Pierre Trudeau and the Separation of Religion and Politics

Abstract

Pierre Trudeau’s deep personal commitment to Catholicism was largely unknown to Canadians during his tenure as Prime Minister. Indeed, his religious commitment did not play an obvious role in his political life. Trudeau’s version of Catholicism, ‘personalism’, emphasized the personal – interior – spiritual commitment of the individual and the necessity of the separation of religion and politics. He stressed the importance of individual liberty in matters of faith but also the personal responsibility of the individual to serve others and work towards a more just society. Trudeau was opposed to the recognition of an official religion, and indeed to any form of state promotion of a particular religious belief system. He rejected the assumption that political community or social solidarity required a shared (and public) commitment to a particular faith or culture. His promotion of multiculturalism stemmed from his belief that national identity or political membership should not be based on a shared ethnicity that would necessarily include some and exclude others. His championing of the Charter of Rights rested on the view that citizenship should be grounded instead on a shared commitment to the protection of individual and democratic rights. Trudeau was a committed believer and a secular politician, who sought to separate his public action and private conscience. In a sense then he embodied the separation of religion and politics – of church and state – that is central to the contemporary conception of religious freedom. In this chapter, I want to explore the challenge of separating personal or communal spiritual life from civic life which Trudeau had to navigate, throughout his political career.