At least 50,000 Quebecers are expected to gather Saturday for something most rarely do: attend a religious service.<\/p>\n
But the Mass at the Olympic Stadium to celebrate the elevation of Brother Andr\u00c3\u00a9, a school porter and faith healer who died 73 years ago, to sainthood is one of many contradictions surrounding religion, and Roman Catholicism in particular, in Quebec.<\/p>\n
By most measures, the province is the most secular in Canada. Only 15 percent of Catholics regularly attend church and Quebecers have long rejected the church\u2019s teachings on birth control, marriage and homosexuality….<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Quebec, people are not specifically anti-Catholicism, but they are anti-clericalism,\u201d\u009d said Gilles Routhier, a professor of theology at Laval University in Quebec City. \u201cBrother Andr\u00c3\u00a9 doesn\u2019t particularly represent the church\u2019s power. He was a simple, illiterate, modest person. People recognize themselves in Brother Andr\u00c3\u00a9.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n