Pay up, sinner

>>The Catholic Church embarks on a million-dollar fundraising campaign, but refuses to recognize the Duplessis Orphans

by JACQUIE CHARLTON

The Catholic Church's latest advertising campaign speaks to the cringing child in all of us. "Does your child know why he's celebrating Easter this year?" lectured one billboard that appeared last month. When that came down, the subsequent ad was equally austere: Jesus on the cross with the words "Collecte annuelle." No "Please give generously," no mention of what positive changes your money would effect. The fundraising equivalent of a rap on the knuckles.

Agence Bos's Marie Trudel, the creator of the ad campaign, said she was seeking a simple message. "The people it was aimed at already know what it's about."

It's the Catholic Church's 11th annual funding drive. They're seeking $1.5 million and have so far reaped about $1.2 million. According to the church's fundraising coordinator, the money goes to parishes in poorer neighbourhoods, who are free to spend the money on such services as food and clothing banks, and salaries for religious instructors who visit schools. The Easter ad was something new for the church, designed, says Trudel, to remind people of the church's presence.

Coincidentally, the ads were hanging in bus shelters and on billboards last week, when a report was issued claiming the Catholic Church had made $70 million (in 1999 dollars) in the 1940s and 1950s by designating thousands of illegitimate children in its care as mentally handicapped.

These children, the so-called Duplessis Orphans, have asked for a public inquiry into their treatment, which the provincial government has so far refused.

The president of the Duplessis Orphans Committee, Bruno Roy, has noticed the Catholic Church's finance campaign ads.

"When they want money they start talking," he says. "But when it comes to them resolving an issue--an issue for which they are partially responsible--then it's total silence. When I see these finance campaigns they give me the shivers. When you know that it was their money that was used to make children into mental patients at a certain era. But if you dare to ask for money... there's something absurd about it."

Holy wealth accumulation!

The study that tallied the amount the Catholic Church made from its transformation of illegitimate children into mental patients provides some fascinating details of the Church's business savvy. Written by economist Léo-Paul Lauzon and researcher Martin Poirier of UQAM's Chaire d'études socio-économiques, it gives examples of the church's "constant and manifest" opposition to the transfer of control over education, health and welfare services to the state from the end of the 19th century to the mid-'50s. This control gave it an immense social, economic and political power that ensured it a steady stream of worshippers and charity dollars.

And the real estate the Church accumulated in the course of its social services monopoly turned into a goldmine. In 1970, according to Poirier, the Church was the largest single real estate holder on the island of Montreal. Poirier's and Lauzon's study describes how religious institutions are always pointing to the deficits on their balance sheets through the years to prove they were not in it for the money. What they have not mentioned, the writers say, is the fact that mortgage payments on their real estate were included in the institutions' expenses, although they actually represented capital assets, not losses of any kind.

Saintly hypocrisy

Certainly, Duplessis Orphans spokesperson Roy thinks there are some instances where a Christian preoccupation with the poor might seem a little wanting, at least with Cardinal Jean-Claude Turcotte, the leader of the Catholic Church in Quebec. Turcotte has said publicly that the orphans deserve no apology from the church and has refused their request to meet with him.

"Monseigneur Turcotte moves in Paul Desmarais' circles these days," says Roy. "They just came back from Rome together. The finance campaign is supported by Paul Desmarais. You see who he hangs around with. Monseigneur Turcotte hangs out with power, wealth, people who have money. But as for the poor, well, Monseigneur Turcotte doesn't seem to realize that the crowd he's giving food to at the Accueil Bonneau includes many grown-up Duplessis Orphans."