The aim of this diploma thesis is to map the form and development of funeral customs in the southern part of the Roman Catholic parish Český Dub - in the collature of the church of St. Jakub Major in Letařovice from the middle of the 19th century to the second half of the 20th century. The focus is on the local village community, its experience of the death of its own member and the form of the funeral rite, which allowed the deceased to pass from the world of the living to the world of the dead. The work analyzes funeral rituals and their development through the prism of the theory of rites of passage, specifically through the perspective of Victor Turner and the analysis of the liminal phase. It also shows the reason for ritual behavior and its performative parts. The work reflects the modernization and secularization of society and tries to reveal their influence on the rituality of burials in Letařovice. It analyzes with bureaucratization and sanitation of funeral homes. The first part of this diploma thesis presents the development of burial in the Czech lands and regional historical context. Furthermore, the traditional rural funeral in the Letařovice cemetery, its spiritual and secular part, is depicted and analyzed, as it looked for the entire period - farewell in the mourning house,...

The Swedish school characterizes a non-confessional religious education, which such education cannot be found in majority of countries in Europe. Despite the influential secularization of society and the individual, there is a notion that proclaims that the non-confessional religious education is not entirely neutral and objective as the syllabus outlines. The purpose of this study is to analyze the non-confessional religious education in a multireligious public school and a Christian independent school. The main purpose of the thesis is to identify the non-confessional religious education and how it is applied in practice in the different school forms. At the same time, it is relevant to examine as regards the space of the religions in the subject of all world religions, partly in scope and partly in content. The method performed is distance interviews by telephone and e-mail due to the prevailing situation with Covid-19. Results of the study show that both school forms are based on a non-confessional religious education, on the other hand shows the empirical material that the public school pays more attention to Christianity in their religious education unlike what it does in the Christian independent school. This is due to various factors such as the location of the municipal school, the student’s response and relationship to other religions which will be discussed in this essay.

This study aimed to investigate how students in upper secondary school experience religious education in a secularizedand multicultural society. This study was conducted using a qualitative method in the form of semi-structured interviews with seven students in upper secondary school. The students that participated in thissurvey positioned themselves as atheists, Muslims, and Christians. The interviews were constructed with the aim of producing a result that reflects the students' experiences of religiouseducation in upper secondary school while considering the students' own experiences of religion. The students' experiences were analyzed and discussed in relation to the Swedish curriculum's description of the purpose of religious education and previous research on religious education in a multicultural and secularized Sweden. Thisresearch shows that there are varied perceptions of how religious education is perceived by studentsbased on their knowledge and experience of religion.Those students who identified themselves as religious, and whose environment consists of a majority with a cultural background other than Swedish, find that religious education tends to deal with aspects that differ from their knowledge and experience of religion. This study also shows that religious education in Sweden is experienced as dealing with religions and cultures on a general level. A common factor identified in the survey is that students findit important to learn about religion through increased discussion and integration whichcontributes to a deeper understandingof religion. This is perceived as a need forreligious education in a multicultural and secularizedsociety. The result presented in this study is also reflected in previous studies conducted in the discipline of religious didactics. This indicates that there are some challenges as well as some opportunities for development regarding religious educationin a multicultural and secularizedsociety.

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This doctoral thesis, entitled “Church & Society in Eighteenth-Century Geneva, 1700-1789”, will seek to reappraise the relationship between religion and the Enlightenment through the context of eighteenth-century Geneva. Based on the perspectives of the philosophes, historians have generally understood the Enlightenment as the source of secularization and a period of religious decline. However, more recent work has begun to reassess the developments of religion in the eighteenth century beyond the philosophes, resulting in an increasingly multi-faceted picture of religion in the age of Enlightenment. This thesis will contribute to that revisionist effort. Eighteenth-century Geneva offers an intriguing example because it allows one to observe the encounter of the Reformation and the Enlightenment in the figurative meeting between Calvin and Voltaire. With that in mind, this work will re-examine the legacy of Calvin from 1700 to 1789 through a socio-historical and theological approach in order to analyze the functioning of religious life in Genevan society, the theological content and development of preaching and worship, and the clerical responses to incidents of conflict in relation to the government and the philosophes. The near totality of this research has stemmed from the study of manuscript sources within the Genevan archives, such as sermons, church and government records, and official and personal correspondence. Through the perspective of Geneva’s church and clergy, a far more complex picture of the dynamic between religion and the Enlightenment will emerge supporting the understanding that the Enlightenment occurred differently in different contexts and challenging the widespread attribution of the secularization theory and the decline of religion thesis to the eighteenth century.

Thèse présentée en cotutelle en vue de l’obtention des grades de Philosophiae Doctor (Ph.D.) en Sciences des Religions de l’Université de Montréal et de Docteur en Sociologie de l’École Pratique des Hautes Études Paris-Sorbonne / À travers le monde islamique, une famille de partis politiques que l’on appelle à tort ou à raison « les partis islamistes modérés » enregistre des résultats électoraux exceptionnels chaque fois qu’un de ses membres participe à un scrutin qui comporte un minimum de transparence, notamment en Turquie, au Maroc et en Palestine. Les premières participations des islamistes aux élections des pays du Printemps arabe confirment davantage cette règle, comme l’illustrent les cas de l’Égypte et de la Tunisie. Sur le plan académique, ce contexte laisse émerger une importante hypothèse. L’évolution de bon nombre d’organisations islamistes en partis politiques qui participent activement à la vie publique de leurs pays serait l’indice d’une sécularisation de ces organisations, animée par une sincère conversion à la démocratie. Cette hypothétique tendance à la sécularisation et la conversion à la démocratie de l’islamisme ferait penser à une expérience remarquablement similaire, que l’on trouve dans le monde chrétien occidental, soit, l’évolution théorique et organisationnelle du christianisme politique qui a donné naissance, en réponse à un long parcours de révisions intellectuelles, à ce que l’on appelle aujourd’hui « la démocratie chrétienne ». L’islamisme modéré serait-il en train d’évoluer vers une sécularisation et une conversion à la démocratie selon un mode similaire à celui qui a donné naissance aux partis démocrates-chrétiens en Occident? Il est question dans cette thèse, préparée en cotutelle entre l’Université de Montréal au Canada et l’École Pratique des hautes études Paris-Sorbonne en France, de vérifier l’hypothèse susmentionnée dans un contexte bien précis. Notre recherche se limite ainsi à l’étude d’un groupe déterminé du paysage islamiste du Maroc (Parti de la justice et du développement [PJD] et son mouvement de prédication religieuse Mouvement de l’unicité et de la réforme [MUR]). Cette recherche s’étend de 1996, date de naissance du PJD à 2011, date de son accession au pouvoir au Maroc. Par ailleurs, la reconstitution et l’analyse sociohistorique proposées dans cette recherche remontent en 1969, date de naissance du Mouvement de la jeunesse islamique qui incarne la matrice du groupe à l’étude. La recherche pose des questions bien précises portant très particulièrement sur le devenir du groupe religieux à l’épreuve du parti politique et, par-delà, celle du devenir du religieux à l’épreuve du politique au sein des modes de penser et d’agir de ce groupe. Pour ce faire, notre recherche adopte un cadre interdisciplinaire conjuguant des approches émanant de la sociologie politique et religieuse et d’autres sciences sociales comme l’histoire et les sciences politiques. Son corpus d’analyse est le fruit d’un travail de terrain effectué lors de plusieurs séjours de recherche effectués au Maroc entre 2008 et 2014. Séjours qui nous ont permis de reconstituer la trame des évènements, d’amasser la documentation nécessaire au sein du PJD/MUR, de rencontrer et de mener des entretiens avec des leaders et des idéologues les plus influents de son parcours idéologique et organisationnel. / Throughout the Islamic world, a political family composed of what are rightly or wrongly named “moderate Islamist parties” obtains exceptional results whenever one of its members participates in an election that is minimally transparent (for instance in Turkey, Morocco, Palestine and Egypt). This rule is confirmed by the initial involvements of Islamists in the Arab Spring (in Egypt and Tunisia for example). Academically, in this context an important hypothesis emerges according to which the evolution of many Islamist organizations into political parties that actively participate in the public life of their countries would indicate that these organizations are undergoing a process of secularization motivated by a sincere conversion to democracy. Islamism’s hypothetical tendency towards secularization and conversion to democracy seems reminiscent of a remarkably similar experience in the Christian West, namely the theoretical and organizational evolution of political Christianity, which gave birth to what is known today as “Christian democracy”, in response to a long series of intellectual revisions. Might moderate Islamism be secularized and converted into democracy in a mode similar to that which gave birth to Christian Democrat parties in the West? In this thesis, prepared under joint supervision between the University of Montreal in Canada and the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes Paris-Sorbonne in France, the aforementioned hypothesis is verified in a very specific context. The scope of the study is limited to examining a particular group within the Moroccan Islamist landscape—the Parti de la justice et du développement (PJD), as well as its sister outfit devoted to religious predication, the Mouvement de l’unicité et de la réforme (MUR). This period under consideration ranges from the birth of the PJD in 1996 to its coming to power in 2011. Moreover, the reconstitution and the socio-historical analysis proposed in this study begin in 1969 with the birth of the Mouvement de la jeunesse islamique, from which the group being examined evolved. The study asks very specific questions concerning the fate of the religious movement in response to the challenges of the political party. Further still, it examines the challenging relation of religion and politics in the group’s actual modes of thinking and acting. With this purpose in mind, the study adopts an interdisciplinary framework combining approaches that stem from political and religious sociology as well as other social sciences, such as history and political science. Its analytical corpus is the product of fieldwork research being done during numerous trips to Morocco from 2008 to 2014. These trips made it possible to reconstitute a timeline of events and to gather necessary documentation from the PJD/MUR. It also provided the opportunity to meet and interview leaders and ideologues that are most influential in the ideological and organizational evolution of the movement. / على امتداد العالم الإسلامي، ما فتئت هذه العائلة من الأحزاب التي ندعوها عن خطئ أو عن صواب بالأحزاب الإسلامية المعتدلة تحقق، فيما يشبه القاعدة، نتائج مميزة متى ما شارك أحد ممثليها في انتخابات تضمن الحد الأدنى من النزاهة و الشفافية (حالة تركيا، المغرب، الأردن، فلسطين، مصر…). هذه القاعدة ستؤكدها المشاركات الانتخابية الأولى لإسلاميي بلدان الربيع العربي (حالتا تونس و مصر). على المستوى الأكاديمي سيسمح سياق اكتساح الأحزاب الإسلامية للانتخابات البرلمانية في بلدان العالم الإسلامي بانبثاق فرضية مهمة يتجلى مضمونها في كون إعادة انتظام عدد كبير من التنظيمات الإسلامية في أحزاب سياسية تشارك بفاعلية كبيرة في العملية السياسية ببلدانها ربما يشكل مؤشرا على خضوع هذه التنظيمات لعملية دهرنة (sécularisation) معززة باعتناق حقيقي للديمقراطية. فرضية دهرنة الحركة الإسلامية و اعتناقها للديمقراطية هذه تدعو لاستحضار تجربة مماثلة على نحو كبير لولا أن أطوارها جرت بالعالم المسيحي الغربي. يتعلق الأمر بالتطور النظري و التنظيمي لعدد من تيارات المسيحية السياسية، تطور سمح بعد مسار طويل من المراجعات الفكرية بتشكل ما نسميه اليوم بتيار الديمقراطية المسيحية بالغرب. هل تكون إذن أحزاب الحركة الإسلامية المعتدلة بصدد تكرار نفس المسار الدي سمح بتشكل الأحزاب الديمقراطية المسيحية بالغرب، لكن بدار الإسلام هذه المرة؟ تسعى هذه الاطروحة المعدة وفق برنامج مشترك (cotutelle) بين جامعة مونتريال بكندا و المدرسة التطبيقية للدراسات العليا باريس-السوربون بفرنسا إلى اختبار الفرضية المذكورة في سياق محدد للغاية إذ تكتفي بدراسة تنظيم إسلامي محدد من ضمن المجال الواسع للحركة الإسلامية بالمغرب (حزب العدالة و التنمية و حركته الدعوية و الدينية حركة التوحيد و الإصلاح) في فترة محددة تتراوح ما بين لحظة ميلاد الحزب سنة 1996 و لحظة وصوله للمسؤولية الحكومية سنة 2011 وفق عمق تاريخي يمتد لسنة 1969 التي تشكل لحظة ميلاد حركة الشبيبة الإسلامية باعتبارها الحركة الأم للتنظيم المدروس. في إطار هذه الدراسة، تثير الأطروحة أسئلة محددة تتعلق بمستقبل الحركة الدينية أمام اختبار الحزب السياسي و بالتالي بمستقبل الديني في مواجهة اكتساح السياسي على مستوى خطاب و ممارسة الحزب و الحركة. لتحقيق هذا الهدف تتبنى هذه الدراسة إطارا بين-مناهجيا (interdisciplinaire) يدمج مقاربات تنتمي لعلم الاجتماع الديني و السياسي بالإضافة لعلوم اجتماعية أخرى كالتاريخ و العلوم السياسية. يتشكل المتن البحثي لهذه الأطروحة من نتائج دراسات ميدانية قمنا بإنجازها بين سنتي 2008 و 2012 بالمغرب. من خلال هذه الدراسات الميدانية، قمنا بإعادة تجميع و تركيب تاريخ و أدبيات التنظيم المدروس و لقاء و محاورة القادة و المنظرين الأكثر تأثيرا في مساره النظري و التنظيمي. كلمات مفاتيح: إسلام، حركات إسلامية، إسلام سياسي، ما بعد الإسلام السياسي، ديمقراطية مسيحية، دهرنة، مغرب، شبيبة إسلامية، توحيد و إصلاح، عدالة و تنمية، ملكية، دولة إسلامية، ديمقراطية.

This work reinterprets the idea of progress at the heart of Woodrow Wilson’s liberal internationalism through the lens of secularization theory, which holds that modern philosophies of progress stand on religious foundations and represent secularized vestiges of biblical eschatology. Previous applications of this insight reveal a selective pattern: Whereas totalitarian and illiberal narratives of progress such as Nazism and Marxism-Leninism have received lavish attention and spawned extensive political religions literature, liberal progressivism has been ignored. This dissertation rectifies this neglect. Initial chapters present the biblical conception of history as the myth of salvation, introduce secularization through the writings of Karl Löwith and Hans Blumenberg, respectively its principal proponent and main critic, and test the limits of the concept to confirm its applicability to liberal progressivism. The main part aims secularization theory at Wilson’s idea of progress in the broader context of American liberal thought. From the 17th-century Puritan vision of a “city upon a hill” to the 19th-century doctrine of “manifest destiny”, biblical eschatology defined the way Americans envisioned history and their role in it, giving rise to a sort of liberal-republican millennialism. Wilson was no exception: Considering faith essential to authentic knowledge, he regarded history as a providential process, the United States as a divinely appointed redeemer nation, and himself as a Christian statesman performing God’s work in a fallen world. His foreign policy was fundamentally a religious mission to transform international relations according to the Bible, thereby fulfilling the prophecy of salvation. The dissertation demonstrates the eschatological foundations of his statecraft through specific examples and draws attention to their illiberal and totalizing implications. Final passages note the enduring relevance of Wilson’s principles and, based on their reinterpretation in this work, reflect critically on their suitability as a guide for future American foreign policy.

This thesis presents descriptive and explanatory accounts of both non-theism, the lack of belief in the existence of supernatural agents, and strong atheism, the moral opposition to such beliefs on the grounds that they are both harmful and signs of weak character. Based on my fieldwork with non-theist groups and individuals in the United States, United Kingdom, and Denmark, an online survey of over 3,000 non-theists from over 50 countries, and theories from both the social and cognitive sciences, I offer a new account of why nations with low economic and normative threats produce high levels of non-theism. This account is offered in place of the common explanation that religious beliefs provide comfort in threatening circumstances, which I show to be both anthropologically and psychologically problematic. My account centres on the role of threats, both existential and normative, in increasing commitment to ingroup ideologies, many of which are religious, and the important role of witnessing displays of commitment to religious beliefs in producing such beliefs in each new generation. In environments with low levels of personal and normative threat, commitment to religious ideologies decreases, extrinsic reasons for religious participation decrease, and superstitious actions decrease. Given the human tendency to believe the communications of others to the extent that they are backed up by action, such a decrease in displays of commitment to religious beliefs leads to increased non-theism in the span of a generation. In relation to strong atheism, I document a correlation, both geographical and chronological, between strong atheism and the presence of religious beliefs and demands in the public sphere. I then offer an explanation of this correlation based on the effects of threats against a modern normative order characterized by philosopher Charles Taylor as a system of mutual benefit and individual liberty.

Durant le dernier demi-siècle, la religion, comme tous les autres domaines d’activité humaine, a connu plusieurs transformations importantes. La diminution considérable, durant cette période, de la pratique religieuse institutionnalisée est accompagnée de l’apparition d’une multitude de nouvelles formes de spiritualités qui tentent de répondre aux besoins religieux de l’homme occidental. Parmi les multiples manifestations de ce genre, on découvre une spiritualité distincte, appelée néo-chamanisme ou chamanisme urbain, réunissant de nombreuses pratiques contemporaines qui se définissent comme chamaniques. Dans le cadre de ce mémoire, nous nous sommes concentrés sur l’étude du phénomène néo-chamanique de Michael Harner, ex-professeur et directeur du département d’anthropologie au Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research à New York, et fondateur de la Foundation for Shamanic Studies (à l’avenir : FSS). La présente recherche a pour but d’analyser le néo-chamanisme de Harner et de définir sa place parmi les nouvelles formes de religiosités. La théorie de la recomposition du religieux de Danièle Hervieu-Léger sert de cadre d’analyse pour cette nouvelle forme de spiritualité. Dans la première partie, nous traitons le phénomène religieux contemporain sous l’angle socioreligieux. Nous présentons un aperçu global des transformations que celui-ci subit en modernité sous l’impact de la sécularisation. À l’aide de la théorie des nouvelles formes religieuses de Danièle Hervieu-Léger, nous mettons en lumière les principales règles selon lesquelles une nouvelle configuration du religieux se déploie dans le contexte occidental contemporain. Dans la seconde partie, nous examinons le chamanisme traditionnel sous l’angle anthropologique. Nous faisons la lecture d’études classiques sur le chamanisme. Il apparaît que le chamanisme classique est communautaire, réservé à quelques personnes choisies par les esprits et que le processus laborieux d’initiation permettant d’accéder à cette fonction implique certains éléments spécifiques parmi lesquels on compte la maladie initiatique, la mort rituelle et la résurrection de la personne. Dans la troisième partie, nous examinons le néo-chamanisme de Harner. Nous rendons compte de son ouvrage majeur La voie spirituelle du chamane : Le Secret d'un sorcier indien d’Amérique du Nord et nous examinons l’expérience chamanique de la Foundation for Shamanic Studies (FSS). Il se dégage de cette étude que l’approche de Harner se veut l’expression d’un chamanisme fondamental et universel adapté à la société contemporaine. La pratique néo-chamanique de Harner se focalise sur le voyage chamanique et sur le contact avec le monde des esprits comme des éléments qui sont au cœur du chamanisme traditionnel. C’est une pratique axée principalement sur l’individu à des fins d’accomplissement de soi et d’(auto)guérison. Elle attire généralement des personnes dont le niveau de scolarité est élevé, disposées à payer pour les services fournis par la fondation. À la fin de notre étude, nous dégageons les conclusions générales suivantes : le néo-chamanisme de Harner s’éloigne de la tradition chamanique et la transforme en une spiritualité nouvelle adaptée aux besoins des Occidentaux; il reflète les transformations subies par le fait religieux pendant la période moderne; il s’adresse principalement à un public en quête de services spirituels ciblés et ponctuels et il favorise une forme de communalisation temporaire et intense; cependant, l’individuation de la pratique chamanique est porteuse de ses effets politiques et néocoloniaux. / Since the last half century, religion as all the other human working fields has passed through lots of significant transformations. The considerable diminishing, during that period, of the institutionalized religious practice is accompanied by the apparition of a multitude of new forms of spirituality that tempt to answer to the western human religious needs. Through the multiple manifestations of this kind it has been discovered a distinct spirituality named neo-shamanism or urban shamanism that gathers under this name a multitude of contemporaneous practices that are defined as shamanic. We focused on Michael Harner’s study about the neo-shamanism phenomenon, ex-professor and manager of the department of anthropology to Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research in New York and founder of The Foundation for Shamanic Studies (from now: FSS). The present research objective is to analyze Harner’s neo-shamanism and to identify its place between the new religious contemporary forms .The concept of recomposing Harner’s religious ideology becomes the focus of the analysis of this new form of spirituality. In the first part, we address the religious contemporary phenomenon from a socio religious point of view. We present a global view over the transformations that this phenomenon suffered during the modern period under the influence of secularisation. With the help of the new religious forms theory of Danièle Hervieu-Léger, we emphasize the main rules that run the religious configuration in the contemporary western context. In the second part we analyse the traditional shamanism from an anthropological point of view. We are skimming the prior classical studies about shamanism. It seems that the classical shamanism is communitarian, reserved to some persons that are chosen by spirits and that the hardworking process of initiation allowing to have access to this function implies some specific elements like the initiatic illness, the ritual death and the person’s resurrection. In the third part, we analyse Harner’s neo-shamanism. We focused our analyzing on his main work La voie spirituelle du chamane: Le Secret d'un sorcier indien d’Amérique du Nord and we analyse the shamanic experience from Foundation for Shamanic Studies. The idea that gets out from this study is that Harner’s shamanic approach wants to be the expression of a fundamental one and universally adapted to the contemporary society. Harner’s neo-shamanic practice is focused on the shamanic trip and on the contact with the spirit’s world as being elements that make up the core of the traditional shamanism. It’s a practice mainly focused on the individual that has self accomplishments and (self) healing ends. It appeals generally to persons highly educated and ready to pay for the foundation’s services. At the end of our study, we get out the following conclusions: Harner’s neo-shamanism gets distance from the shamanic tradition and turns it into a new spirituality adapted to western people’s needs; Harner’s neo-shamanism reflects the transformations that the religions suffers during the modern period. It addresses mainly to a public in quest of concrete spiritual services and it gives advantage to a form of temporary and intense communalisation; however, the individualisation of the shamanic practice is carries its political and neo-colonial effects.

À partir des études récentes démontrant l’importance des élites catholiques dans la foulée des changements et de la modernisation de la société québécoise entre les années 1930 et 1970, nous tentons de mieux comprendre ces élites, leurs motifs et leur destin. Issues des jeunes générations de laïcs contestataires des années 1930 et 1940, nous montrons d’abord que les élites catholiques laïques ont été influencées par des courants philosophiques de renouveau chrétien et par leur formation dans l’Action catholique spécialisée. En contestant le cléricalisme et le conservatisme présents au Québec entre 1930 et 1960, elles ont développé une pensée réformiste se situant dans l’esprit du concile Vatican II et de la Révolution tranquille. Un trait caractérise ces élites: même en étant critiques envers l’Église catholique, elles sont tout de même demeurées loyales envers le catholicisme. Nous proposons de nous réapproprier la sociologie de Max Weber afin de mieux comprendre l’implication des élites catholiques laïques à la modernisation de la société québécoise et, par là, de saisir le type particulier de sécularisation qu’a connu le Québec des années 1950 à 1970. Pour ce faire, nous retenons les parcours de vie et le discours de trois représentants de ces élites: Guy Rocher, Jacques Grand’Maison et Claude Ryan. À partir de ces acteurs, nous délinéons trois « voies » distinctes empruntées par les élites catholiques laïques pour s’engager dans la société. Ces trois « voies » relatent certes des types d’engagement différents, mais elles renvoient aussi à un ancrage catholique commun. En considérant le point de vue de ces élites face aux transformations du paysage religieux au Québec, nous examinons enfin l’utilisation du concept de sécularisation par rapport à la laïcisation et la déconfessionnalisation ainsi que les enjeux actuels liés à la religion. / Based on recent studies acknowledging the importance of Catholic elites in the changes leading to the modernization of Quebec society between 1930 and 1970, this master thesis try to provide a better understanding of these elites, their motives and their destiny. Stemming from the young generations of lay protesters of the 1930’s and 1940’s, the lay Catholic elites were influenced by philosophical tendencies within the Christian renewal and their formation in the “Action catholique”. Questioning the clericalism and the social and political conservatism prevalent in Quebec between 1930 and 1960, they put forward a reformist thought tuned with the “spirit” of the Vatican II council and of the Quiet Revolution. One characteristic of these elite: even if they were critical of the Catholic Church, they retained a loyalty towards the Catholicism. I propose to “reappropriate” the sociology of Max Weber in order to better understand the involvement of lay Catholic elites to the modernization of Quebec society and, thus, grasp the particular kind of secularization that take place between 1950 and 1970 in Quebec. In order to do so, I study the life trajectories and discourses of three actors from these elites: Guy Rocher, Jacques Grand’Maison and Claude Ryan. With these actors in mind, I describe three distinct “ways” taken by the lay Catholic elites to get involved in their society. Those three “ways” certainly relate three different types of involvement, but they also refer to a common Catholic feeling of belonging. Considering the point of view of these elites together with the transformations of Quebec’s religious landscape, I can question the use of the concepts of secularization, laicization, and deconfessionalization and, thus, describe the way religious issues are dealt with.