I've been reading posts at America magazine's blog about the Middle East Synod, the latest of which is Synod: how to persuade Islam of the value of religious pluralism? by Austen Ivereigh. Here's a quote from the post ...
[...] I asked both to respond to the Synod's call for the Church to advocate a "positive secularism" (or laicite) in the Middle East, implying a degree of separation between the state and religion which would guarantee equal rights to freedom of conscience and to manifest religion. Both Al-Sammat and the Ayatollah said they wanted better to understand what was meant by the concept. Ayatollah Mohaghegh Damad said in Iran it was the people who elected their leader, not God -- this, surely, was secularism.
What I found interesting was this concept of "positive secularism" being proposed by the Catholic Church .... is this not the opposite stance taken just a month ago when the pope (he said secularism caused Nazism) and Cardinal Kasper (he disrespected the UK's pluralism) criticized the UK for being so secular and pluralistic? As Austin goes on to write ...
And now, of course, it's hard to argue for a "positive secularism" without raising the spectre in Muslim minds of what Pope Benedict in the UK called "aggressive secularism" -- the idea that the state should be "neutral", or that there is no ethical horizon beyond the wishes of the democratic majority or the enlightened elite.
I think this is an instance of the pope creating new terms, "positive secularism" and "aggressive secularism", in order to facilitate having his cake and eating it too. How am I ever supposed to respect these guys? :(
