Churches in Quebec get new secular roles as restaurants, gyms

On a Friday night, families danced under pink and purple neon lights to the beat of an African band playing where the altar used to stand at a Catholic church in Montreal.

- ASSOCIATED PRESS

Notre-Dame-du-Perpetuel-Secours, built between 1914-1920, was renovated and repurposed in 2014, becoming Theatre Paradox. The concert hall has hosted meditation, Zumba lessons, even a fetish party that organisers touted as “Montreal's most kinky, freaky and sexy Halloween event”.

In the once Catholic-dominated province of Quebec, it's just one of many churches that have been deconsecrated and transformed into everything from gyms, restaurants and museums to luxury apartments, auction houses and a university reading room.

For most of Quebec's history, the Catholic Church was the most powerful force in the French-speaking province, with a firm grip over schools, health care and politics. But its influence faded during the so-called Quiet Revolution of the 1960s, when the provincial government took control as part of a campaign to reduce the church's power.

The rate of regular church attendance among Quebec's Catholics plunged from one of the highest in Canada to the one of the lowest. That happened to Notre-Dame-du-Perpetuel-Secours.