On Consecrated Ground

In 1965, Africville, the largest and oldest black community in Canada was bulldozed into memory. What was lost to the politicians of Halifax was an inconvenience, an eyesore. What was lost to the people whose roots ran deep through the once-vibrant community was an entire way of life.

The story of the consecrated life in Canada since the 1960s should be about much more than numerical decline. Although the falling numbers are significant among Catholic religious in communities that pre-date Vatican II, many communities continue to show stability and even growth. This book provides nuance to that story by adding detailed portraits of movements, communities and institutions. In four parts, this book presents essays from the leading scholars on religious life in Canada that seek to address the state of religious communities dedicated to religious virtuosity normally characterized by formal promises of chastity, poverty, and obedience. The essays examine a broad range of topics related to the general state of consecrated (or “religious” or “monastic”) life in contemporary Canadian Christian and Buddhist traditions. In the first section, the contributors trace the demographics and definitions of religious life in Canada. The second section examines Canadian developments in Catholic religious life during the Vatican II and the post-Vatican II eras. A third section explores trends in contemporary Canadian religious life, while the fourth section describes the consecrated life in other Canadian religious traditions.