Dear editor,
Imagine visiting Paris or Rome and walking into a Tourist Information Centre; you look around and your eyes meet a flat screen with a slideshow about all the architectural landmarks except Notre-Dame or St. Peter鈥檚 Basilica.
Well, this last summer any visitor to Jasper walking into the information centre wanting to know which architectural landmarks by A.M. Calderon or by any other reputed architect were there to visit, would have looked at a flat screen inside the lobby next to the main entrance and completely missed one of them: St. Mary and St. George Anglican Church (Provincial Historic Resource; only remaining structure designed by聽A.M. Calderon whose corner stone was laid by the聽Governor General of Canada, on 1928, and one of the few examples of 14th century English聽Gothic revival in Western Canada).
Frankly it begs the question as to what criteria guided the decision to exclude one of the main architectural landmarks and historic provincial sites from that slideshow.
Yes, a governmental agency as Parks Canada is to be non-religious and secularist but does it mean that we are to exclude all religious buildings from what is offered to tourists? If yes, then we could make a case to exclude from tourist guide brochures the Pyramids of Egypt, the mosque of Hagias Sofia in Istanbul, the Hindu Angkor Wat temple or what is left of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Not even in hyper-secularist and anticlerical France has anyone with a good sense of history and a genuine secular mindset come up with such a senseless idea. It is tantamount to excluding Newton, Mendel, Pasteur, Da Vinci, Sagan, Planck, etc., from the history of sciences because they were religious or even priests.
As a secularist I support the view that it is better to exclude religion from formal decision making processes in civil affairs and particularly public education (let the religious groups indoctrinate their children); but I am an archeologist by training鈥攆rom one of the most anti-religious places you could conceive鈥攁nd even if I still were an atheist I would be dismayed to see the great cultural centres and cities of our world shying away from some of the greatest examples of architectural, technological, scientific, artistic and cultural achievements of humanity.聽 Secularism and culture are not mutually exclusive.
We all鈥攁theists, secularists, religious, and/or believers鈥攃an be objective so to appreciate ALL the beauties Jasper has to offer.
Julio C. Martin
Former Rector of Jasper鈥檚 Anglican Parish
