Jesuit school takes case to Supreme Court of Canada

(Vatican Radio) A private Jesuit high school has decided to take its five-year battle for religious freedom to the Supreme Court of Canada. Loyola High School in Montreal submitted its petition to the country’s highest court February 2. It is requesting a review of the decision issued by the Quebec Court of Appeal in December.

The December ruling in favour of the province’s Minister of Education obliges the boys school to teach the state-imposed Ethics and Religious Culture (ERC) program from a secular perspective—a task Loyola says compromises its Catholic mission and infringes on religious freedom as outlined in the Canadian Constitution.

Douglas Farrow, professor of Christian Thought at McGill University, was Loyola’s expert witness in previous proceedings. He explains the repercussions of the case in the worldwide movement to secularize Catholic education.

“There is a strong movement to impose secularization upon the whole education system, and the religious schools are being asked and in some cases, as here, required to act as if they were nothing but agents of the state,” he said.

“Loyola is just one case in point, not only in Canada but in the whole western world, of the state trying to transform a religious institution into what they consider appropriate for a non-religious or state-controlled institution,” he continued. “So I think what happens with Loyola here is in some way a canary in the coalmine as far as freedom for Catholics to exercise the right of educating their children in the way they see fit.”

The case presents two crucial constitutional questions never before considered by the Supreme Court:

- First, where is the line to be drawn between the state’s interest in education and the rights of religious schools to act according to their religious mission, beliefs and character?

- And second, can a religious corporation claim religious freedom rights under the Constitution or do these rights pertain only to individuals?

The next few months will be a waiting game, as the Supreme Court ponders whether it will hear the case. It may be fall before the court issues its decision.

Listen to the report by Laura Ieraci:

For more from the interview with Douglas Farrow: