Article Added On: December 29, 2004 - over 3 years ago
Title: A window into militant secularism
Author: Raymond J. de Souza
Publication: The National Post
Publication Date: January 01, 2004 - over 4 years ago
Faith Groups: Roman Catholic
Themes: religious tolerance/intolerance

Abstract: True religious tolerance requires a desire to accommodate and foster religious practice, not to grudgingly quarantine it as a threat, writes Father Raymond J. de Souza, a chaplain at Queen's University in Ontario. He is talking about the incident in Calgary: a stained glass window in one of the city's major hospital, the Foothills Hospital, has been covered over because it might be offensive to Jewish and Islamic faiths. He writes, "the secular mindset sees any religious expression as a threat and seeks to eliminate it," scolding the spiritual advisory committee, arguing that "such a committee should seek to expand the possibility of religious practice, not restrict it."

December 29, 2004

The Christmas season brings into focus every year the battle over religious symbols in public places. Yet it was not a Christmas display in a Calgary hospital that provided a classic example of muddled thinking on the issue; it was a chapel window.

As reported in the Calgary Herald, the local health authorities have covered over a stained glass window in the Foothills Hospital chapel. Doors have been installed over a window of St. Luke, the Beloved Physician. The doors can be opened by those who wish to see the window, but visitors to the chapel are asked to close the doors when they leave.

An explanation for the change is provided: "For those of Jewish and Islamic faiths, any representation of the human form is regarded as offensive and unacceptable in a place of worship. The doors have been provided to make the chapel a place of worship for persons of all faiths."

Which should provide comfort to those Jews and Muslims who had objected to the window as "offensive and unacceptable." Except that there weren't any. As Calgary Health Region officials admitted, there were no complaints.

So why the change? There's a bureaucratic answer to that. The Foothills has struck a "spiritual care advisory committee," which includes representatives of different faiths, in order to advise the hospital on spiritual care. In the absence of actual complaints from actual patients, such committees do what committees always do, namely, create issues upon which to work.

Last year, a draft proposal from a committee member called for the removal of bedside bibles from the hospital. That bit of nonsense never saw the light of day, but did produce a sensible addition. A card is now included that advises of the availability of other spiritual texts from the spiritual care office.

"The knee-jerk reaction is always to subtract rather than add," said Fred Henry, the Catholic Bishop of Calgary, in response to the window controversy.

The secular mindset sees any religious expression as a threat and seeks to eliminate it. A spiritual advisory committee in a hospital should not be animated by secularism, but often the result of a misguided tolerance is the same. In a society in which there are different religious traditions, such a committee should seek to expand the possibility of religious practice, not restrict it. That means adding, not subtracting.

It also means a realistic appraisal of the society in which we live. Canada is overwhelmingly comprised of Christians, nominal or otherwise. Hospital patients reflect that fact, and common sense means providing a chapel that recognizes that. That means a chapel with modest Christian imagery, even as one might rightly expect that a majority Jewish or Islamic country would have public hospitals with Jewish or Muslim prayer spaces.

Tolerance, then, requires a response to the actual patients affected, not to some abstract theorizing. An absence of complaints likely means that the common sense of the people has already made the accommodations necessary. At the Peter Lougheed Hospital in Calgary, the chapel includes a Catholic tabernacle and permanent altar for Christian worship. No complaints there either. The people have already worked it out -- which is only surprising to those who equate religious expression with conflict.

Truly religious people are not offended by the religious expressions of others. Religious identities are not so fragile that the mere presence of other faiths cause offence. A militantly secular ideology does take offence, but there is no reason why the intolerance of the secularist should determine public policy, as if religious believers were not equal citizens too. At the very least, secularist ideology ought not determine the policy on chapels.

"Why not go to the Jewish community and ask if there is something that can be placed in the chapel that resonates with their religious tradition that would help them feel more at home, and the same for other major faith traditions?" asks Bishop Henry. "The prevailing mindset of the powers-that-be seems to remove anything potentially offensive even if it's only to one person, without concern for the thoughts and feelings of the majority. We end up with a sterile and antiseptic chapel that suggests more absence than presence of the sacred."

True religious tolerance requires a desire to accommodate and foster religious practice, not to grudgingly quarantine it as a threat. For the most part, ordinary believers work that out reasonably well. They should be allowed to.

Original article