Quebecers and their religion

The views of Quebecers with regard to religion is a fairly confusing issue.

Nominally speaking, 83% of Quebecers are baptized Catholics. Areligious people comes in second (5.8%), followed by Protestants (4.7%), Muslim (1.5%), Orthodox (1.4%), and Jews (1.3%), then a plethora of assorted Buddhists, Hindu, Sikhs and Other Christians.

Note that I said "Nominally speaking". That means, of course, the actual situation is a little more complicated...

In practice, polls over the last few years paint a very different picture - only 20% of Quebecers believe in the God of the Catholic Church, and only about 67% of French-Canadians believe in any God at all (the discrepancy is made up of people who have their personal take on God), with the number being even higher among younger Quebecers. Of Quebec's catholics, only about a quarter are actual practicing (ie, church-attending) Catholics, while the others are (to borrow a term from the Republicans) Catholics In Name Only.

At the same time, and quite paradoxaly, Quebecers are actually quite prone to having religious symbols in public settings: a crucifix hangs in full view in the assemblée nationale (parliament), town councils the province over regularly open their meetings with a decidedly Christian prayer, and the majority (as of 2007) was against changing either of these (even while being against religious symbols in the public domain in general). And, of course, even as 75% of Quebec Catholics are non-practicing, the majority of Quebec Catholics thinks that no longer going to church translates to Quebecers losing their moral value.

Confusing, isn't it? I could probably hazard a few guesses as to the why of this - for starter, the Church was a major institution in the history of French Canada from the start, and became the central French-Canadian institution after the British conquest, and thus became an important part of Quebec nationalism, and culture, something Quebecers are unwilling to discard even while they have been (badly) burned by actually listening to priests - but they would only be guesses.