Public Square

Faith in Canada 150 exists to celebrate the role of faith in Canada’s public square on the occasion of the 2017 Sesquicentennial.

A public square stripped of faith and its expression is one in which virtues such as hope, forgiveness, grace, and mystery will wither. Those words express the primary principle underlying Faith in Canada 150. They also summarize why Cardus, as a Canadian think tank, is the driving the Faith in Canada 150 program.

In our secular age, we believe a fundamental commitment to pluralism is vital for a think tank committed to its Christian foundations, and for a free society to flourish. If faith can be categorized into act, content and conduct, we begin at the beginning with a grace‐filled rapprochement among Canadians turned toward making faith the active principle in their lives. 

Human beings, as Rabbi Jonathan Sacks says, are meaning‐seeking creatures. We must then, as pluralists, as democrats, as Christians called to love of neighbour, safeguard the freedom to pursue one’s path through mysteries of Being, Purpose and Good.

The alternative, in an age often dismissive of faith, is isolation of the faithful from each other. The result will be stripping faith from the public square through the denial of the possibility of public acts of faith. It will be the withering of the fruits of faith: hope, forgiveness, grace and mystery.