Wa Po Blog: Catholic Apologist says Catholicism is responsible for US Secularism

Catholic America as Secular Model

Secularism is often considered the result of atheism, but history disproves that myth. American Secularism is a form of public neutrality about belief or unbelief. It is more about agnosticism and religious tolerance than about atheism and anti-clericalism. Pope Benedict XVI and Vatican officials are now promoting "Catholic Secularism," and that might have profound effects on Catholic America and the separation of Church and State.

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In the United States, Catholics and Jews in places like 19th Century New York and Boston fought hard for secularism in the public schools. The idea was to prevent Protestantism from imposing its forms of Christian prayer and bible reading on everyone. Thus did "American exceptionalism" produce a Catholic Secularism that differs from the European "laicité," with its virulent anti-clericalism and stale rants about medievalisms.

Recently, Cardinal Camillo Ruini, a respected conservative prelate close to the Vatican, embraced the United States' model of secularism, linking it to Pope Benedict XVI's praise of "positive secularism." For the Cardinal, secularism is a necessary platform for the public forum. Catholics should not fear to be secular, said the prelate, because in its essence secularism requires only that Catholics use reason and logic to promote public policy. You don't have to be an atheist to be rational.

"The decision of whether a way of arguing is rational, or perhaps more precisely plausible and convincing, is in a democratic system entrusted, in the last analysis, solely to the assessment made of it by the citizens as a whole in the appropriate forums, above all the electoral forums."

I interpret this statement as encouragement for Catholics to vote as faithful citizens, basing their voting in a democratic society on rational arguments, not theistic ones. If I am correct in saying this is what atheists do, they now have strange bedfellows.

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This promotion of American-style Catholic Secularism may be only a trial balloon; then again, it may be part of the current pope's acceptance of President Obama and the Democratic Party's agenda for Catholicism. This is important because Catholic Secularism would have much more electoral clout in the United States than atheism.