MONTREAL — On a Friday night, families danced under pink and purple neon lights to the beat of an African band playing where the altar used to stand at a Catholic church in Montreal.

Notre-Dame-du-Perpetuel-Secours, built between 1914-1920, was renovated and repurposed in 2014, becoming Theatre Paradox. The concert hall has hosted meditation, Zumba lessons, even a fetish party that organizers touted as “Montreal’s most kinky, freaky and sexy Halloween event.”

In the once Catholic-dominated province of Quebec, it’s just one of many churches that have been deconsecrated and transformed into everything from gyms, restaurants and museums to luxury apartments, auction houses and a university reading room.

For most of Quebec’s history, the Catholic Church was the most powerful force in the French-speaking province, with a firm grip over schools, health care and politics. But its influence faded during the so-called Quiet Revolution of the 1960s, when the provincial government took control as part of a campaign to reduce the church’s power.

The rate of regular church attendance among Quebec’s Catholics plunged from one of the highest in Canada to the one of the lowest. That happened to Notre-Dame-du-Perpetuel-Secours.

Over the course of a century, thousands of worshippers filled its pews. But attendance had dwindled to a few when the event management company Groupe Paradoxe bought it in 2010, said its director, Gérald St-Georges.

He believes that even in a deconsecrated secular setting, the former church continues what he describes as a sacred mission.

Today, it offers training and paid work for young adults, including those with prior addiction issues and juvenile records, in theater and stage management to help them land jobs in the entertainment industry.

“When I started the project, I said to myself, ‘That’s the kind of work the church should do, not only Mass,'” said St-Georges, who is a Catholic. “I practice my faith with what I do every day, helping people.”