Some years ago, the Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor coined the term "exclusivist secularism" to describe a disturbing phenomenon in Western societies: the determination of some intellectuals, activists and politicians to scour public life of transcendent religious and moral reference points in the name of "tolerance" and "inclusion."
Taylor’s "exclusivist secularism" is not the benign "secularity" — the separation of religious and political institutions in a modern society — that Pope Benedict XVI has praised for helping Catholicism develop its understanding of the right relationship between church and state.
No, by referring to "exclusivist secularism," Taylor was raising a warning flag about an aggressive and hegemonic cast of mind that seeks to drive out of the public square any consideration of what God or the moral law might require of a just society.
Aggressive secularism was once thought to be a primarily European malady. Then it migrated to Canada.
Now it has become a serious problem in American public life. Catholics can do something about that if they understand what the Church asks of the "world."
The Catholic Church asks — and, if circumstances require, the Church demands — two things of any political community and any society.
The Church asks for free space to be itself, to evangelize, to celebrate the sacraments and to do the works of education, charity, mercy and justice without undue interference from government. The Church freely concedes that the state can tell the Church to do some things: to obey the local sanitary laws in church kitchens hosting pancake breakfasts, for example.
But the Church refuses to concede to the state the authority to tell the Church what to think and preach or how to order its ministerial life and serve the needy.
Moreover, the Church asks, and if necessary demands, that the state respect the sanctuary of conscience, so that the Church’s people are not required by law to do things the Church teaches are immoral.
The Church also asks any society to consider the possibility of its need for redemption. The "world" sometimes doesn’t take kindly to this suggestion, as the history of the martyrs reminds us. But overt persecution isn’t the only way the "world" resists the Church’s proposal.
Societies can affect a bland indifference to the truths taught by biblical religion. Cultures can mock the moral truths taught by God’s revelation to the people of Israel and God’s self-revelation in his Son, Jesus Christ.
Educational systems can inculcate an ethos of nihilism and hedonism, teaching that the only moral absolute is that there are no moral absolutes.
On both of these fronts — the political-legal front and the social-cultural front — the Catholic Church is under assault in the United States today. Over the past four years, the federal government has made unprecedented efforts to erode religious freedom. The gravest assault was the "contraceptive mandate" issued earlier this year by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, an offense to conscientious Catholic employers who believe what the Church believes about the morality of human love and the ethics of the right to life and a frontal attack on the institutional integrity of the Church.
For, with the HHS mandate, the federal government seeks nothing less than to turn the Catholic Church’s charitable and medical facilities into state agencies that facilitate practices the Catholic Church believes are gravely evil.
Rather than truckle to such coercion, Catholic bishops across the country have made clear that they will, if necessary, close the Catholic medical facilities for which they are responsible — a drastic action that would seriously imperil health services to the poor.
But it doesn’t have to come to that. Aggressive, hegemonic secularism need not have the last word in the United States.
In this election cycle, Americans can issue a ringing call for religious freedom in full. U.S. Catholics can — and must — demand of all candidates an unambiguous commitment to the Church’s institutional freedom and to the freedom of the Church’s people to follow the dictates of conscience, as shaped by the moral truths the Church guards and teaches. Self-respect requires nothing less.
George Weigel is distinguished senior fellow of the Ethics
and Public Policy Center
in Washington. His column is distributed by the
Denver Catholic Register,
the official newspaper of the Archdiocese of Denver.
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I think one of the issues our church faces is in this regard is that many people are beginning to develop an impression that the whole of christianity is being against gay marriage, abortion etc. We are so busy fighting all of these social issues that I think we’ve left Jesus out of our work. It’s almost as if in our fight to maintain the social order, we’ve become to secular.
Unfortunately, until Catholics get more catechesis from the pulpit about the threat to religious freedom and the responsibility that Catholics have in the voting booth to protect religious freedom, sanctity of life and marriage—- AND as long as Catholic clergy yuck it up in public with pro-abortion politicians——misguided Catholics will see nothing wrong in continuing to vote for these pro-abortion politicians and their aggressive secularism.
” The Church asks for free space to be itself, to evangelize, to celebrate the sacraments and to do the works of education, charity, mercy and justice without undue interference from government. ” - G. Weigel
“There are two levels to the New Evangelization.
FIRST is the FORMATION and EDUCATION of those who practice the faith, so they can be better witnesses and evangelizers in their own lives to those in their family, their neighborhood and their workplace.
The other level is to REACH OUT to the secular culture, to people who are away from the Church or who are seeking something better, and to put together arenas where they can feel comfortable coming to find something they are looking for. ” - Fr. Gino Sylva, Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization.
For more info on what you can do, go to: ” What Catholics REALLY Believe SOURCE ” .
Romney and Ryan and their billionaire masters live for the power of gold and revel in the suffering of everyday American families and children. Our Catholic bishops have brought our attention to the Republican platform’s complete lack of concern for the poor and vulnerable in our country. As Catholics, our pro-life beliefs call us to work for a society in which all children have the right to both spiritual and material support, including the right to excellent prenatal care for their mothers, which will give them the chance for a healthy life which all children should have. The Republican platform calls for yet more tax breaks for billionaires, while cutting health and nutrition programs for families and children. No one can be truly pro-life if they deny the right of all children to receive the material sustenance they need to be healthy and have a fair chance in life. A baby cannot make it on his or her own. Babies need all of us to care about them both before and after they are born.
Mr. Weigel must be a follower of Escriva. According Escriva speak, “THE World” means anyone that is not part of their group, the outside enemy that does not follow their definition of “THE Work of God”. Escrivistas seem to worship anything Mr Taylor says, for some reasons. Fr Wauck quoted Mr. Taylor to justify Escriva’s notion of “ordinary” http://www.crisismagazine.com/2011/redeeming-the-dreary Yet M.r. Taylor himself is an “exclusivist secularist”. A few years ago, Mr. Taylor lead an exhaustive government sponsored enquiry on the role of religion in Quebec. In its final report, he advocated for the removal of the Cross in Quebec’s National Assembly, one of the last remaining symbols of that people’s truly heroic Catholic heritage. Even Québec’s ardent secularists opposed this removal, and so the Cross remains to this day. A dispatch for the CBC at the time said: “Les députés approuvent à l’unanimité une motion en faveur du maintien du crucifix à l’Assemblée nationale, alors que le rapport de la commission Bouchard-Taylor recommande de le retirer.»[2] Translation: «Deputy Members unanimously approved a motion in favor of maintaining the crucifix in the National Assembly, despite the fact that the Bouchard-Taylor Commission recommends its removal.” http://www.radio-canada.ca/nouvelles/National/2008/05/22/003-reax-BT-politique.shtml So wh.at game are people like Mr. Weigle and Fr Wauk playing? Christ never advocated a divide between the “We, “THE Holier Than Thou” vs. them stupid, horrible hedonistic sinners, e.g: “THE world”. He came to save all, in particular sinners, He ate and kept good company with them. So the same goes with Anglo self styled “progressives”, that consider themselves so much more “advanced” and “scientific” than us dim witted believers. But they actually only create their own irrational idolatries, that help them satiate and justify their selfish appetites, to the detriment of others, in particular the very lives of babies in the womb. True progress will be achieved when hearts and minds are changed, one by one. But hiding behind self erected barricades is easier, and allows one to manipulate one’s own.
In total agreement. I’ve voted by absentee ballot in agreement with my Catholic conscience. It was a difficult choice, as I celebrated the inaugural in D.C. four years ago with hope in my heart. But that hope has been betrayed. Praying that we as Catholics can vote in enough strength to ensure our religious freedom is safeguarded, our families not under attack by redefining them, or the killing of the unborn vigorously promoted under the guise of ‘women’s healthcare.’.
Is Catholic ethics only about sex? Of all the problems in our country and our world the only one that gets Catholics upset is that fact that some women, who may not be Catholic, who work for Catholic based organizations that receive public money, may choose to avail themselves to contraception, that is at no cost to the Catholic Church.
I think it was Cardinal Spellman of New York who was asked in the 60’s if he wanted government to keep contraception illegal replied that he did not need the government to enforce Catholic morality. I guess now the Catholic Church feels the opposite.
This can only happen if practicing Catholics take the blinders off when it comes to supporting Obama this coming election. If you get Catholics that pick and choose what Catholic doctrines and teachings they decide are ‘right’ for their own life, then I do not see a reversal of Catholics voting for Obama as we saw at the last presidential election. Personally I believe Romney will win, but I seriously doubt it will be because of Catholic support. I wish the opposite was true…
Good article. It is clear that the current administration is at best indifferent to, or perhaps hostile to the concept of religious freedom. The so-called “contraceptive mandate” should allow not just religious organizations to opt out, but any private employer whose conscience it violates to opt out of it.
Over the past 30 years or so, aggressive secularlism spread its philosophy abroad within the Catholic faith. Given the rise in Catholic politicians who have publicly sided with pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage, other anti-Catholic teachings, it appear that many Catholic have sucomb to a sort of political blindness that has caused misplaced allegiance to vile politicians of various political parties. I recently heard a Texas preacher say the Christian political mindset should not be one that aligns oneself to a donkey or an elephant, but whose primary allegiance should be to The LAMB.
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