On Sept. 11, 1984, Céline Dion found God. At Montreal’s Olympic Stadium, she sang “Une Colombe” (“A Dove”) for 65,000 young people and Pope John Paul II. When the song ended, real doves were released. One landed on the pope’s shoulder and stayed there: a miracle, Céline claimed, that made her a believer.
Josée Lamère was 20 that day. She had helped organize the visit as a youth adviser to the archbishop of Montreal, in a province that had spent 20 years dismantling the church’s grip on its hospitals, schools, and public life. Josée wasn’t watching the doves at Olympic Stadium that day. Instead, she was live broadcasting at Radio-Canada’s Montreal studios, telling the province’s young Catholics they owed the church no automatic loyalty, that their own values had to be part of any new contract with the institution. The dove had landed for Céline. For Josée, it never quite would.
