawyers.
Little Reading
Georges Leroux, Ethics and religious culture. Dialogue. Arguments for a program , Montreal, Fides, 2007.
The debate on the ongoing RCTs is far from over, I invite you to read Leroux, one instigators of this training. "Secularism, he writes, does not mean rejection of religion or belief, but welcoming the difference in a world of respect and duty." The school is an ideal place for students to gain this religious culture, the ability to understand the beliefs and symbols that structure the relationship to the world of others, and develop their ethical rationality, their ability to deliberate. A bias for the knowledge and critical thinking: it is far from indoctrination ...
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