Benedict's ongoing battle against secularism

"Evangelical Catholics such as the late Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger of Paris actually see this kind of secularism as a precondition for authentic faith, because it forces Christianity to be a personal choice, rather than something imbibed from religiously homogenous cultures where faith and practice are buttressed by the state."

I think that this is how many people feel about the choice for an authentic faith. I don't think that most people actually want to live in a religious culture as much as a secular culture in which they choose how much religiosity/spirituality they want to inform their lives. The problem is that religious cultures buttressed by the state always go too far in dominating personal choice. While I decry much of the capitalistic secularism with its corruption in this country, I sure don't want to be dominated by a church state with its corruption, either. I think we need to re-learn the importance of the social contract and a higher level of communitarianism, but I think the Church is mostly making secularism the enemy to fight when that is a strawman.

Why is it that the Pope and the Holy See authorities never mention the influence of 'Clericalism' which is highly resented by all well-informed Catholics?

Perhaps, the Church needs to fully embrace a modern modern definition of the word "catholic" :|ˈkaθ(ə)lik| adjective; 1 (esp. of a person's tastes) including a wide variety of things; all-embracing. Note: "Catholic" implies a wide-ranging or inclusive attitude (: "known for his catholic tastes in music") 2 ( Catholic) of the Roman Catholic faith. • of or including all Christians. • of or relating to the historic doctrine and practice of the Western Church.

A perspective predicated on "inclusive" and "wide-ranging", it would seem, would offer a certain credibility toward the Church, toward its history, toward its current variegated features, and expressions, in terms of Liturgy, of traditions, and of cultures. The Catholic Church is like a large, multiethnic family, covering four or five generations, and all the differences, in terms of politics, art, music, literature, and worldview, that four or five generations signifies in any large family. When a family denies its blessings of diversity and individuated personalities, nothing ever good seems to come of it. The same, I fear, is in store for the Church that I love.

I am a traditional Catholic, in that I choose to celebrate the Mass in an/the Extraordinary Form; and that I tend to pray or sing or chant or mumble, in Latin and in Greek. But this predilection does not force me to then think politically or socially in a xenophobic or hyper-conservative fashion. I don't. Nor does it require that I have a disdain for Vatican II, or for other religions and denominations. I don't. I believe that the adjective "catholic" signifies the true brilliance of a global church. A church that has a strong sense of history, a strong sense of "caritas et amor", and a church which reflects back the true face of all of humanity and of all of God's creation.

This binary system of "Traditionalist vs. Post-Vatican II" reminds me of many bitter dinners I suffered through, as a child, with my extended family screaming curves at each other. Back then, I simply prayed that everyone would stop long enough to appreciate all that they had in front of them. I wish the same, with all of the factions, that bounce around within the Church today.

Pax vobiscum.

When the Vatican announced that unhappy, traditional Anglicans can be admitted to the fold a colleague, with a grimace and a resigned smile, said, "Well all the people who hate women and homosexuals in Church will be in the same place." It does indeed seem that right-minded people are welcome to pick and choose their Catholic practice. Sad.

At the same time, but in another department, the Vatican is conducting a kind of inquisition, albeit not with that name and with protestations that it isn't, of women's religious communities in the USA. Choosing to ignore history and sociology, instead the preoccupation is with attire, and the decline of women entering religious houses.

Young priests prefer a cassock and biretta to knowing how to relate to people, and turning backs on congregants saves them the trouble of doing so.

The impact of these things will be felt by the Church in fifty years. By then, the Holy Father, long since resting in the Vatican grotto, will have been made a saint (and given Henry VIII's title of Defender of the Faith), the young priests will have grown old and live lonely lives of quiet desperation in dusty rectories and nursing homes, America will have been returned to the status of mission territory, and the sisters, God love 'em, will be keeping on keeping on. They will survive everyone, perhaps even the Vatican.

It seems as though the Pope is reinforcing pomp & circumstances that have nothing to do with being a Christian...a follower of Christ. These are rules & practices that impinged into being a Christian from the Roman Empire's hierarchical government.

Besides, didn't Jesus himself say that many could preach in his name, not just the chosen 12, and that the fruits of their preaching would reveal them to be true or false? Jesus didn't say that their words, literally translated, would be their test, but the works that followed from their preaching.

Does what Pope Benedict XVI help people actually spread the Good News by their actions or does it help people close in on themselves & those like them, closing out anyone not of their mindset?

Do the Society of St. Pius X and those who would continue discriminating against women & gays manifest the Beatitudes??

I wait -- and probably will do so until I go to my grave -- for the Church's frank examination of how it has itself contributed to the growth of secularism over the centuries. There are any number of examples, of course, but nowhere more obvious, perhaps, that its recourse to the trappings of political and material power. Yes, I know the Papal States are no longer with us, but Pius IX's desperate attempts to save them, and his immuring himself as a so-called "prisoner of the Vatican" thereafter did the cause of Catholicism no good. And indeed how far are the Church's structures of authority, which still exist, modeled on secular examples -- namely, the late Roman empire and the "new monarchies" of the Renaissance and early modern periods? Surely they owe more to that history than they do to Sacred Scripture.

You've put it so succintly, John, and I tend to agree with you. The Church is now under serious attack from many quarters, to wit: Renewed indigenous faiths, Pentecostal-style Protestantism, fundamental Islam, and of course secularism, relative morality, hedonism, and what-have-you. But let us not forget the weak links in the Church itself, the abusers and porno-Bishops etc. We may be at the beginning of Christianity, as Lustiger said, but it may not even get off the ground before the Parousia arrives. As Jesus himself said: "When the Son of Man arrives, will he find Faith in the world?". Cheers.

"To over-simplify a bit, Benedict XVI is opening the door to the Lefebvrites and to traditionalist Anglicans in part because whatever else they may be, they are among the Christians least prone to end up, in the memorable phrase of Jacques Maritain, "kneeling before the world," meaning sold out to secularism."

John Allen, you've been in the ivory tower of the Vatican for too long. These groups have been kneeling before the world and promoted the secularism of GW Bush and into the politics of fear, war, gay bashing, and women bashing too.

Get your head out of the clouds and into the Gospels of Jesus Christ.

The opening to Lefebvrites and traditionalist Anglicans can be viewed in yet another way. They represent forms of catholic christianity which appeal to people who are inclined to flee the world rather than engage with it as called for by the council document on the Church in the Modern World. For the followers of the schismatic french archbishop, modern is immediately connected with the "modernists" of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These are regarded as heretics who propose dangerous innovations which they claim arise from the development of doctrine. For these traditionalists, doctrine is fixed in place by the magisterium to which all Catholic owe complete allegiance. That certainly appeals to Pope Benedict even though he knows that the issue is more complex than that. He is a brilliant theologian who will soon canonize Cardinal Newman who so championed the notion of development of doctrine. But vis-a-vis the faithless and secular stance of contemporary Europe, the Lefebvrites represent a ray of light.

The appeal to the Anglicans harkens back to a notion of ecumenism in which all roads lead to Rome. They have sought a safe harbor from those within the anglican communion which, from their perspective at least, appear hell bent on destroying it from within. But these special ordinariates might also be a harbinger of things to come. Might a forumula of union with the Orthodox (or at least some of them)be palatable if they can express a fealty to the Roman Pontiff which doesn't require them to abandon vital aspects of their tradition, including autocephalous governance of their own churches? What about Protestant groups that are weary of leaders whose departures from traditional Christianity have left them a shadow of their former selves?

The Pope should be affirmed for his efforts to resist secularism, relativism, and mindless efforts to adapt the church's beliefs to the popular culture. Whether these particular initiatives will advance that cause remains to be seen.

Brilliant analysis, as always!

Always a pleasure John Allen.

Wow!

The intellectual hoops Mr. Allen's (mostly sub rosa) liberal ideology requires him to jump through are truly astounding.

His circumlocutions in this column alone would make my simplistic brain ache.

Personally I'm deeply relieved you appended your thoughts in Spain to this article. I become so frustrated when Catholic "identity" gets tied in almost exclusively to a global north perspective.

I reacted most negatively to your statement that "at the policy-setting level of the church today, this defense of catholic identity is job number one," although I tend to agree with that conclusion even from my remote place in the scheme of things. It's becoming glaringly apparent that this "job number one" is an overarching motivational factor behind the two investigations of U.S. religious women. The enlightment from the article about the Stonehill College Symposium (9/2008)and its "moving" influence on Cardinal Rode metaphorically literally dazzles in a blinding light. Up until that reading people could only conjecture about why. Given your article today following right after the Stonehill revelation takes away a lot of the masking that's gone on. Thank you, John, for an article that reminded us that the catholic church is universal, not European, nor of the U.S.A. either alone or together.

"When the term of comparison is no longer secularism, however, but rather some forms of Pentecostalism or Islam, or quasi-magical currents in indigenous belief, that change of context positions Catholicism differently, as an alternative to religious movements that at times veer toward fundamentalism, extremism, or thaumaturgy."

Unfortunately, I see fundamentalism, extremism and thaumaturgy on the rise in the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church's rich intellectual tradition does not make it immune from these forces.

Steve

Protecting and defending 'Catholic Identity" is a form of egotism and has nothing to do with the teachngs of Jesus.

Great article, just wished Mr. Allen would have used the term "relativism" in conjunction with secularism.

You state - "The capacity of Catholicism to integrate reason and faith, and uphold tradition while at the same time engaging modernity, emerges with greater clarity." Your idea being: we're not the most backward therefore we must be forward-looking - is specious.

This notion is a flight of escape from the reality experienced throughout the first world peoples. Patriarchal feudalism as the choice of governance for the "defense of tradition" is difficult to recognize as an engagement with modernity and educated peoples rightly question the wisdom of its strictures.

Why are those Anglicans who might cross the Tiber labeled "traditionalists"? They may oppose homosexual bishops and/or women-bishops, but is their position on priestly celibacy, women-priests and deaconesses, contraception, homosexual "marriage", and a host of other issues also to be considered "traditionalist"? I think there's quite a bit of oversimplification in the lumping of these Anglicans together with the SSPX group...

Mr. Allen insightfully indicates our greatest competition is not in fact secularism (if only! we might get some health care around here, and other real world solutions!) but from the opposite end of the perceptual spectrum, the eye of the thaumaturge.

Easily solved: His Holiness kicks off those ruby red slippers and walk across the Tiber.

Saint Gregory Thaumaturgus, ora pro nobis.

Let us read therefore this evening The Gift of Death by the deconstructionist Jacques Derrida who sees philosophy itself as thaumaturgy, and who magically unfurls responsibility, faith, and gift.

You mean Italy only now gets around to removing a Roman Catholic sacramental from public school classrooms? And that only under regional court order?

Live the Faith; don't flaunt it and force it on others, what you do not yourself live, nor even what in your conscious you have chosen to live.

I think John Allen is insufficiently aware of the Latin American milieu. In particular, he's insufficiently aware of the historic relationship between the Latin American elites and the European scene. He thinks too much in terms of "the West" and "the others", placing Latin America with the others.

But Latin America's elites has always perceived the region to be part of the West. The Enlightenment and the French revolution inspired Latin America's independence movements and Mexico and other countries have experienced secularist revolutions that can only be compared to France's or Russia's.

The current battles on abortion in Mexico, Colombia, Peru, etc. prove that the strong anti-clerical and laicist element is very much alive, with the financial assistance of Western European and Anglo-American monies.

On the subject of the Anglicans and Lefebvreites - I'm confused. How does hating gays, looking down on women and refusing to have mass in any contemporary language point to someone who is not enamored with the things of this world?

Thanks for this informative and very wise essay. You've made clear, what, to lots of people, are recent strange moves by the Vatican. The opening, if we can call it that, to the right is paradoxical since at least one of these groups, the Lefebvrites, oppose all that new Europe stands for and thus will only ensure more so-called "secular" attacks on the church. But the main problem, as I see it, for the church in Europe, is the vast clericalist structure of the Vatican itself. If the Vatican bureaucrats emptied out into the streets of Europe ready to do the work of the Gospel you would see a sympathetic change in the ordinary view of Europeans for the church. But the perception in Europe is one of disdain for the Vaticanisti, as well it should be.

Cardinal Martino was correct when he described the Church as under siege by a lay inquisition. I would even venture to say a secularist inquisition that seeks to be ideologically pure by believing only in what can be derived from physical observation. I know several "evangelical atheists" who preach the gospel of Christopher Hitchens and others who feel that they have "evolved" beyond the need for bedtime stories about Gods and Saviors. Like their over-pious polar opposites their moral superiority can be pretty thick.

Modern society encourages questions. So does our faith: You can only come to God honestly, (good reference to Cardinal Lustiger). People probably always had profound questions about our faith but in the past were afraid to ask for fear of punishment.

But no one is being "converted" to atheism by atheists. They aren't going "to" anything. They are simply going "away" from the Church. The reason is largely because their questions are not being answered - or answered persuasively. And so, many assume that there is no answer and drift away.

Not only each generation, but each individual must be evangelized, and sometimes re-evangelized. Maybe it isn't the fault of secularists. Maybe the fault, dear Horatio, is in ourselves for being to lazy or proud to put the hard work in to reach people on their terms in their language to show them what the good news actually is.

As usual, Mr. Allen hits it squarely on the mark. Even before his election as Pope, Cardinal Ratzinger warned against the "dictatorship of relativism" --a philosophy that commands all to accept, as unalterable truth, that there is no such thing as truth.

Our Holy Father, throughout his pontificate, one might argue throughout his career, constantly warns against the steady encroachment of secularism, the belief that religion, specifically, Christianity, has nothing to offer, and no place in, the public square. Driven by the spirit of relativism, secularism preaches that any faith that purports to believe in objetive, unchangeable truth is, at best passe and at worst dangerous.

Secularism has always been a danger to Christians who are called to be "in the world, but not of the world". But, since teh 1960's and the onset of political correctedness and relativism (hidden behind the disguise of tolerance), secularism has become a hallmark in Western culture: believe whatever you want on Sunday, but don't you dare let it influence you Monday through Saturday.

The image that Maritain gives is one that each and every Christian should use in his or her daily examination of conscience: how many times have I knelt before the world today, when I should have been kneeling before the Cross?

It seems to me that for some people the symbols have lost their meaning and have become the reason for being. Is it more important that their be a crucifix on the school wall or that families and teachers model making their best effort for living the gospel life?

God Bless the work of the Catholic Church in Italy and around the world. God Bless the work of Pope Benedict XVI.

It is interesting that Cardinal Martino should speak of a "new Inquistion" when the Church has never apologized for the atrocities she committed during the original "Holy" Inquisition. In fact, it was precisely such atrocities that gave spur to the move for secularization during the period of the Enlightenment. The bloodshed and persecutions of the "Holy" Inquistion did not stop until secular political leaders put a stop to them. This may be one reason why Europeans are not quite enchanted with Holy Mother Church.

So, yes, Europeans of today may feel free to "insult" and "attack" Catholics, but at least they are not burning anybody at the stake...eh, Cardinal?

John, I second your assessment of where Catholicism stands in the world today, that "Catholicism often seems a balanced, moderate, and sophisticated option" and that "its capacity ... to integrate reason and faith, to uphold tradition while at the same time engaging modernity, emerges with greater clarity." The return to Latin; priests facing the altar rather than the people; not allowing the priests or the laity the role that was outlined in Vatican II; welcoming the Lefebrists back despite their condemnation of Vatican II; making special allowances for the "traditionalists" in the Anglican Church, while seeming to make none for loyal Catholics; consistently favoring the "right" and criticizing the "left"; etc., etc. may very well change this perception of Catholicism.

True, it is much more work to obtain adherents without the backing of the state or of society, but it is much more meaningful if they come because of personal choice. Furthermore, we have to educate our own people so that they will know who they truly are and will appreciate just what a treasure is the Church (despite its failings, which have to be acknowledged). When Cardinal Lustiger of Paris said that we're really at the dawn of Christianity, he may have had in mind that we no longer were a State religion, which happened back in the time of Constantine. It is almost like starting over.

Maybe it isn't Catholicism itself which is under attack in Europe, but Catholic hypocrisy. That hypocrisy also has serious consequences in the South and is one reason traditional indigenous and evangelical spiritualities are on the rise.

Right on John!!

Sorry John Allen Jr. A public school system, even in Italy, should not display crucifixes. A private Catholic school can, however, as a public school system it should not be allowed to display religious symbols like a crucifix. Separation of church and state must be guaranteed.

This is indeed a human rights issue and the law was right in their decision. A public school system is for all religions and no religion too. So display of crucifixes is wrong in a public school system and that mother was correct to bring it to the court's attention.

My goodness! John Allen writes an article partially about the SSPX, and doesn't mention holocaust denial even once! Are you feeling OK John?

Why is "secularism" regularly treated as a dirty word, on a par with serial killing, mass murder, child abuse, etc.?

I have known many so-called secularists whom I was honored to call friends; decent, honorable, ethical people who happened not to need a church or religion to as a reason for their behavior.

I have also known people who showed up in church each Sunday and were otherwise worthless individuals.

It always puzzled me that the South, the so-called Bible Belt, the self-proclaimed most religious part of the United States was also the scene of a hundred years of lynching, Jim Crow, and institutional racism. Most likely the same men out in white sheets on Saturday night were sitting proudly in the front row of their local church on Sunday morning.

Not all that issues from the church is necessarily good nor is everything outside the church bad.

This is the first time I've heard the SSPX associated with cafeteria Catholicism. You need to get your facts straight if I understood this charge correctly. Rome clearly indicated on several occasions that no schism actually existed either, so give that false claim a rest too.

I also think your overall assessment concerning secularism is off the mark.

Have a great day and God Bless.

"Seen exclusively through a European prism, it could perhaps seem as if secularism is the chief, if not the only, pastoral and cultural challenge facing the faith. The truth, however, is that Europe is really the only zone of the world where secularism has an especially large sociological footprint. In the United States, there are influential pockets of secularism among our cultural elites -- in the faculty lounges of our universities, for example, and on our newspaper editorial boards -- but at the grassroots we remain an intensely religious society. Outside the West, one has to look long and hard to find real secularists."

"In most of the rest of the world, the primary pastoral challenge facing Catholicism isn't secularism but the competitive dynamics of a bustling religious marketplace. In Africa, Asia and Latin America, the main competitors to Catholicism are Christian Pentecostalism, or Islam, or revived forms of indigenous religion. As a result, to craft future strategies for Catholicism based largely on defending ourselves against secularization risks misreading the social situation. Most people in the world, most of the time, aren't seriously tempted by secular agnosticism, but rather by one or another option on the contemporary spiritual smorgasbord -- and that smorgasbord is, therefore, where at least some share of your energy and imagination ought to be directed, not just pondering secularism."

"Let me offer one practical implication. To the extent we define secularism as our main problem, Catholicism inevitably ends up looking defensive, forever building walls around a tradition we believe to be under assault. When the term of comparison is no longer secularism, however, but rather some forms of Pentecostalism or Islam, or quasi-magical currents in indigenous belief, that change of context positions Catholicism differently, as an alternative to religious movements that at times veer toward fundamentalism, extremism, or thaumaturgy. The capacity of Catholicism to integrate reason and faith, to uphold tradition while at the same time engaging modernity, emerges with greater clarity."

"In other words, given what's actually on offer in today's religious marketplace, Catholicism often seems a balanced, moderate, and sophisticated option. For the record, this is how most people on the planet right now actually see the Catholic church, in light of what else they see around them."

"That realization ought to have consequences not only for our missionary and pastoral strategies, but also for our own attitudes about the church."

Profound, poingant, and telling insight as always Mr. Allen. Yes, the Holy Father is trying to defend the Church against secularism, and it is rampant in many ways throughout Europe. In most countries large majorities of the population no longer consider themselves subscribers of any sort of religion and churches continue to become more and more scarcely populated.

Yet, turning Catholicism into a sect isn't the answer to battling this trend in Europe. As you said, making it look as a VIABLE option among the world's religious spectrum is a key component to bolserting Catholicism's credibility. Not to say that we need any kind of credibility in the eyes of the world (we have the Holy Spirit on our side!) image plays a big part in relating to an individual's heart and conscience.

And does the former prefect for the Congregation of Justice and Peace not realize the blatant hypocrisy of his words? There is an Inquistion going on within the Church right now! And it's targeting anyone who doesn't subscribe completely to Pope Benedict XVI's agenda!

The leaders of the Church need to find a much more moderate and pastoral approach to dealing with today's problematic concerns, rather than engaging fundamentalists groups such as the Society of St. Pius X or homophobic fringe Anglicans who are upset that their Church has actually step foot into the 21st Century. A pastoral is especially necessary when dealing with questions of human sexuality. When has the Vatican ever convened a commission to study intricately and ask of the personal testimonies of Catholics who happen to be homosexually oriented and living in loving relationships, divorced and re-married Catholics, or women who have made the choice of having an abortion? It would be wise of the shepherds of the Church would attempt to imitate the compassionate gaze of Our Lord, Who was constantly "moved with pity" by those who fled to Him for support and comfort. In response, to many individuals who had been cast out and derided by society the Lord responds by reminding us, "He who is without sin, cast the first stone"

Since Jews were in Rome during the Empire, long before the Christians arrived, would there be the same reaction if the Star of David was displayed in Italian public classrooms as a traditional cultural symbol instead??

How do they think that religious parents who are other than Catholics or Christian feel about having their children exposed to these symbols in public classroons for years at a time???

When Jesus said "Do unto others as you would have them do to you", perhaps He was asking his followers to walk in others' shoes for a mile or two...

Thank God that many nations' modernization seems to follow a path of secular tolerance towards all, while favoritism towards none...a true separation of Church and State...

Catholic theocracies are just as bad as any other kind!!!

Italians are very aware that the plaintiff in the Strasbourg case about crucifixes, Soile Lautsi is not an Italian but a Finn who chooses to live in Italy. It's obvious from her name she's an immigrant. She is not an Italian citizen and probably could never be, because Italian law essentially closes off citizenship to immigrants. Indeed, Ms. Lautsi has not made immigrants any more acceptable to Italians. Italians do not like immigrants, to begin with.

Catholicism is indeed inextricably entangled with Italian identity. While Italians are easygoing about foreign religions (they allowed an immense mosque to be built near the Vatican, while several Muslim countries bar Catholic churches), they are not about to give up their own.

The greatest achievement of Pius X, in my view, was to institute the practice of First Communion for children. Throughout the Catholic world, that has been an important rite of passage. The other sacraments perform the same function.

Here's a statistic worth pondering: According to French newspapers, 62% of French babies are baptized. That's in "secular" France, where a large proportion of French are Muslims or animists. The late Cardinal Lustiger, whom you cite, delighted in participating in all the sacraments with his flock, very publicly. He appreciated how these help define us as a people.

"You can freely insult and attack Catholics, and nobody will say anything."
Nonsense - Catholics and others will freely expound contrary views.
However there was a time when Catholics 'freely insulted and attacked' others, but these attacks were not merely verbal arguments, as the records of the Inquisition show.

Thanks to John Allen yet again for his perceptiveness and communication skills. No doubt Europe has become a stronghold of secularism. I'd suggest that Australia whose European settlement, starting in 1788, was organised and carried out by British products of the Enlightenment, has ever since that time been a society completely dominated by secularism. The spirituality of its indigenous peoples was ignored or destroyed by the invaders and the faiths held by many of the white settlers, whether convict or free, were seen as interesting or irritating minor facets to those people's lives. I'd be surprised if there is any other nation where faith is less part of public discourse and discussion than in this Great South Land.
Gerard Hore
Townsville
Queensland

"The court, based in Strasbourg, issued its ruling in response to a petition from an Italian woman named Soile Lautsi, who lives near Padua and who claimed that having crucifixes in the public school classrooms attended by her two children violates the church/state separation provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights. The court agreed, awarding Lautsi 5,000 euros (roughly $7,400) in damages."

The real tragedy here is that Signora Lautsi does not want the Catholic Church to have an influence on her two children. An unfortunate legal precedent has been set here.

St. Anthony of Padua, pray for us.

The Vatican is not concerned about secularism but about maintaining its power in Italy.

They use the term in the same way that many in the US (ab)use it to perpetuate the myth that the US was founded as a Christian Nation.

In both cases they show a terrible lack of Faith in God's plan.

Pope Benedict's emphasis on combating secularism, especialy of the European kind, instead of also combating "Christian Pentecostalism,Islam, or revived forms of indigenous religion" -- as found in Asia, Africa and South America -- makes eminently good sense. For better or for worse, European ideas for centuries have culturally dominated or "infected," if you will, societies all over the world and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. From the age of Illuminism and the French Revolution, modern secularism has had its roots in the soil of Europe.

If you've traveled the world, you get the impression that Asia, Africa and South America are also beginning to succumb to European secularism, which, therfore, must first be stopped in Europe. So, if Pope Benedict can eradicate the root of secularism in Europe, he will then be able to keep Asia, Africa and Latin America from being "infected." That's, of course, if you happen to believe that European secularism is an "infection," which I do.

Very interesting article. I wonder whether secularism is as much a threat to Catholics as the continued effort by conservatives to shut the door on vatican II reforms. How many Catholics will be walking out the door or simply not participating as we see the role of the layperson being marginalized and the hierarchy trying to reestablish itself as the sole source of salvation?

No matter how eloquently anyone tries to explain Benedict XVI's fear-filled attitude towards the threat of secularism it simply creates more division. All it will do is add to the growing militant polarization between conservatives and progressives. As the Church moves towards stricter enforcement of rules, dogma and doctrine it will find itself eventually completely isolated from those it is called to serve. Not the other way around.

"In that cultural milieu, one in which Catholic identity is perceived to be under assault -- and, given Tuesday's decision, it's hard to fault church leaders for drawing that conclusion."
What else can a rational civilized society do, but to oppose a group of religionists who dress in Middle Ages costumes, proclaim as truth, notions and ideas long disproved by science and critical thinking, submit their power of reason to a dictatorial voice in Rome, and suborn perjury and conspire to coverup crime. This is why no one wants to be associated with "Catholic identity"! Let's not confuse this sort of pattern with spirituality and then declare that there is a move towards secularism; this is not a move towards secularism, rather it is a move towards the values of Jesus Christ and away from corruption.

Soile Lautsi, the woman who objects to crucifixes in Italian schools, is not even an Italian. She's Finnish.

Instead of accepting the customs of the country she has chosen to live in, she insists on that country adapting to her preferences.

It's a shame she didn't choose to live in Iran.

I find this a very insightful and unusually well-balanced article. Well done. My only concern is that I believe we tend to incorrectly identify what is going on with the Anglicans. It was the Anglicans who felt that their Church had strayed from Christ's teaching, and so traditional Anglicans wanted to rejoin the Church of Rome. The personal ordinariate establiched by the Holy Father is a response, rather than an initiative, as was implied in the article. With this distinction in mind, it becomes more difficult to label all our Holy Father's actions as a battle against secularism. I believe the Holy Father really is performing a balancing act, balancing the strengthening of Catholic identity and understanding of Catholic doctrine, bringing back lost sheep (Lefevrites), granting refuge (Anglicans), as well as trying to defend the Church from a world that ignores the voice of God

It is taking a long time for my comment to appear. I hope it is hidden somewhere.

Fear of secularism may erode the faith from within more than secularism itself. Secularism is a bugaboo for its polar opposite, fideism. Pre-Vatican II fideism is alive and well in the fearful fundamentalists. Faith isn’t necessarily adversary to secularism in the sense that the spiritual isn’t necessarily adversary to the material. In fact each is a co-dependent of the other. The psychical/ physical suppose each other as matter/ energy suppose each other as the religious/ secular suppose each other.

I'm probably not the person to put this thought out there (my thinking can be so muddy at times!), but I think John makes an excellent point. My exposure to apologetics was the defensive type from the 1950's. What the twenty-first century needs is positive dialogue, one religion engaging other world religions to see how they answer the ultimate and transcendent questions of life. I don't mean that we should be offensive or agressive, but we should be confident and hopefully persuasive.

I was fifteen when John XXIII came to Peter's chair and dared to challenge the Church to reflect upon what she had in common with the world's religions. That single idea has followed me for fifty years. We should not be afraid to admit that Christianity shares a lot of positive values with other world religions, including Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and the like. The ensuing dialogue will quickly reveal that we also hold alternative values as well. Rather than drawing lines in the sand, we should try to invite others to join us so that there be one flock and one shepherd.

The greatest threat to ROMAN Catholicism today is Christianity.

History shows that the institutional church accommodates to the secular order. It tends to imitate “the patterns of governance in the secular city”. In the present time the multi-national corporations “shine as tempting images for neatly ordered efficiency”. This temptation is “to be watched and resisted”. (Ladislas Orsey, “In Dialogue”, AMERICA, A Jesuit Magazine, Vol. 183, No. 17, Whole No. 4508, November 25, 2000, pg. 15).

The reality is that the institutional Catholic Church of today is even now infected with a mentality of imperial corporatism that presumes its self to be exclusively God-ordained to “dispense the economy of grace”. In its institutional description of purpose it uses commercial terminology as if God’s grace were money in the bank. Church mercantilism is patently fixated in the hierarchical structure, which purports to “market” grace (by right of divine election) on behalf of God to grace-lacking lay people.

Individually, like Jesus, each of us must make the “threshold” choice of the value-system we identify with. Will we choose to be dominators, comptrollers of commodities, and enslavers, or people of love who labor in the company of the marginalized in order to affect a more just society which responds to the moral imperative of seeing every person in equal standing before God and man, with right of equal access to life’s necessities?

We should consider the nature of the “divine dispensation of grace” in paradigmatic nature. Throughout virtually the whole history of the evolution of life, it is the experience of life that every minutest component of life’s web is born from, is sustained in, and returns to the economy of life’s essential continuity. Only in the thinnest skin of recent history has self-conscious humankind departed from this essential economy and presumed the libertarian arrogance of ignoring nature’s time-proven strategy, and chosen to exploit network life in self-interest, blind to the consequences on future life.

We might well ask, “What is the point of this?” The point is that we individually and as a nation are at the threshold of critical choice—the same choice confronting Jesus after his forty-day fast in the desert. One choice before him was to join the cultural class of Roman Judea’s oligarchy (temple/political/business structure) and pursue positions of prestige, authority, self-aggrandizement and control over resources and people.

An alternate choice is go in a different direction and choose a future that identifies with the poor and the outcasts, with the slave class, and work to bring about a more equitable social structure, and treat the order of nature with respect and restraint. The latter, as we know, is the choice Jesus made, and it is the choice he asks his imitators, “Jesuits” to make, who would claim to be his followers.

In his choice, Jesus rejected the corporate culture of profiteering; empire-building would not be an option for his true followers. But his twelve, and especially, Peter, couldn’t grasp this radically different messiah-ship. The problem persists to this day. To understand the corporate empire is to understand what we as Church are called not to be, to do. Spirituality has primacy over secularity even though secularity is a material aspect of spirituality.

I fear we have a fearful bishop of Rome who is afraid of losing his imperialistic/regal status. Let's face it, the papacy that developed centuries ago IS NOT what Jesus intended.

"If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you" (Jn 15, 18-19)

I would sure love to be invited to dinner at Carlton's house. What a great interesting family.