Religion and State in Secular Europe Today: Theoretical Perspectives and Case Studies (Annua Nuntia Lovaniensia) 9789042940192, 9789042940208, 9042940190

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Religion and State in Secular Europe Today

Edited by

Jelle Creemers and Hans Geybels

PEETERS

RELIGION AND STATE IN SECULAR EUROPE TODAY

ANNUA NUNTIA LOVANIENSIA

LXXIX

Religion and State in Secular Europe Today Theoretical Perspectives and Case Studies

Edited by

Jelle Creemers and Hans Geybels

PEETERS LEUVEN – PARIS – BRISTOL, CT

2019

Cover illustration: Jacques Louis David (󰀁󰀇󰀄󰀈-󰀁󰀈󰀂󰀅). Detail from The Coronation of Napoleon, 󰀁󰀈󰀀󰀅-󰀀󰀇, oil on canvas © RMN - Grand Palais (Chateau de Versailles)/Franck Raux A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm or any other means without written permission from the publisher © Uitgeverij Peeters, Bondgenotenlaan 󰀁󰀅󰀃, B-󰀃󰀀󰀀󰀀 Leuven (Belgium) ISBN 󰀉󰀇󰀈-󰀉󰀀-󰀄󰀂󰀉-󰀄󰀀󰀁󰀉-󰀂 eISBN 󰀉󰀇󰀈-󰀉󰀀-󰀄󰀂󰀉-󰀄󰀀󰀂󰀀-󰀈 D/󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀉/󰀀󰀆󰀀󰀂/󰀇󰀈

Contents

Jelle Creemers & Hans Geybels Religion and State in Europe Today: The Challenge of Assertive Secularist Ideology?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

󰀁

Part I: Theoretical Considerations Guido Vanheeswijck The Place of Religion in the Secular Society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

󰀁󰀅

Antonio Maria Baggio The Cultural-Historical Roots and the Conceptual Construction of Laicity: Research Paths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

󰀃󰀅

Erik Borgman The Freedom not to Honour the State: Freedom of Religion as a Constitutive Human Right . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

󰀇󰀃

Part II: Case Studies in European Countries Maria Chiara Giorda & Roberta Sala Religious Diversity and Secularism: The Case of Italian Schools. .

󰀈󰀇

Rafael Ruiz Andrés Spain and Catholicism: a Work-in-Progress Relationship. Church Transformations in an Increasingly Secular Society and State (󰀁󰀉󰀃󰀉-󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 󰀁󰀀󰀃 Katri Karhunen Can Hijab Be Part of the Work Uniform? Finnishness and the Silent Norms in Finland. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 󰀁󰀂󰀅 Jelle Creemers We All Share the Same Values, Right? How Institutionalisation of Religions in Belgium Promotes Liberal Secular Values . . . . . . . 󰀁󰀃󰀇

VI

CONTENTS

Francis Davis God, Government and Religion as a Feature of the Economy and Civil Society: Insights from a Fractious UK Debate . . . . . . . .

󰀁󰀅󰀁

List of Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 󰀁󰀆󰀇

Introduction

Religion and State in Europe Today The Challenge of Assertive Secularist Ideology? Jelle Creemers and Hans Geybels The past decades have seen a huge revival of societal and academic interest in the relationship between religion(s) and the state in the West. This renewed interest follows the realisation that even in Europe, religion is reclaiming its role in the public sphere rather than fading away.󰀁 Therefore, the ‘proper’ place modern societies should structurally give to expressions of religious belonging is being discussed in diverse academic disciplines and from a variety of perspectives. Those involved seem to accept two fundamental principles crucial to liberal political philosophy: firstly, that each individual has the right to organise her life in accordance with her fundamental beliefs. Secondly, that it is the duty of the state to provide space for the aspirations and beliefs of each subject while also protecting the space of others.󰀂 Underlying this agreement, there is a constant struggle to determine the ‘proper’ understanding of a secular state and of religion in Europe today.󰀃 This volume provides critical reflections on these questions, giving voice to both theoretical considerations and case studies from across the continent.󰀄 While so-called ‘Western’ modern countries consider themselves to be (very) secular and thus to hold sacred (pun intended) the principle of a true separation between religion and state, both the understanding  This is, e.g., the starting point of Katayoun Alidadi, Religion, Equality and Employment in Europe: The Case for Reasonable Accommodation (Oxford and Portland, OR: Hart Publishing, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀇), 󰀁. 󰀂  Cf. John Rawls, Political Liberalism: Expanded Edition (New York: Columbia University Press, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀅). 󰀃  The focus of this volume is thus not on the broader questions of how to understand secularism or secularisation. Cf. Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀇). 󰀄  We have opted for a focus on Europe. Of course, moving beyond the West opens up new perspectives and challenges. See Marian Burchardt, Monika Wohlrab-Sahr, and Matthias Middell, eds., Multiple Secularities Beyond the West: Religion and Modernity in the Global Age (Boston, MA, Berlin, and Munich: De Gruyter, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀆). 󰀁

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of secularity and the actual realisation of the principle differ greatly.󰀅 A typical bifurcation involves the very different perspectives and realities in the United States of America and in European countries. In 󰀁󰀈󰀀󰀂, US president Thomas Jefferson (󰀁󰀇󰀄󰀃-󰀁󰀈󰀂󰀇) wrote a letter to a religious organisation in which he used the now famous expression of ‘a wall of separation between church and state’. In this letter, he comments on the First Amendment to the United States Constitution: “Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ’, thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.”󰀆 Here, as it still is today in the US, the separation between church and state is first considered to be a protection of religion from state interference, hence safeguarding the freedom of religion. The interpretation and application of this principle are deemed quite absolute, but that does not prevent US politicians and, for that matter, the president from religiously motivated speech and policymaking. Also, it does not in any way stop religious communities from showing patriotism, which is apparent in the prominence given to the flag and to memorials for war heroes in chapels and religious buildings. In Europe, on the other hand, the separation between church and state is conceived more as a necessary measure to protect the state from church interference, safeguarding the state’s freedom from religion. As a strong case, certain French ‘laicist’ interpretations of this principle involve a tendency to ban all references to religion from the public sphere. At the same time, however, most European countries, including France, maintain a system of public support by the state for religion in one way or another, be it for one, multiple or ‘all’ religions, and be it through general taxes, specific taxes, or a tax reduction system.󰀇 󰀅  See, for a global comparative study, Jonathan Fox, Political Secularism, Religion, and the State: A Time Series Analysis of Worldwide Data (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀅). 󰀆  Jefferson’s Letter to the Danbury Baptists: The Final Letter, as Sent. The Library of Congress Information Bulletin: June 󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀈. Lib. of Cong., June 󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀈. https://www.loc. gov/loc/lcib/󰀉󰀈󰀀󰀆/danpre.html [accessed 󰀃󰀁 January 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀉]. 󰀇  Francis Messner, ed., Public Funding of Religions in Europe (London: Routledge, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀆); B. Basdevant-Gaudemet and Salvatore Berlingo, eds., The Financing of Religious Communities in the European Union / Le financement des religions dans les pays de l’Union

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The diversity of religion-state relations among European nations shows that the realisation of the principle of separation as well as its societal understanding, is always particular to historical contingencies. Ahmet Kuru identified a continuum between assertive and passive secularist ideologies, either of which can be dominant in a secular nation.󰀈 Kuru speaks of assertive secularism when the state plays an active role to exclude religion from the public sphere. In passive secularism, however, the state bases its laws and policies on secular principles and claims neutrality in religious matters, but at the same time, it gives space to religions to play an active role in society. Based on historical examples, Kuru argues that the historical preference of a nation for an assertive or a passive secular ideology is related to the presence or absence of an ancien régime at the time of nation building. An ancien régime, Kuru explains, is a strong, historical, political alliance between an old monarchy and a powerful religious institution. Such an ancien régime often functioned as “the basis of the polarisation between the anticlericals and the conservatives.”󰀉 If a successful republican movement had to overcome an ancien régime while striving for a new nation, the nation was sure to adopt an assertive secular ideology. If such an ancien régime was not present at the time of nation building, the state typically chose for a passive secularist position.󰀁󰀀 This theory helps to explain the historical basis for many of the religion-state arrangements present in European nations today. européenne (Louvain and Dudley, MA: Peeters, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀉). See, for recent statistics on the expenditures per EU state, https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/ Government_expenditure_on_recreation,_culture_and_religion [accessed 󰀁 March 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀉]. 󰀈  For presentations and discussions of this continuum, see, e.g., Ahmet T. Kuru, Secularism and State Policies toward Religion: The United States, France, and Turkey (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀉) and Fox, Political Secularism, Religion, and the State. Note that, while both emphasise the ideological struggles underlying this continuum, they differ in their conceptualisation thereof. Kuru focuses on the struggles taking place within secular states, considering assertive secularism as a “comprehensive doctrine” (or ideology, just as a religion can be) and passive secularism as only “prioritizing state neutrality toward such doctrines” (󰀁󰀁). Fox speaks of secularism as a “family of ideologies” that as a whole functions “as an ideological challenge to religion in the political and social arenas.” He therefore offers a “secular-religious competition perspective” ( 󰀁󰀇). 󰀉  Kuru, Secularism and State Policies toward Religion, 󰀂󰀃. 󰀁󰀀  Kuru emphasises that passive secularism and assertive secularism are on a continuum, but at the same time he claims that either’s dominance in a society becomes consolidated and “a new change becomes difficult and requires a new critical juncture” (ibid., 󰀂󰀈). In contrast, Fox emphasises that state religion policies are constantly shifting and have moved in the last decades towards greater government involvement in religion. Fox, Political Secularism, Religion, and the State, 󰀂.

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Kuru’s historical analysis provides useful tools to discuss societal dynamics in Europe today. It seems that the atmosphere is changing in many European countries, in which religion-state relations were historically rooted in a passive secularist ideology. For reasons which will become evident soon, we use Belgium as a case in point. Around 󰀁󰀈󰀃󰀀, the year of the country’s independence from the Netherlands, the ancien régime had been crumbling for decades. The old aristocracy had lost much of its power and the Roman Catholic Church had been on the defensive against the Dutch Protestant ruler after a period of Napoleonic anticlerical policies. Hence, as the Catholic Church at the time was simply not strong enough to push for Belgium to become – or become again – a Catholic nation, Catholic and liberal forces were ready to cooperate in what has become known as Belgian Unionism (also known as the ‘monster alliance’). Together, they made the Belgian revolution possible and together they wrote a new, modern constitution based on passive secularist principles.󰀁󰀁 This constitution (󰀁󰀈󰀃󰀁) provided for a continuation of the Napoleonic situation, involving on the one hand a particular support for recognised religions in the form of financial assistance in matters related to the public celebration of religious cults, including salaries for religious ministers. On the other hand, the confiscations of ecclesial property by Napoleon were not restored. And while the 󰀁󰀉th and in particular the 󰀂󰀀th century have seen fierce debates on the practical and financial realisation of the Belgian religion-state relations, these fundamental principles are still part of the constitution and the public management of religion in Belgium today. Throughout the time it has existed, Belgium has however gone through a historical process in which the social power and influence of religion have drastically decreased. Some would say that the country still has a Catholic soul, but secularisation has left the church authorities with little power and their public tone is much less dogmatic than it used to be. Anticlerical liberal voices have meanwhile grown in strength and in discursive content. Even today, some would still consider liberalism or laicity as a narrow political issue. But for more and more people, it has grown into a broad worldview. For them, laicity or liberal humanism is an agnostic or atheist ideology, a fundamental belief system about what constitutes the good life that is comparable to a religion (in Dutch a 󰀁󰀁  For a concise introduction to this complex period, see Els Witte, Jan Craeybeckx, and Alain Meynen, Political History of Belgium: From 󰀁󰀈󰀃󰀀 Onwards (Brussels: Asp/ Vubpress/Upa, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀉), 󰀂󰀁-󰀅󰀉.

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‘levensbeschouwing’). This development is apparent in the introduction of the subject ‘non-confessional morality’ as an option for all Belgian primary and secondary public-school students since the ‘second school struggle’ (󰀁󰀉󰀅󰀉). Over time, it developed from a ‘neutral’ course in morality to a deliberately atheist option.󰀁󰀂 While the societal power of this liberal-humanist worldview has grown drastically since the 󰀁󰀉󰀆󰀀s, it took more time to secure its position under the constitution.󰀁󰀃 Not until several decades later did the legislation come to consider and accept the developing liberal-humanist philosophy as a worldview on a par with religions and act accordingly by giving it the same rights as the recognized religions. The Belgian constitution now states that all public schools are required to offer courses in non-confessional morality (art. 󰀂󰀄 §󰀁, since 󰀁󰀉󰀈󰀈), and counsellors who practice a non-confessional morality can now be salaried by the state in the same way as religious ministers (art. 󰀁󰀈󰀁, since 󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀃). In the past decades, and certainly since 󰀉/󰀁󰀁, this humanist worldview is increasingly being presented in the public arena as not just on a par with religions, but as actually superior to all religious worldviews. In politics and media, a discourse is growing which not only seeks to reform the current religion-state arrangements, but fundamentally questions the very principles on which they are founded. While for a long time state support for religion was considered an investment in public morals or the best way to enable exercising one’s freedom of religion,󰀁󰀄 proponents of what may be considered a more aggressive secularist stance are now proposing to tear down this support system. This has in recent years led to the abolition of airtime on public broadcasting channels for religious communities in the Flemish community (󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀅), the replacement of statesupported lesson hours for religious education at primary and secondary schools by a course in citizenship in the French-speaking community (󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀇), and proposals to add a phrase that Belgium is a ‘laic’ state to the 󰀁󰀂  Michel Magits, “De evolutie van het niet-confessioneel levensbeschouwelijk onderricht in België: Een vrijzinnig humanistische visie,” in Godsdienst en levensbeschouwing in het onderwijs – Godsdiensonderrig op skool, ed. Hildegard Warnink (Louvain: Peeters, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀃), 󰀈󰀃-󰀁󰀀󰀄. 󰀁󰀃  Michel Magits, “De trein der traagheid of de lange weg naar de erkenning van de vrijzinnig-humanistische levensbeschouwing,” in De toekomst van de levensbeschouwelijke vakken, ed. Luc Devuyst and Christophe Van Waerebeke (Brussels: VUBPress, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀀), 󰀂󰀅-󰀃󰀂. 󰀁󰀄  Cf. Stéphanie Wattier, Le financement public des cultes et des organisations philosophiques non confessionnelles: Analyse de constitutionnalité et de conventionnalité (Brussels: Bruylant, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀆).

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constitution, which is expected to cause friction with and question the constitutional rights of the existing support mentioned above (󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈).󰀁󰀅 The influence of this assertive secularist ideology (in Kuru’s terms) is also visible in conflicts and changing regulations at the level of communal and individual religiosity. The veil or the burkini are not accepted in schools or on public beaches, traditional forms of ritual slaughter are forbidden in Flanders since 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀉, and protests arise when a public cemetery or a city hall displays traditional religious symbols such as the cross or a nativity scene. Could we say that a new régime is developing, involving a close interdependent relationship between the secular state and a liberal-humanist worldview, which disapproves of old or new religious voices being heard in the public sphere? The Belgian case is not exceptional on the continent. Such developments are visible all over Europe and are consequent to changing sentiments. Discomfort with the re-entry of religion in the public sphere has even led Christian Joppke to wonder whether the secular state is under siege. He describes in detail how Islam is considered to be a major challenge to the secular state in Europe today.󰀁󰀆 This has serious ramifications for the position of religions in European countries, including changing attitudes towards the human right of freedom of religion and belief. The outlook of religion and of the modern state today make the related questions very different from what they used to be. The religious subjects who today demand a role in the public scene as religious subjects are more diverse than ever, presenting a variety of different voices and self-understandings. And the society in which they seek to find their place and to have their say is very different from pre-󰀉/󰀁󰀁 󰀂󰀀th century Europe. Such changes require constant reconsideration of the questions at hand, on which this volume seeks to offer contemporary reflections. In the context just described, this volume aims to provide theoretical considerations and case studies on the interrelations of religion, state, and secularism in Europe today. Key questions taken up in the book involve on the one hand changing interpretations of these concepts, which are important to realise the discursive dynamics which are at play. 󰀁󰀅  Belgische Kamer van Volksvertegenwoordigers, Inleidend Verslag op Parlementair Initiatief: Het karakter van de Staat en de fundamentele waarden van de Samenleving, 󰀂󰀄/󰀀󰀁/󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈. Cf. the proposal of Laurette Onkelinkx in the Belgian Parliament to revise the Constitution, 󰀁󰀃/󰀀󰀉/󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈. 󰀁󰀆  Christian Joppke, The Secular State under Siege: Religion and Politics in Europe and America (Malden, MA: Polity, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀅).

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To what extent can and should a modern state in its legislation and policies provide freedom for religion and/or freedom from religion?󰀁󰀇 On the other hand, attention goes particularly to the question how the current struggles are impacting nations and religious communities in Europe. How do the state’s desires for support and for control interrelate in the field of religion and belief? Attention is given to consequences for both the majority religion in a given country and for minority religions. In this way, theoretical questions are not disconnected from underlying power dynamics and victimisation practices that are taking place. This volume can only offer some reflections on particular questions and cases, but these provide useful tools for further reconsideration of the questions at hand. The volume brings together contributions from academic conversations which took place at two international conferences in Leuven, Belgium. First, the Academic Center for Practical Theology at KU Leuven and Logia collaborated to organise a study day on “Religion and State: Challenges and Opportunities” on May 󰀁󰀉, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀇. During this study day, ongoing discussions in Belgium about the place of religion in this modern state were put in theoretical and international perspective. Attention was given to a diversity of religious and political philosophical viewpoints as well as to case studies in Belgium and in neighbouring countries: the United Kingdom, France, and the Netherlands. Five key speakers at this conference wrote articles based on their papers which appear in this collection: Antonio Maria Baggio, Erik Borgman, Jelle Creemers, Francis Davis, and Guido Vanheeswijck. Second, this volume builds on conversations which took place at the annual conference of the European Association for the Study of Religions in Leuven, September 󰀁󰀈-󰀂󰀁, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀇 in the panel “‘Redefining secularism’: European States and the Regulation of (Minority) Religions.” Organised by Jelle Creemers, Nadia Fadil and Iman Lechkar, three sessions sought to discuss questions on religion-state relations through the specific lens of the current concern with state sovereignty which has recently flared up in Europe in the light of the increasingly multicultural composition of its nation states. Contributions of four participants are taken up in this volume: Roberta Sala, Mariachiara Giorda, Rafael Ruiz Andrés and Katri Karhunen.

󰀁󰀇  Brett G. Scharffs, Asher Maoz, and Ashley Isaacson Woolley, eds., Religious Freedom and the Law: Emerging Contexts for Freedom for and from Religion (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈).

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The theoretical considerations of this volume (Part I) open with an article by Guido Vanheeswijck on the place of religion in secular society. In the context of a general agreement that Europe must be ‘secular’, this article poses the question what we mean by a secular society. Vanheeswijck describes republican and pluralist variants of secularism and their different aims and implementations. Underlying are different justifications of the ethical principles involved, relating to two different interpretations of Enlightenment, which can be considered ‘radical’ or ‘moderate’, respectively (Jonathan Israel). Building on Charles Taylor, Vanheeswijck opts for a pluralist understanding of secularism, mandating the state to promote a culture of impartiality rather than of neutrality. With a reference to Amos Oz, it is explained that living in this reality requires an attitude of imaginative empathy (as an antidote to all forms of fanaticism) and the importance of articulation. Antonio Baggio focuses in the second article on the concept of laity/ laicity and the wide variety of its conceptual constructions. He offers a detailed overview of the historical development of related terms in different languages and historical contexts. Where most definitions start from a secular point of view, Baggio sketches the history of what the Catholic Church means with ‘laity’. To understand better the meaning of the concepts under consideration, he outlines their history in the longue durée. Therefore, he examines two existing models of the relationship between church and state. The first model is the cooperative model, like the cooperation between church and state in Italy. The second model he calls the model of indifference, best illustrated by France, where religion is strictly limited to the private sphere. Ultimately, so Baggio argues, the model of indifference cannot live with the idea of ‘difference’, whereas every society must cope with this fundamental feature of human coexistence. In the third article, Erik Borgman puts his full weight behind freedom of religion as a constitutive human right, involving the freedom not to honour the state. In our contemporary European context, Borgman argues, the original concern that led to the formulation of the freedom of religion as an unalienable right, is forgotten. The alleged danger was that states would try to bind the conscience of the people. In contemporary North-Western European welfare states, however, one sees the state power not as a danger to, but as a protection for democracy. Thus, the state and its institutions tend to become monopolists in spheres traditionally dominated by religious and value-orientated discourses. The right to religious freedom, so Borgman states, involves the freedom to

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present a fundamental alternative to the current way of thinking and living. It must guarantee that the dominant social, cultural, and religious consensus can be debated and if necessary contradicted. The second part of this volume offers case studies on religion-state relations from a variety of European countries. Considering the educational sector, one of the most politically sensitive areas of public policy, Roberta Sala and Mariachiara Giorda have analysed the interconnections between migration, religious diversity, and education in Italy. Their article first provides a philosophical framework for enhancing diversity and tolerance through multicultural education as a central concept for the integration process of migrant students. Secondly, an empirical section focuses on Italian schools as multi- and inter-cultural laboratories which spearhead new challenges for creating processes for peaceful interactions and cohabitation among cultures, including religious cultures. The Italian school system is analysed through the lens of (mono)religious education and the issue of the school canteen, where negotiations take place concerning food diversity based on religious and cultural diversities. In conclusion, the exercise in this article is considered to be a sort of experiment in public philosophy, offering philosophical reflections and applications to a pressing and crucial problem in contemporary democratic societies. In the fifth article, Rafael Ruiz Andrés offers historical perspectives on the developing relationships between the Roman Catholic Church and the secularisation process in Spain in the second half of the 󰀂󰀀th century. It covers not only the actions of the church, but also its changing discourse towards the concept and process of secularisation, and how this relationship has influenced the concept of secularisation within Spanish society. The analysis starts in the 󰀁󰀉󰀄󰀀s, when secularisation was first and foremost considered an atheist threat to the Catholic Spanish essence. This attitude gradually morphed into a more positive appreciation, which can be related to the growing correlation between secularity and European identity in the 󰀁󰀉󰀈󰀀s. In the changed political situation, the church hierarchy was forced to move from a model of national Catholicism to a model of political action in which lobbying is a crucial ingredient. Katri Karhunen analyses the societal struggles in Finland concerning the integration of religious clothing as part of work uniforms in the sixth article. Even though in recent legal cases the rulings have typically ended up in favour of employees who have fought for their rights to wear religious clothing (such as turbans and hijab) at work, there are still no national regulations and practices vary. Karhunen examines the use of

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religious clothing (mainly hijab) in workplaces from the view of ‘Finnishness’, considering not only written rules, but also unspoken societal norms. Building on public legal cases and on qualitative interviews of Muslim women, Karhunen reviews policies and practices in a variety of contexts (private companies, public health care, police). It becomes evident that Finnishness is still strongly connected to Christian views and customs, so that when these women choose to wear Islamic religious clothing, their Finnishness is questioned, notwithstanding Finnish citizenship. The seventh article by Jelle Creemers considers the current Belgian public management of religion from the perspective of the recognised minority religions of Islam and Protestantism. Based on the observation that both the support of religious community life and the separation of church and state are combined in legislation and policy, it is argued that the obvious friction between these principles tends to promote acts of instrumentalisation and even discrimination of said minorities by the state. As societies develop high esteem for values considered central, states directly or indirectly seek to socialise their citizens to become individual bearers of these values. In concreto, this article argues that the constitutionally guaranteed Belgian public support policy for recognised religions actively promotes the insertion of liberal-secular values within the faith communities of the recognised minority religions, while not allowing them a space for religious particularism equal to what the culturally dominant Roman Catholic Church enjoys. In the final article, Francis Davis looks at the current British religious situation. The new landscape presents distinctive challenges that need careful attention and pro-active management. He argues that those strands of religiosity which have emphasised matters of ‘faith’ and those secularisms which have begun to favour a stronger call for ‘equality’ and ‘laicité’ share a pretention to normativity around ideas of ‘belief’, but avoid the particulars of concrete social practice. Normative appeals to ‘belief’, ‘equality’, or ‘faith’ seem to dematerialise the habits and consequences of religion, causing the religious to overstate their significance to society but, crucially, policy makers, secularists, and legislators to underestimate the variety and enduring public value of those religious bodies. Both habits, Davis suggests, need to be addressed so as to support the proper conduct of religious voices on the one hand, and to mitigate the risk of poor public governance and weak policy making on the other. In (Western) European societies today, the perspectives on the place and role of religion and religious actors, both individual and communal,

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differ drastically. However, some commonalities can be detected throughout the analyses in this volume. First, (Christian) religion and values related to religion, which until quite recently were considered essential to European cultural and historical identity, are no longer self-evidently appreciated. Second, it seems that the diversification of religious affiliations in Europe and the growing influence of non-confessional worldviews in politics and society have not led to a weakening of (a-)religious discourse or a devaluation of (a-)religious belonging. On the contrary, in different ways such discourses and affiliations seem to have gained a new attraction and have led to new forms of societal polarisation. Third, these developments have affected political actors, who progressively seek to act on their ‘beliefs’ and what they perceive to be new societal norms and trends. This context has made public management of religion an extremely complex matter and has led to fundamental questioning of historical positions and arrangements. An underlying tension seems to be caused by a fracturing of perspectives on what is neutrality, what are modern states, and, most importantly, what it means for a modern state to be secular today. This volume has sought to contribute to the ongoing discussions, not by providing simple and direct answers, but by asking questions and offering nuanced perspectives on the topics at hand. We thank the organisers of the conferences mentioned earlier for providing spaces for scholarly interaction: the Academic Center for Practical Theology of KU Leuven, Logia, and the European Association for the Study of Religions. We are very grateful for the authors, who were willing to develop their thoughts into these intellectual contributions and have them polished in a process of double peer review. We thank Anthony Dupont and Leo Kenis, editors of the ANL series, as well as publishing house Peeters for the finalisation of this volume.󰀁󰀈

󰀁󰀈

 This publication is a corollary to a postdoctoral research project, sponsored by the Flemish Research Foundation (FWO-Vlaanderen).

Part I

Theoretical Considerations

The Place of Religion in the Secular Society Guido Vanheeswijck Almost everybody in the Western world more or less agrees that the creation of a secular society is the most appropriate way to promote religious, philosophical, and ideological freedom in an increasingly globalised, but religiously highly differentiated world. Consequently, the most pressing question of this article is not whether our culture must be secular. The central question is rather what we do understand exactly by the term “secular society.” That very question is intimately interwoven with other questions: how can we live together, while being fully aware that there is a huge diversity of opinions and that – perhaps for the first time in history – we have to accept this dissent of opinions as an indispensable starting-point? How can we take and maintain a personal stance while at the same time realising that other people hold completely different views? How to cope with the genuine complexity of this predicament? Put differently: how to reconcile religious, philosophical, and ideological freedom and diversity with the generally acknowledged basic principles of a secular society, such as separation between church and state and neutrality of the state? Providing an exhaustive answer to all these questions goes beyond the confines of this article. Therefore, I will limit myself to four topics. First, I distinguish two variants of a secular society. Second, I try to make it clear how these two variants are derived from two different interpretations of Enlightenment. Subsequently, I dwell upon the specific role of religious, moral, and philosophical convictions in constructing a secular society. Finally, I commit myself to one variant of a secular society, based on the conceptual distinction between neutrality and impartiality. One preliminary remark: my conceptual framework is strongly indebted to the ideas of the Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor and my plea for an impartial form of active pluralism was inspired by the novels and essays of the Israeli novelist Amos Oz.

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I. Two Models of a Secular Society Wat does ‘secular’ mean? How to define a society characterised as secular? My starting-point is the definition given by the Canadian philosopher Micheline Milot: A development of the political realm by virtue of which freedom of speech and freedom of conscience are guaranteed, in conformance with a will to establish equal justice for all, by a state that is neutral toward the various conceptions of the good life coexisting in society and that is separated from church.1

Apparently, Milot does not define a secular society as a society in which religion is completely absent. On the contrary, she underlines the state’s neutrality towards the various conceptions of the good life, whether they are religious or non-religious. At first glance, this definition seems to be in full conformity with a traditional definition of a secular society in which a number of central ‘values’ are accepted, such as separation between church and state, freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, full autonomy, etc. However, by putting all these secular ‘values’ in one basket and granting them a similar status, confusion is created. In order to avoid that confusion, I would like to make a distinction within the realm of these ‘values’ between moral principles on the one hand and institutional principles on the other.󰀂 This distinction is related to another one, i.e. that between the aims or ends of a secular society and the operative modes by which to achieve these aims. The aims or ends of a secular society are mutual respect and freedom of conscience; they are secular values with the status of moral/ethical principles. The operative means which make the realisation of these aims possible are for example the separation between church and state and the state’s neutrality; they function as institutional principles. The following example might illustrate this – often forgotten or neglected – conceptual distinction: the separation of powers is an institutional principle the moral or ethical aim of which is to secure the citizens’ freedom and to impede the possibility of tyranny. 󰀁  Micheline Milot, Laïcité dans le Nouveau Monde: Le cas du Québec (Turnhout: Brepols, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀂), 󰀃󰀄. 󰀂  This distinction is based on Jocelyn Maclure and Charles Taylor, Secularism and Freedom of Conscience, transl. Jane Marie Todd (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀁), especially chapter 󰀂, “The Principles of Secularism,” 󰀁󰀉-󰀂󰀆.

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Obviously, despite this clear-cut conceptual distinction, there may be tensions between the maintenance of institutional principles on the one hand and the achievement of moral principles on the other, when it comes to concrete cases. The commotion around wearing the headscarf is a case in point. A plea for banning the headscarf on behalf of the state’s neutrality is tantamount to restricting a woman’s freedom to wear a headscarf. Alternatively, permitting a public civil servant to wear a headscarf seems to violate – at least at first sight – the institutional principle of the state’s neutrality. Now, there are at least two ways of coping with these tensions: either subordinating institutional means to moral ends or, vice versa, subjecting moral ends to institutional means. In accordance to these two possible ways of implementing, two variants of a secular society might be distinguished, the republican secular regimes versus the liberal or pluralist ones.󰀃 The republican secular societies focus on the institutional means and, therefore, emphasise the importance of the separation between church and state and the state’s neutrality. Moreover, they wish a full implementation of this neutrality. Since they see this maximal implementation not as an obstruction to diversity but as its guarantee, not only the civil servant’s activities have to be neutral but their clothing as well. By contrast, the liberal-pluralist societies make flexible use of the institutional means so as to achieve their moral aims or principles. To that end, diversity in clothing is seen as the very guarantee of a secular society, not as a threat to the state’s neutrality. Of course, the civil servants’ activities are to be ‘neutral’ but why should that injunction be applicable to clothing as well? Whereas the first variant (republican secular society) has a French origin, the second is mainly affected by the American model. Of course, there are legitimate reasons why the American (󰀁󰀇󰀇󰀆) and French Revolutions (󰀁󰀇󰀈󰀉) are often mentioned in the same breath. Both societies are built on the same institutional principles of separation between church and state and the state’s neutrality. But because of the respective different and to a certain extent even opposed historical contexts from which these institutional principles arose, the concrete effects of both institutional principles are diverse as well. While the French Revolution originated from a vehement struggle against the dominant Catholicism in the Ancien Régime, the American Revolution was mainly inspired by the  This distinction is based on Maclure and Taylor, Secularism and Freedom of Conscience, especially chapter 󰀃, “Regimes of Secularism,” 󰀂󰀇-󰀃󰀅. 󰀃

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effort to do equal justice to every and all (Christian) denominations. The effects of these different genealogies are still visible today. In France, the institutional principle of separation between church and state is used as an appropriate operative mode to reduce the public influence of religions as much as possible. In the United States, by contrast, the very same principle is employed to grant equal opportunities for all religious (and non-religious) denominations to manifest themselves in society. The Multi-Layered Concept of Neutrality From the preceding pages, it must be clear that the implementation of the two central institutional principles of a secular society is not neutral itself. But neutrality, as applied to the ethical principles of a secular society, is – to say the least – a highly complicated and multi-layered concept as well. First, a secular state is built on a number of ethical or moral principles – like respect for human rights, respect for the dignity of every individual, and protection of freedom of conscience – which are not subjected to the democratic decision process and, hence, can never be overruled by a contingent majority. In order to protect these principles, they are included in the constitution. As such, they embody what philosophers like John Rawls and Charles Taylor describe as an “overlapping consensus” on the constitutive values without which secular societies cannot exist. These values, albeit not neutral, are legitimate. They allow all citizens to have diverse opinions about the ‘good life’, about what they deem important and meaningful, and at the same time to respect the right of other citizens to have their own opinions. Put differently, they allow people with fully diverse religious, philosophical, and moral views to share and respect the same constitutive values and constitutional rules. Even if their respect rests on completely different grounds, they feel united in defending these values and constitutional rules. It is precisely at this juncture that we come across another distinction, often neglected and forgotten in discussions about the state’s neutrality, i.e. the distinction between two levels – the recognition of generally shared basic principles and rules on the one hand and their justification on the other. At the first level, the ‘overlapping consensus’ must be universally respected and described in a neutral, official language. At the second level, the justification of these basic principles might be divergent and couched in different languages, secular and religious alike. Consequently, the state’s neutrality appears at the level of justification in this sense that

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all forms of justification – religious and secular arguments alike – are to be recognised as of equal value. Thus, even as a member of parliament, a Christian or Muslim may justify the application of fundamental human rights by invoking the idea that every human being is a child of God, as much as a Kantian rationalist may bring up that each individual is a rational being, or a utilitarian that everyone is entitled to the highest form of happiness, etc. Consequently, there is no contrast between the idea of shared citizenship, implying the universal recognition of constitutionally anchored ethical basic principles, and the idea of diversity as to the justification of these principles.󰀄 It is time to recapitulate. The quintessence of a secular society manifests itself at three levels. The first level is the constitutional level of describing shared basic moral principles, where an ‘overlapping consensus’ reigns. The second level is the level of justifying these basic moral principles (‘public debate’), where diversity holds. The third level is the level of implementing the basic moral or ethical principles by means of institutional principles (variants of separation of church and state). At the second and third level alike, the state must be neutral. But precisely at these levels, there is a parting of the ways between republicans and pluralists, most manifestly at the third level. Within a republican view of the secular state, the state’s neutrality is manifested by prohibiting all identity markers, i.e. all symbols expressing religious, philosophical, or moral diversity. Within a pluralist view of the secular state, by contrast, the state’s neutrality finds expression in showing diversity and allowing civil servants to wear identity markers and to express their own world views. In the latter perspective, the governments’ neutrality consists in keeping equal distance towards diverse world views. Hence, it may come as no surprise that in an American, British or Indian society the wearing of a turban or a headscarf by a civil servant is much less strange than for instance in France or (until recently) in Turkey. That explicit difference at the third level is interwoven with an implicit – often concealed – difference at the second level of the justification of ethical principles. In particular, it concerns the question whether a justification on the basis of religious sensitivities and arguments is equivalent to a justification based on rational arguments. The parting of the ways at this second level is primarily – not exclusively – due to two different interpretations of the heritage of Enlightenment.  I am – again – indebted to Maclure and Taylor, Secularism and Freedom of Conscience, 󰀁󰀁-󰀁󰀂. 󰀄

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II. Two Interpretations of Enlightenment The notion of ‘Enlightenment’ is a misleadingly omnibus notion. It is often handled as if there is only one type of Enlightenment available. In fact, there have been a lot of variants of ‘Enlightenment’ in Europe. It is common knowledge that, regarding the relation between rationality and religion, the British (Scottish) Enlightenment has other emphases than the French Enlightenment and the French model in its turn differs in several aspects from the German variant. I cannot go here into all these (albeit important) differences. I limit myself to the influence of two different forms of Enlightenment on the two different models of secular society, the terminology of which I borrow from Jonathan Israel.󰀅 Whereas the pluralist model of a secular society is indebted to the ‘moderate’ Enlightenment which, although often anti-clerical, was not antireligious, the republican model is derivative from the ‘radical’ Enlightenment which was not only strongly tainted by a virulent anti-clericalism, but also tended to be anti-religious. 󰀁. Radical Enlightenment Over the last two decades, the term ‘Enlightenment’ (before the turn of the century it used to be a historically charged and rather negatively connoted term among progressive intellectuals) has been regularly used by proponents of the republican model as a central basis for justifying the existence of a secular society. They are eager to refer to Enlightenment as its basic presupposition, without however realising that they limit its meaning and scope to that of the ‘radical’ variant only. Israel defines ‘radical’ Enlightenment unequivocally: The Radical Enlightenment, whether on an atheistic or deistic basis, rejected all compromise with the past and sought to sweep away existing structures entirely, rejecting the Creation as traditionally understood in Judaeo-Christian civilisation, and the intervention of a providential God in human affairs, denying the possibility of miracles, and reward and punishment in an afterlife, scorning all forms of ecclesiastical authority, and refusing to accept that there is any God-ordained social hierarchy, concentration of privilege or land-ownership in noble hands, or religious sanction for monarchy. From its origins in the 󰀁󰀆󰀅󰀀s and 󰀁󰀆󰀆󰀀s, the philosophical radicalism of the European Early  Jonathan Israel, Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity, 󰀁󰀆󰀅󰀀-󰀁󰀇󰀅󰀀 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀁). 󰀅

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Enlightenment characteristically combined reverence for science, and for mathematical logic, with some form of non-providential deism, if not outright materialism and atheism along with unmistakably republican, even democratic tendencies.󰀆

Admittedly, Israel’s definition is highly controversial among historians and philosophers.󰀇 But the dissent of opinion among scholars does not detract from the fact that Israel’s definition and positive evaluation of ‘radical’ Enlightenment has exerted an enormous influence and is more or less accepted as the default position regarding the main characteristics of modern Enlightenment. In line with that definition, the dominant idea in ‘radical’ Enlightenment – which according to Israel originated in the Netherlands and England but became most conspicuous in the French model of ‘laïcité’ – is said to be threefold: apart from fostering mutual respect and freedom of conscience, the individual’s emancipation and autonomy is the main target to achieve. In the light of this threefold emancipatory process, the ‘radicals’ believe the influence of religious convictions and practices has to be reduced as far as possible. Based on their axiomatic premise of an utter incompatibility between religion and the autonomy of rational individuals, they see secular society primarily as an operative instrument for furthering the process of individual emancipation by means of marginalising religion into the private sphere. There are at least three reasons why adherents to the ‘radical’ Enlightenment consider religion as something strange and even dangerous and why religious sensitivities should best be replaced by rational arguments. First, ideas based on religious sensitivities are less ‘rational’ than ideas built on purely secular arguments (epistemological reason). Next, religious sensitivities are in their view often related to people’s inability to live up to the facts as they present themselves: because religious people are simply lacking the kind of responsibility and courage to get rid of ideas that may give them existential support, they cannot stand the rational  Israel, Radical Enlightenment, 󰀁󰀁-󰀁󰀂.  For a different view on the contents of ‘radical Enlightenment’: Christopher Hill, The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas during the English Revolution (London: Penguin, 󰀁󰀉󰀇󰀂); Margaret C. Jacob, The Radical Enlightenment: Pantheists, Freemasons, and Republicans (London: George Allen and Unwin, 󰀁󰀉󰀈󰀁); Akeel Bilgrami, “Occidentalism, the Very Idea: An Essay on Enlightenment and Enchantment,” Critical Inquiry 󰀃󰀂 (󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀆): 󰀃󰀈󰀁-󰀄󰀁󰀁. See for more information on this topic: Frederik Stjernfelt, “Radical Enlightenment: Aspects of the History of a Term,” in Reassessing the Radical Enlightenment, ed. Steffen Ducheyne (London: Routledge, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀇), 󰀈󰀀-󰀁󰀀󰀃; Guido Vanheeswijck, “De ambiguïteit van de term ‘radicale Verlichting,’” Tijdschrift voor Filosofie 󰀈󰀀, no. 󰀁 (󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈): 󰀃󰀉-󰀇󰀁. 󰀆 󰀇

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test of actually coping with reality (ethical reason). Finally, religions are seen as possible causes of war and terrorism and thus as a major threat for maintaining a peaceful society (political reason). 󰀂. Moderate Enlightenment From the perspective of the ‘moderate’ Enlightenment, however, these three arguments are highly contested. Israel’s definition of the ‘moderate’ form of Enlightenment runs like this: The moderate mainstream, supported as it was by numerous governments and influential factions in the main Churches, […] aspired to conquer ignorance and superstition, establish toleration, and revolutionise ideas, education, and attitudes by means of philosophy but in such a way as to preserve and safeguard what were judged essential elements of the older structures, effecting a viable synthesis of old and new, and of reason and faith.󰀈

From this perspective, the idea that religious sensitivities should be replaced by rational arguments due to epistemological, ethical and political reasons is rejected. First, one may conclude on purely rational grounds that the scope of scientific rationality is limited in the domains of existential and religious matters. Immanuel Kant’s critical writings on the relationship between science and religion, faith and reason are a case in point here. As a major representative of ‘moderate’ Enlightenment, he underlined both the reliability of scientific results as to the analysis of empirical data (‘phenomenal world’) and their finite capacities as to the analysis of what he defined as the realm of metaphysics/religion (‘noumenal world’), i.e. the existential domain beyond the field of empirical data.󰀉 Next, from an ethical point of view it can be maintained that formal autonomy, personal responsibility and courage are not at variance with religious beliefs, transcending the level of empirical data. Put differently, religious people, even if they rely on their religious beliefs in coping with existential questions, are as autonomous as non-religious people. But in order to make that clear, we have to distinguish two terms that are often used interchangeably, i.e. autonomy and authenticity. Of course, the modern ideal of autonomy and the right to make our own decisions can never be abandoned in a secular society. It is generally  Israel, Radical Enlightenment, 󰀁󰀁.  Cf. Maclure and Taylor, Secularism and Freedom of Conscience, 󰀃󰀁, footnote 󰀃.

󰀈

󰀉

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accepted nowadays that issues, once settled by some external reality or by the dictates of authority, are now referred to our own choice. But the acceptance of this inevitable movement of ‘subjectivation’ does not entail the equivalence of autonomy and authenticity. By contrast, to confuse the two often gives rise to and legitimises the most superficial forms of subjectivism and even narcissism. In order to elucidate the complex relation between autonomy on the one hand and authenticity on the other, Charles Taylor has introduced a vital distinction between two levels, i.e. the formal level of manner and the substantial level of matter or content of human action. At the formal level, the ideal of autonomy clearly refers to the manner of espousing a specific goal or end. No one can be bullied, against his or her own decision, into a certain way of life. Formal autonomy is, beyond any doubt, self-referential: the way of life I choose must be my autonomous orientation. But – and here we arrive at the quintessence of possible confusion – the acceptance of formal autonomy does not entail that the matter or contents of an authentic life must be self-referential as well. By contrast, we rather find genuine satisfaction and fulfilment in something only, if this has significance beyond our own desires. The ‘malaise of modernity’, the derailment of (post)modern subjectivism is due precisely to the very confusion of these two levels. Autonomy or self-determining freedom at the formal level has become deeply embedded in our contemporary culture; authenticity at the substantial level, however, still remains an utter challenge. At the substantial level of matter, authenticity is interwoven with an answer to an appeal coming from something or someone whose significance is independent of our own desires.󰀁󰀀 Finally, history shows that religions were not the only causes of igniting war and terrorism, of endangering the existence of peaceful societies, as republican adherents of a secular society are eager to claim. The terrorist effects of the French Revolution, the Holocaust by Nazi-Germany, the Gulag camps during Stalin’s rule, the Cultural Revolution under Mao, the Killing Fields in Cambodia, they all testify to the dangerous potential inherent in all ideologies, religious and non-religious alike. Crucial for those who advocate the ‘moderate’ variant of Enlightenment is the axiom of admitting diverse ways to justify the principles of a secular society. They claim that dialogue, mutual understanding and  This paragraph is based on Charles Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀁), 󰀈󰀁-󰀈󰀂. 󰀁󰀀

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cooperation among citizens of a multi-cultural and multi-religious society are not promoted by effacing religious, moral and philosophical differences. By contrast, they think that mutual understanding and cooperation are precisely enhanced by recognising, acknowledging and respecting the respective similarities and differences alike.󰀁󰀁 Against this backdrop, the very distinction between the two models of a secular society may be refined: The republican model attributes to secularism the mission of favoring, in addition to respect for moral equality and freedom of conscience, the emancipation of individuals and the growth of a common civic identity, which requires marginalising religious affiliations and forcing them back into the private sphere. The liberal-pluralist model, by contrast, sees secularism as a mode of governance whose function is to find the optimal balance between respect for moral equality and respect for freedom of conscience [which requires equal respect for religious and secular arguments, gvh].󰀁󰀂

III. The Role of Basic Convictions in a Secular Society I hope the preceding pages have made it clear that the second level – the level of justifying ethical principles – is the most precarious one. Not surprisingly, this is the level where personal identity is being shaped. Again, I refer to one of Charles Taylor’s insights to elucidate the intimate relation between personal identity and ethical principles. That is, I make use of the link he makes between the distinction between autonomy and authenticity and another distinction between weak evaluation and strong evaluation. Whereas weak evaluation mainly occurs in terms of quantitative and ethically neutral standards (utility, desirability), in the case of strong evaluation qualitative and ethically fraught terms and standards (true, false, low, noble, honest, dishonest) are at stake. In Taylor’s view, only people capable of making strong evaluations are able to develop a genuine identity and to overcome inner fragmentation, implicitly present in claiming the right to unrestrained self-determination. In short, strong evaluations make for the very identity of a person. And it goes without saying that religious, moral and philosophical convictions belong inherently to the domain of strong evaluations.  Maclure and Taylor, Secularism and Freedom of Conscience, 󰀃󰀂.  Ibid., 󰀃󰀄. See chapters 󰀂 and 󰀃 of this book for a further elaboration of these distinctions as well. 󰀁󰀁

󰀁󰀂

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Proponents of a pluralist view and adherents of a republican interpretation alike acknowledge the ethically fraught and consequently precarious status of deep (religious, philosophical, moral) convictions. Despite their shared acknowledgment of this precarious status, their reactions are, however, often seen as diametrically opposed. While republicans plead both for pacification by means of the effacement of all identity markers and for unrestrained freedom of speech in all circumstances,󰀁󰀃 proponents of a pluralist secular society reject or at least mitigate that double plea in favour of what they define as a twofold attitude of empathy and wisdom.󰀁󰀄 Pacification and Unrestrained Freedom of Speech Let me illustrate these diametrically opposed reactions in view of one specific case study. Republicans, as convinced advocates of the state’s neutrality, are in favour of prohibiting civil servants from wearing headscarves. Since identity markers reveal and even emphasise the different answers of people to questions regarding the meaning of life, wearing them jeopardises, in their view, peaceful coexistence. Accordingly, prohibiting civil servants from wearing identity markers while being in function and so promoting pacification among citizens will enhance each citizen’s freedom and the government’s service alike. Republicans believe that, by doing this, a society may be created in which people can meet as equals and are granted the same opportunities to find happiness. Consequently, their answer to the manifold challenges for a secular society is a plea for pacification by the effacement of all religious, philosophical, and moral differences. At the same time, however, their answer to all these challenges consists in the defence of complete and unrestrained freedom of opinion. In their eyes, freedom of opinion may never be confined due to the possibly insulting character of certain views. Underlying this claim is the presupposition that freedom of conscience does not need (to imply) respect for deep convictions, only respect for individuals whatever convictions they may have. Consequently, prohibitions of – for example – blasphemy or islamophobia are rejected as being illegitimate constraints of the freedom of speech. For republicans, like for instance the ‘four 󰀁󰀃  Jurgen Slembrouck et al., “Aan het loket noch God noch partij,” De Standaard, 󰀂 May 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀃. 󰀁󰀄  See section IV.

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horsemen’ (Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, Hitchens) or in Flanders Etienne Vermeersch, islamophobia has nothing to do with disrespect for individuals, only with the religious content people are always entitled to accept or reject.󰀁󰀅 By contrast, pluralists point out and expose the paradoxical character of a defence of pacification, simultaneous with full freedom of opinion. If, due to the precarious character of deep (moral, philosophical and religious) convictions, pacification is thought to be necessary, why then, they wonder, is there the simultaneous demand for full freedom of opinion in all circumstances, however insulting and offending an opinion might be? It is precisely because deep convictions are highly precarious that pluralists reject the republicans’ strategy for pacification by means of effacing philosophical, religious and moral differences. Pluralists like Taylor, Maclure, Calhoun, and many others do not demand the breakdown of freedom of opinion, they instead call for an attitude of wisdom and empathy. Why do pluralists do that? On the one hand, they argue that a plea for pacification by effacing deep differences undervalues and even undermines the legitimacy of existing diversity at the second level. Why would it be impossible for people with fundamentally different answers to the very same questions regarding happiness and meaning of life (second level), to live together and respect an ‘overlapping consensus’ (first level)? Does the republican plea for pacification not presuppose that certain groups are not entitled to formulate their own answers to these questions? Precisely because deep (religious, moral and philosophical) convictions, based on strong evaluation, make for the identity of a person, a ban on giving utterance to one’s own deepest convictions actually violates the right to freedom of opinion. Of course, the demand to act impartially may never be compromised in a secular society. But why should a religious Muslim, a devout Christian, or an orthodox Jew not be able to treat other citizens impartially and respectfully in his or her function as a civil servant? Is it not rather the case that a republican view – according to which exhibiting his or her religious, moral, or philosophical convictions is in conflict with constitutional law – is itself the ultimate consequence of a biased approach?

 Etienne Vermeersch, “Er staat meer in de weg dan praktische bezwaren,” De Standaard, 󰀂󰀇-󰀂󰀈 July 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀃, 󰀆󰀁. 󰀁󰀅

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On the other hand, proponents of a pluralist model – like Charles Taylor, Cornel West, and even Jürgen Habermas since the last decade – make a plea for wisdom and empathy regarding unrestrained freedom of opinion. This very plea is indebted to a sensitivity for the precarious and identity-building aspect of deep convictions as well. Of course, the right to criticism of any world view (whether religious or secular) must be guaranteed in any event. But because deep convictions are intimately intertwined with a person’s identity, the thesis of many proponents of the republican model – for example that islamophobia has nothing to do with attacking individuals, only with their religion – is in pluralists’ eyes a false thesis. Admittedly, whereas Nazi antisemitism directly targeted the individual Jew, many islamophobic utterances are directed at certain views within Islamic religion, not at Islamic individuals themselves. But bearing in mind the strong relation between deep convictions and our personal identity, insulting utterances regarding one’s deepest convictions are at the very least indirect attacks on one’s personal singularity as well. Since one’s deepest convictions are part and parcel of one’s strongest evaluations, subtlety of terminology is of utmost importance in this respect. Being aware of that subtlety is not in conflict with guaranteeing freedom of opinion. It only reminds us that this hard-won freedom of opinion is not simply a safe conduct for trumpeting each and every opinion, without taking into consideration one’s deepest feelings and convictions. The right to freedom of speech does not imply automatically that it is wise – let alone desirable – to produce whatever opinion: Whereas Salman Rushdie’s mockery in the Satanic verses was situated within a work that offers a compelling portrait of the human condition in the era of globalisation, it is plausible that the reprinting of the caricatures of Muhammad in Charlie Hebdo served only to fan the conflict and to shore up the newspaper’s staff’s sense of selfimportance. The decision of the vast majority of Western media outlets not to fuel the misunderstandings by reprinting the caricatures attests to a wise judgment about the exercise of free speech. Similarly, it is possible for religious leaders to show us how religions give access to a unique way of living in the modern world without suggesting that a life conducted in keeping with a secular outlook is inevitably incomplete or corrupt.󰀁󰀆

 Maclure and Taylor, Secularism and Freedom of Conscience, 󰀁󰀀󰀉-󰀁󰀁󰀀.

󰀁󰀆

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IV. The Illusion of Neutrality and the Importance of Articulation This very last issue – how to define and secure the boundaries of freedom of opinion (racism, homophobia, blasphemy…)? – refers to and illustrates a field of tensions between the two different interpretations of a secular society (republican versus pluralist) for which there is no miracle cure or tailor-made solution readily available. I will deal with these tensions in this final part. In my view, this field of tensions has first and foremost to do with a completely new situation regarding the status of deep convictions. Throughout human history, almost all societies used to be built on generally shared views about the most important moral, religious, and philosophical topics. By contrast, and presumably for the very first time, Western people in the 󰀂󰀁st century are challenged to construct a society in which citizens have to live up to an “overlapping consensus” about basic principles, but based on utterly different views about the most important moral, religious, and philosophical topics. One of the ways to cope with this precarious predicament of contemporary society is what Charles Taylor paraphrases in Sources of the Self as the “prudent strategy.” This very strategy is bound up with the belief that articulating one’s highest spiritual ideals and aspirations is likely to create an atmosphere in which it becomes impossible for people with different deep convictions to live together in peace. Consequently, this strategy proclaims a ban on articulating one’s deepest convictions in the public sphere. At a deeper philosophical level, this prudent strategy rests on the anthropological belief in human neutrality as the indispensable basis for objectivity. Whereas this prudent strategy is part and parcel of a republican interpretation of what a secular society should be, it is usually rejected in a pluralist interpretation. Evidently, republicans and pluralists are agreed that all societies and states have been formed by communities of people. But since pluralists, in contrast to republicans, believe there are no neutral human beings, they consequently claim that there is no neutral society or state either. Therefore, the state’s mandate is not to adopt an attitude of neutrality (for instance ‘behind a veil of ignorance’, as proclaimed by John Rawls in his famous book, A Theory of Justice) but to adopt an attitude of impartiality. This attitude entails that the state’s members cannot be reduced to neutral robots – not even its public servants – but that they are expected to treat others respectfully and equally, without however putting aside their own strong convictions and commitments. Thus, a culture of impartiality is completely different from a culture of neutrality.

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But what does one understand exactly by neutrality? And what is the main difference between neutrality and impartiality? 󰀁. Neutrality Neutrality is a concept typical of Enlightenment, generally related to the names of René Descartes and those of the British empiricists. It is embodied in the typical views on subjectivity, described by Taylor as ‘disengaged subjects’ (Descartes) and ‘punctual selves’ (Locke). Precisely this latter view of humankind led David Hume to the conclusion that a stable self is an illusory idea. If one becomes a person or a self through the process of registering and assimilating impressions passively, such a neutral person can, by definition, never become a stable self, perhaps not a self at all. Because every individual is fully dependent on data and stimuli provided by the outer world and because registering changing stimuli is the only knowledge source of the outer world, the individual eventually coincides with the stimuli. It was this view that woke up Immanuel Kant from his ‘dogmatic slumbers’. In answer to Hume’s scepticism, he claimed that we do not just register stimuli from the outer world but that we order them into a whole in which we can recognise ourselves and with which we organise our world. But, Kant added, the way these stimuli are ordered is universal, i.e. identical for everyone. On this universally valid possibility to organise stimuli he founded our human capacity to do scientific research. Precisely because scientific results bracket all cultural differences, they are universally applicable to all cultures. Scientific results arise from a ‘neutral’ core with which anyone in all circumstances is gifted so as to arrive at universal, objectively valid statements. In Western philosophy, this neutral core was granted the enigmatic name of ‘transcendental subject’. Kant emphasised that we must not confuse a transcendental subject with a concrete, empirical subject like you and me. But the two concepts of subjectivity are not as completely separated as Kant wished them to be. We are only able to discover transcendental subjectivity if all contents related to the empirical subject’s concrete life course are purified by subjecting them to the formal judgment of procedural rationality. It is common knowledge that Romanticism reacted against this enlightened concept of a transcendental subject and that its major thinkers soon began to undermine the transcendental subject’s universal claims. Sensitive to each human being’s individual character, they

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rejected an ‘empty’ view of man (conceived as a transcendental subject) and its accompanying possibility of formal purification. Opposing the neutralisation of the subject, romantic meta-critics of Kant (Hamann, Herder, Humboldt) highlighted the fact that every human being has a particular core, shaped by descent, education, and tradition. 󰀂. Neutrality and Fanaticism It is not my intention here to repeat the whole history of the complex and complicated relations between Romanticism and Enlightenment, as depicted by all these authors, and its repercussions for our current view of humankind. Rather, I would like to consult a contemporary novelist from Israel, Amos Oz. Like all great novelists, Oz is extremely sensitive to the subtlety of words. And it goes without saying that, living in the spiritual no man’s land between Jews and Palestinians, he is extremely sensitive to the stealthy danger of fanaticism and enthusiasm. But unlike many thinkers from the past and the republicans today who, stamped by the scars from religious wars, propagated and propagate an attitude of cool detachment and a neutralisation of deepest convictions as an antidote to fanaticism, Oz, tried and tested by the vicissitudes of the Jewish people in modern European culture, proposes another attitude. Disclaiming the traditional view that the fanatic has too much ‘self’, he sees him or her as someone who is destitute of a ‘self’. Put in a more familiar terminology, the fanatic has no ‘sources of the self’. There are, indeed, different ways of being fanatic. As a rule, fanaticism is linked to the danger of enthusiastic belief in the unshakable truth of a conviction. During the last centuries, we have deservedly become sensitive to guarding against its threatening danger. But there is another form of fanaticism, which is much less visible, because it presents itself – paradoxically enough – as an antidote to fanaticism. This – mostly hidden and hardly recognisable – form of fanaticism is interwoven with marginalising our ‘deepest convictions’, either by discrediting them as potentially dangerous or by tailoring their contents to a procedural format. In this perspective, any idea of a human person’s deep core, to which he or she wishes to remain loyal, is seen as illusory and likely to be dangerous. Even if Oz in his essay, How to cure a fanatic, does not explicitly distinguish both forms of fanaticism, he arrives at the apparently paradoxical conclusion that the fanatic is generally a ‘most unselfish creature’, a great altruist. In the absence of a ‘self’, he is mostly focused on the other:

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The fanatic wants to save your soul, he wants to redeem you, he wants to liberate you from sin, from error, from smoking, from your faith or from your faithlessness, he wants to improve your eating habits, or to cure you of your drinking or voting habits. The fanatic cares a great deal for you; he is always either falling on your neck because he truly loves you or else he is at your throat in case you prove to be unredeemable. And, in any case, topographically speaking, falling on your neck and being at your throat are almost the same gesture. One way or another, the fanatic is more interested in you than in himself, for the very simple reason that the fanatic has very little self or no self at all (italics mine).󰀁󰀇

Indeed, the fanatic has no self at all. Whether clinging to his fundamentalist belief in the incontestable truth of his own worldview or taking a detached, empty, so-called neutral point of view, the fanatic feels that he must liberate the other from the ballast of his traditions and convictions, which he deems as either unimaginably stupid and hopelessly outmoded or as extremely dangerous and inherently biased. Only by breaking free from these oppressing shackles can the other liberate himself. But Oz wants to cure the fanatic. Therefore, on the very last pages of his essay he puts forward an alternative definition of the person as a peninsula half attached to the mainland, half facing the ocean – one half connected to family and friends and culture and tradition and country and nation and sex and language and many other things, and the other half wanting to be left alone to face the ocean.󰀁󰀈

Genuine tolerance is only possible, Oz writes, when we are “allowed to remain peninsulas.” As a matter of fact, we all belong to a family, a culture and a worldview, a country and a language. We have not chosen these after a long process of deliberation, instead we have received them from earlier generations. Forgetting this peninsular feature makes us so easily susceptible to proselytism and inadvertently reinforces the ambitious longing to convert the other. That very forgetfulness of every individual’s attachment to his or her own part of the mainland is likely to – surreptitiously – transform a person into a fanatic: The essence of fanaticism lies in the desire to force other people to change.󰀁󰀉 󰀁󰀇  Amos Oz, How to Cure a Fanatic? (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀆), 󰀅󰀇-󰀅󰀈. 󰀁󰀈  Ibid., 󰀆󰀉-󰀇󰀀. 󰀁󰀉  Ibid., 󰀅󰀇.

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Do we hear an echo of a conservative plea for securing tradition and rejecting critical reflection? Not at all. Even if you are aware of your deep attachment to a host of customs and traditions, nothing prevents you from looking over the ocean, facing its infinitude, comparing your own background with other traditions and customs and finally adjusting your attitude, modifying your position, changing your view. Feeling empathy with another does not have to be at odds with recognition of your own quality of peninsula. By contrast, an attitude of imaginative empathy can help you feel that the other is equally a peninsula and that every peninsula is, by definition, contingent: And in my own personal background, in my own personal life story and family story, I can’t help thinking, very often, that with a slight twist of my genes, or of my parents’ circumstances, I could be him or her, I could be a Jewish West Bank settler, I could be an ultra-orthodox extremist, I could be an oriental Jew from a Third World country; I could be anyone. I could be one of my enemies. Imagining this is always a helpful practice.󰀂󰀀

󰀃. The Importance of Articulation Due to our current belief in the neutral force of procedural rationality, we often fail to remember the presence of this peninsula quality in each of us. Yet it is interwoven with our deepest convictions, our basic choices in life, our cherished values, the persons we feel attached to. If we neutralise that quality everything runs the risk of losing its value. It is as if nothing really matters. Evading potential frictions by resorting to converting the contents of divergent opinions into sheer procedural terms seems then the only ‘prudent’ strategy left to combat fanaticism. But a person with an outspoken and articulated opinion is not, by definition, a fanatic. A person becomes a fanatic when he forgets to articulate that we are all peninsulas, not empty cabinets or unwritten pages. I conclude. The utter discord regarding the importance of articulating one’s deepest convictions is related to the two different views of respectively Enlightenment and secularism I already referred to. Whereas ‘radical’ Enlightenment is related to a belief in the attitude of neutrality, so prominently present in natural sciences, ‘moderate’ Enlightenment is related to the attitude of impartiality. The choice for either of them  Oz, How to Cure a Fanatic?, 󰀆󰀈.

󰀂󰀀

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depends on whether the ‘radical’ Enlightenment is seen as a less compromised version of the essence of Enlightenment (the proponents of neutrality) or vice versa, the ‘moderate’ variant as a more appropriate interpretation (the proponents of impartiality). That very same discord regarding the importance of articulation relates to the two different views of secularism as well. While republicans often define secularism and the secular society’s central role as a ‘bulwark against religion’, in general pluralists defend a different conception of secularism and the secular state, i.e., they define it as a response to the diversity not only of religious but of non-religious positions as well. In the latter perspective, secularism is not tantamount to the disappearance of religion, by contrast, secularism is related to the acceptance of an irreversible internal diversity of deep convictions. Hence, “appropriate responses to such diversity, all of which seek to maximise the basic goals of liberty and equality between basic beliefs, are bound to be context specific, and there is no algorithm that can determine the shape of a particular secular regime. In many Western countries, where secularism initially emerged as a vehicle for protecting against some form or other of religious domination, there has subsequently been a shift toward a more widespread diversity of basic beliefs – religious, non-religious, and areligious.”󰀂󰀁 Consequently, the prudent strategy inherent in radical Enlightenment with its fixation on religion, Taylor writes, “makes sense [only] on the assumption that the dilemma is inescapable, that [articulating] the highest spiritual aspirations must lead to mutilation or destruction.” When this assumption is accepted as an axiomatic premise, articulating one’s deepest convictions only makes things worse. But, Taylor goes on, “I don’t accept this as our inevitable lot. The dilemma of mutilation is in a sense our greatest challenge, not an iron fate.”󰀂󰀂 Only by understanding our contemporary secular society as a society in which its three major values – liberty, equality and fraternity – are to be secured, the original ‘fixation’ on the role of religion alone may disappear in favour of a joint effort of religious, non-religious and areligious people alike to coordinate as best as possible the often conflicting claims of these three different values. However difficult that task may be, it 󰀂󰀁  Eduardo Mendieta and Jonathan VanAntwerpen, “Introduction: The Power of Religion in the Public Sphere,” in The Power of Religion in the Public Sphere, ed. Eduardo Mendieta and Jonathan VanAntwerpen (New York: Columbia University Press, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀁), 󰀇. 󰀂󰀂  Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 󰀁󰀉󰀈󰀉), 󰀅󰀂󰀀-󰀅󰀂󰀁.

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remains the constant challenge of democratic secular states to promote and put into practice as much as possible that aspiration: In short, contemporary societies must develop the ethical and political knowledge that will allow them to fairly and consistently manage the moral, spiritual, and cultural diversity at their heart. Those who embrace worldviews such as the great historical monotheisms, the Eastern religions, spiritual eclecticism, aboriginal spiritualities, militant atheism, agnosticism, and so on must learn to coexist and, ideally, to establish bonds of solidarity. We believe that the pluralist political secularism outlined in this book, supported by an ethics of dialogue respectful of the different moral and spiritual options, is best able to promote that learning process.󰀂󰀃

 Maclure and Taylor, Secularism and Freedom of Conscience, 󰀁󰀁󰀀.

󰀂󰀃

The Cultural-Historical Roots and the Conceptual Construction of Laicity Research Paths Antonio Maria Baggio Introduction This article is meant to delineate some paths for research regarding the cultural roots of laicity and the history of this concept. The first research path concerns the secularisation process. Through this, the conditions for contemporary laicity are brought about. I will begin by briefly considering this aspect since it involves the meaning of the words I will be using. Since the relationship between secularisation and laicity is complex – between cause and effect – it is not possible to consider “secularisation” and “laicity” as synonyms; even if it is common usage. Therefore, it is ill-advised to translate the words with the Greek root, laós (λαός), like the French word laïcité, with words rooted in the Latin saeculum (like the English word secular). A second path for study regards the appearance of the word laïcité. What were the cultural roots and the ideological construction of those introducing this neologism in the second half of the French 󰀁󰀉th century? A third aspect concerns discussion about the laicity spanning the 󰀂󰀀th century. Even if it is true that a radical antagonistic current of “laïcité philosophique” persists until today, other interpretations of the concept have become manifest over the century including a “positive laicity,” shared by the state and religions. It has been realised in the agreements reached in different countries. A fourth path for research takes a look at the evolution of laicity within the Church or closely connected to it. In fact, the concept of laós is one of the elements characterising both the Church as “people of God” as well as the part of the Church defined as the “laity.” In the fifth and final part of the article, a particular experience of laicity is taken into consideration. It was lived in moments of heavy

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suffering over the course of the 󰀂󰀀th century. But an element unifying the human condition was revealed in the form of the radical question arising from that suffering; it overcame every opposition between the “sacred” and the “profane.” I. What Are We Talking About? A Clarification of the Key Words of the Debate Lay, laity, laicity, laicism: the variety of meanings attributed to the key words of the subject we are considering appears in academic studies as well as in common linguistic usage. In English we find the adjectives “lay” and “laic” (less frequently), that refer to the condition of the “layperson” and of the “laity.” The meaning of “laity” is the same in several English dictionaries; I can quote for example, the definition of the Cambridge English Dictionary: “all the people who are involved with a Church but who are not priests.” This meaning comes from the ecclesiastical context. The American Heritage College Dictionary shares this view: “Laypeople considered as a group,” but it extends the meaning of “laity” beyond the ecclesiastical limits to indicate the common people: “Those who are not members of a given profession or other specialised fields.” We find this extension in British English as well (for example in the Oxford Dictionary of English). Nothing is per se pejorative in the meaning of laity; it simply is a state of life. “Lay” and “laity” were used for a long time in the English language, but the absence of a third term became evident at a certain point – the word needed to translate the French “laïcité” when it is understood as the layperson’s state of life without any negative or positive connotation, but simply as an actual state. For example, Berthelot du Chesnay comes up against this limitation in the English vocabulary when he writes about “laicism” for the New Catholic Encyclopedia: Thereby laicism avows its origins; it can be born only in Catholic countries. Often it is confused with anticlericalism, which anteceded it and is a negative and popular form of it. ‘Laicism’ and ‘laicist’ are terms belonging to the Catholic armory of combat; the opposing camp speaks only of ‘laïcité ’ and laic (laïque). To give precision to these vague notions, distinctions are necessary.󰀁  Charles Berthelot du Chesnay, “Laicism,” New Catholic Encyclopedia. Volume VIII (San Francisco, CA, Toronto, and Sydney: The Catholic University of America, 󰀁󰀉󰀆󰀇), 󰀃󰀂󰀃. 󰀁

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While it is evident that the term “laicism” corresponds to the person qualified as “laicist” in the English language, Berthelot finds no English term which adequately corresponds to the person indicated as “laic,” and he is forced to utilise the French “laïcité.” The same occurs in the translation of John Paul II’s letter to the French bishops of February 󰀁󰀁, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀅 when the Pope speaks of “laïcité” in the positive sense: “Le principe de laïcité, auquel votre pays est très attaché, s’il est bien compris, appartient aussi à la Doctrine sociale de l’Église.”󰀂 This the official English translation of the letter: “Correctly understood, the principle of laïcité (secularity), to which your Country is deeply attached, is also part of the social teaching of the Church”󰀃: the translator retains the word “laïcité” from the original text because he/she does not find a precisely corresponding English term; he/she adds “secularity” in parentheses because he/she recognises the semantic distance between the roots, “laós” (λαός), and “saeculum.” The official English translation of Pope Benedict XVI’s greeting during his trip to France still does not translate the original expression of his French speech: “You yourself, Mr President, have used the fine expression ‘laïcité positive’ to characterise this more open understanding.”󰀄 The expression used by President Sarkozy is translated into German (positive Laizität), into the Romance languages and into Polish, but it is not translated into English because it is felt that an appropriate term is not available. The Latin word, “saecularisatio” originally indicated the passage of property (a building or a monastery for example) or an institution (a hospital, a school) from the religious to the non-religious sphere, for example from the Church to the state. With reference to a person, the “reductio ad saeculum” indicates the passage of a cleric to the state of layperson.

󰀂  John Paul II, Lettre du pape Jean-Paul II aux Évêques de France, from the Vatican, 󰀁󰀁 February 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀅, http://w󰀂.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/fr/letters/󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀅/documents/ hf_jp-ii_let_󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀅󰀀󰀂󰀁󰀁_french-bishops.html [accessed March 󰀅, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀇]. 󰀃  John Paul II, To Archbishop Jean-Pierre Ricard of Bordeaux President of the Bishops’ Conference of France and to All the Bishops of France, from the Vatican, 󰀁󰀁 February 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀅. http://w󰀂.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/letters/󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀅/documents/hf_jp-ii_ let_󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀅󰀀󰀂󰀁󰀁_french-bishops.html. 󰀄  Benedict XVI, Address of His Holiness Benedict XVI, Apostolic journey of His Holiness Benedict XVI to France, Paris, September 󰀁󰀂, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀈. https://w󰀂.vatican.va/content/ benedict-xvi/en/speeches/󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀈/september/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀈󰀀󰀉󰀁󰀂_parigielysee.html [accessed March 󰀅, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀇].

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Let us consider the developments occurring in the last decades in the research on the secularisation process of the 󰀂󰀀th century; such consideration specified the meaning of “secularisation” in a remarkable way. Harvey Cox gave great emphasis to the biblical roots of the secularisation process. The three “central threads” of this process: the disenchantment of nature, the deconsecration of values and the desacralisation of politics, stem from the fundamental pillars of biblical faith. “Where does that leave us today? Clearly, those whose present orientation to reality is shaped by the biblical faith can hardly in good faith enter the lists as opponents of secularisation.”󰀅 The connection between secularisation and Christianity is increasingly acknowledged. For instance, Claude Geffré explains that la sécularisation peut aussi avoir pour l’avenir du Christianisme une fonction exploratoire et même utopique. Autrement dit, la démythisation de la sécularisation comme idéologie doit coïncider avec un déchiffrement de sa portée explicatrice par rapport à la transformation de la dimension religieuse de l’homme. Elle a, en particulier, le mérite de nous manifester l’inadéquation des catégories de ‘sacré’ et de ‘profane’ pour rendre compte à la foi de la situation ‘religieuse’ de l’humanité contemporaine et du ‘religieux’ spécifiquement chrétien.󰀆

In conclusion, the development of various sciences, the history of concepts and social history in particular, led Owen Chadwick to affirm that secularisation describes an objective process, still obscure in its causes and consequences but a matter of history. I will seek to define it in these terms: ‘the relation (whatever that is, can only be known by historical enquiry) in which modern European civilisation and society stands to the Christian elements of its past and the continuing Christian elements of its present’.󰀇

This “objective process” removes the original opposition between the concepts of “secular” and “religious,” which had made them unsuitable to express the current reality of a world that is deeply secularised through

󰀅  Harvey Cox, The Secular City, Secularisation and Urbanisation in Theological Perspective (London: SCM Press, 󰀁󰀉󰀆󰀅), 󰀄󰀉. 󰀆  Claude Geffré, “La fonction idéologique de la sécularisation dans le christianisme contemporain,” in Herméneutique de la sécularisation: Actes du colloque organisé par le Centre international d’études humanistes et par l’Institut d’études philosophiques de Rome, Rome, 󰀃-󰀈 janvier 󰀁󰀉󰀇󰀆, ed. Enrico Castelli (Paris: Aubier, 󰀁󰀉󰀇󰀆), 󰀁󰀂󰀂. 󰀇  Owen Chadwick, The Secularization of the European Mind in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀀), 󰀂󰀆󰀄.

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the cultural contents of Christianity, even if this world may be in contrast with some historical manifestations of this religion. All these considerations lead me to underline the importance of using a term in the English language that indicates the condition of life of the layperson and of laity as a whole, and that maintains the same root from the original Greek word laós, in order to avoid the equivocations generated by passage from the “lay” semantic field to the “secular” one. In the past decades in fact, the word “lay” took a step forward by giving origin to the abstract noun “laicity,” that refers to the condition of the laity, rather than indicating the lay person. The distinction between laicity and laicism as such, arose within the Christian discussion, particularly in the second half of the 󰀂󰀀th century. It was necessary to give evidence of the positive laicity in that context on one hand, both within and outside of the Church; on the other hand, “laicism” was used for the active anti-religious and anti-clerical attitude. Finally, I will use the following criterion in these next pages: I will use “laicity” meaning the objective condition and culture of the laity and of the layperson (French: “laïcité,” Italian: “laicità”). I will use “laicism” instead in the sense of the ideological use of the laical theme (French: “laïcisme,” Italian: “laicismo”). The use of “laicity” begins to make its way into the specialised literature as Shiose and Zylberberg observe: For a long time, there was no direct translation of the word [laïcité] in English dictionaries. It was often (wrongly) rendered as ‘secularisation’. Numerous English-speaking authors preferred not to translate the word and used the French noun laïcité instead. (More recently a new term, ‘laicity’, has been introduced, and is used by some authors in this issue).󰀈

Furthermore, “laicity” has begun to be used as a keyword and in the abstracts of the specialised literature in the last few years.󰀉 󰀈  Yuki Shiose and Jacques Zylberberg, “Introduction,” Social Compass 󰀄󰀇, no. 󰀃 (󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀀): 󰀂󰀉󰀉. https://doi.org/󰀁󰀀.󰀁󰀁󰀇󰀇/󰀀󰀀󰀃󰀇󰀇󰀆󰀈󰀀󰀀󰀀󰀄󰀇󰀀󰀀󰀃󰀀󰀀󰀁 [accessed March 󰀅, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀇]. The authors refer to the articles in the issue of Social Compass for which they write the introduction; that issue is dedicated entirely to the question of laicity. 󰀉  For example in Jean Baubérot, “Cultural Transfer and National Identity in French Laicity,” Diogenes 󰀅󰀅, no. 󰀂 (󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀈): 󰀁󰀇-󰀂󰀅; Peter Price, “The Diaspora Church: Laity & ‘laicity’ in the Post-Vatican II Era,” Pacifica 󰀂󰀆, no. 󰀂 (󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀃): 󰀁󰀈󰀄-󰀁󰀉󰀈; Jeremy Ahearne, “Laïcité: A Parallel French Cultural Policy (󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀂-󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀇),” French Cultural Studies 󰀂󰀅, nos. 󰀃-󰀄 (󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀄): 󰀃󰀂󰀀-󰀃󰀂󰀉; Leon Sachs, “Reading laïcité,” French Cultural Studies 󰀂󰀅, nos. 󰀃-󰀄 (󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀄): 󰀃󰀃󰀀-󰀃󰀃󰀉.

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II. Laicity “à la française” 󰀁. Laïcité: A Definition The first treatment of laicity introduced as a new concept, appears in Ferdinand Buisson’s 󰀁󰀈󰀈󰀇 Dictionnaire de Pédagogie under the title, “Laïcité”: “Ce mot est nouveau, et, quoique correctement formé, il n’est pas encore d’un usage général. Cependant le néologisme est nécessaire, aucun autre terme ne permettant d’exprimer sans périphrase la même idée dans son ampleur.”󰀁󰀀 Buisson’s treatment refers to laws promulgated between 󰀁󰀈󰀈󰀀 and 󰀁󰀈󰀈󰀄 in which the “principle of laicity” is systematically applied; the scholastic reforms in particular draw inspiration from this, entailing among other things replacement of religious instruction with a lay morality. Generally, all the measures decreeing the removal of the religious element from the many sectors of public interest like the military, hospitals, and schools, are considered “laws of laicity”; or else they eliminate religious influence on important dimensions of personal life, such as for example the reintroduction of divorce.󰀁󰀁 This concept of laicity has some theoretical basis; at the same time it is profoundly linked to a plan of political militancy and institutional transformation. This is how Buisson describes it: La laïcité ou neutralité de l’école à tous les degrés n’est autre chose que l’application à l’école du régime qui a prévalu dans toutes nos institutions sociales. Nous sommes parti, comme la plupart des peuples, d’un état de choses qui consistait essentiellement dans la confusion de tous les pouvoirs et de tous le domaines, dans la subordination de toutes les autorités à une autorité unique, celle de la religion [...] Telle était précisément la situation de notre société jusqu’à la Déclaration des droits de l’homme. La Révolution française fit apparaître pour la première fois dans sa netteté entière l’idée de l’État laïque, l’idée de l’État neutre entre tous les cultes, indépendant de tous les clergés, dégagé de toute conception théologique [...] en 󰀁󰀀  Ferdinand Buisson, “Laïcité,” in id., Dictionnaire de Pédagogie et d’Instruction primaire, Ire partie, Tome second (Paris: Hachette, 󰀁󰀈󰀈󰀈), 󰀁󰀄󰀆󰀉. Pierre Daled, in his article “Aux origines du principe de ‘laïcité’,” in Laïcité et sécularisation dans l’Union européenne, ed. Alain Dierkens and Jean-Philippe Schreiber (Brussels: Éditions de l’Université de Bruxelles, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀆), 󰀃󰀅-󰀄󰀃, holds that – even if in a prudential form – laïcité was used for the first time during a ‘Conseil général de la Seine’ session on November 󰀇, 󰀁󰀈󰀇󰀁, as appears in the account published by La Patrie on the following November 󰀉 (p. 󰀃󰀇). As for Buisson, Daled explains that he used the term for the first time three years later in his Rapport sur l’instruction primaire à l’Exposition universelle de Vienne en 󰀁󰀈󰀇󰀃 (p. 󰀃󰀈). 󰀁󰀁  Law Naquet, of July 󰀂󰀇, 󰀁󰀈󰀈󰀄.

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général l’exercice de tous les droits civils désormais assurés en dehors de toute condition religieuse, telles furent les mesures décisives qui consommèrent l’œuvre de sécularisation.󰀁󰀂

The law of March 󰀂󰀈, 󰀁󰀈󰀈󰀂 establishes the general framework for lay public instruction; Buisson explains that it is becoming fundamental to replace the instruction formerly provided by the religious congregations with that of the “régime de la laïcité” in the new context. Whatever measures are adopted, the congregations’ presence in education must be reduced because it is impossible to count on the congregations’ “neutrality” which is required by laicity.󰀁󰀃 Buisson describes the secularisation process in an antagonistic way, as the conquest of an emancipation from religious domination. It is the theoretical basis for political actions which would be gradually implemented in the following years, even throughout the turnover of governments and the uncertainty of different political phases. Action taken directly against the religious congregations develops from 󰀁󰀉󰀀󰀁 until the 󰀁󰀉󰀀󰀄 law󰀁󰀄 prohibiting instruction by the religious congregations. This policy unleashes a violent backlash in the country. The conflict is deeply rooted, tearing at consciences; the legislation against the congregations is in explicit conflict with the principle of freedom of education in fact. The Third Republic leaves deep wounds; a shared solution to the issues that erupted at the beginning of the century is only found in 󰀁󰀉󰀅󰀉.󰀁󰀅 A “law of separation” between the state and religious organisations would be brought to completion on December 󰀉, 󰀁󰀉󰀀󰀅. A complex effort at mediation with respect to the law is led by Aristide Briand in particular; he was a simple member of Parliament when he supported the law; the legislators find a juridical equilibrium point in this which would turn out to be useful as time passed.󰀁󰀆 Masonic hostility with respect to the Catholic Church is an established fact; it constitutes a strong presence within the laicist position, 󰀁󰀂

 Buisson, “Laïcité,” 󰀁󰀄󰀆󰀉.  Ibid., 󰀁󰀄󰀇󰀀. 󰀁󰀄  The law of July 󰀇, 󰀁󰀉󰀀󰀄 prohibits religious congregations’ instruction and dissolves the teaching congregations. 󰀁󰀅  The law of December 󰀃󰀁, 󰀁󰀉󰀅󰀉, named after Louis Debré, Prime Minister and Minister of National Education, envisions the possibility of arranging contracts between the state and non-state schools which apply. 󰀁󰀆  Jean-Pierre Machelon’s work, La République contre les libertés? Les restrictions aux libertés publiques de 󰀁󰀈󰀇󰀉 à 󰀁󰀉󰀁󰀄 (Paris: Les Presses de Sciences Po, 󰀁󰀉󰀇󰀆) is a useful tool for a close juridical study of legislation regarding the topics of laicity. 󰀁󰀃

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feeding it; “La franc-maçonnerie est le réservoir de ce laïcisme à l’état concentré, de cet anticléricalisme ensuite dilué, à doses diverses, dans des nombreuses catégories du public français.”󰀁󰀇 Jean-François Chassaing ascertains: “L’évolution de la maçonnerie au long du XIXe siècle en fait une force frontale d’opposition à l’Église Catholique.”󰀁󰀈 The principal players promoting the “laicisation” law of 󰀁󰀈󰀈󰀂 and the “separation” law of 󰀁󰀉󰀀󰀅 were effectively Masons: Les lois Ferry, ainsi que la loi de 󰀁󰀉󰀀󰀅 sont donc des lois de combat contre l’Église et non des lois de concorde comme une vulgate scolaire le présente abusivement. Elles se voient comme un triomphe de la raison, que monopolise maintenant le Grand Orient, sur l’obscurantisme [...] La laïcité, dans sa naissance officielle [...] se confond rigoureusement avec l’hostilité à toute religion.󰀁󰀉

As for religions, Buisson does not deny while describing “laicity” that at least a part of the rights currently assured by the lay state were assured by the Church and religious organisations earlier. In fact, he claims a debt of gratitude toward all the religious who were dedicated to instruction and education throughout the centuries. The point is that now nothing should be connected any longer to the context of a particular religion for those supporting laïcité, but it should be connected to the universal dimension of the state. 󰀂. Ideological Laïcité between Esotericism and Eclecticism We could define this as a “replacement process” with an acceptable logic if it is interpreted as a process in which the state can gradually be in a position to fulfil its own tasks which were formerly performed by the Church in place of the state. But given that the state has the responsibility to assure all the citizens’ education, is it really necessary that it take on the task of directly assuring this education by excluding the social subjects that had done it for centuries and centuries before? Does the state have to put itself in the position of doing what the society had done on its own, or should it operate as legislator, facilitator, controller,  Henri du Passage, L’anticléricalisme français, hier et demain (Paris: Spes, 󰀁󰀉󰀂󰀅), 󰀅󰀃; quoted by Jean-Baptiste Trotabas, La notion de laïcité dans le droit de l’Église catholique et de l’État républicain (Aix-en-Provence: La Pensée Universitaire, 󰀁󰀉󰀅󰀉), 󰀁󰀆󰀈. 󰀁󰀈  Jean-François Chassaing, “La laïcité et la République française,” in La laïcité et la construction de l’Europe: Dualité des pouvoirs et neutralité religieuse XVIIe-XXIe siècle, ed. Jacques Bouineau and Burt Kasparian (Paris: L’Harmattan, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀂), 󰀁󰀂󰀀. 󰀁󰀉  Chassaing, “La laïcité et la République française,” 󰀁󰀂󰀁-󰀁󰀂󰀂. 󰀁󰀇

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and guarantor that the rights connected with education be assured for everyone? The “lois de laïcité” open up a debate running through the entire 󰀂󰀀th century until today. But the “replacement process” has another, markedly ideological aspect which emerges as soon as the method used to build the “morale laïque” is considered. Succinctly incorporated into the first school manuals of 󰀁󰀉󰀁󰀄, this is how Baubérot described it: Cette morale emprunte ses éléments à diverses traditions: l’Antiquité, les moralistes français, les Lumières, le (néo)kantisme, Auguste Comte, les Christianismes et Confucius. Ces emprunts patrimoniaux sont revisités à partir de la confiance dans le progrès et de deux notions clés: la dignité et la solidarité.󰀂󰀀

Described in this way, the cultural operation giving life to the “lay morality” appears to be a typical eclectic construction. An effort is made to compose a cultural synthesis and to outline a framework for commitment with an ideology of progress. For this purpose, a selection and a reinterpretation of principles, ideas, and values taken from different cultures and traditions are employed. The attempt is made to render them compatible with the new vision of the world that is being offered – i.e. the lay morality. And this is what is effectively achieved, or at least the attempt is made, especially by thinkers characterised by a positivist and pragmatic philosophy, who pay attention to the effectiveness of the new cultural synthesis they are employing in social and political action. This applies to figures like Léon Bourgeois or Jules Ferry. But if we consider other thinkers like Ferdinand Buisson, or Claude Nicolet in the 󰀂󰀀th century, the methodology is very different. We are no longer dealing with a form of eclecticism collecting heterogeneous elements together, seeking to harmonise them around the central idea of laicity. The traditional logic of esotericism󰀂󰀁 is at work in these later times instead. It has ancient roots, but it runs through the Christian epoch, oftentimes underground, emerging in explicit forms at other times as in the case of certain gnostic doctrines from the first centuries 󰀂󰀀  Jean Baubérot, Histoire de la laïcité en France (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀇 [󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀃]), 󰀄󰀉. 󰀂󰀁  Regarding the gnosis of the first Christian centuries, see Henri-Charles Puech, En quête de la Gnose. I. La Gnose et le temps et autres essais. II. Sur l’Évangile selon Thomas. Esquisse d’une interprétation systématique (Paris: Gallimard, 󰀁󰀉󰀇󰀈 [Leiden 󰀁󰀉󰀅󰀉]); for a historical-cultural map of esotericism: Pierre A. Riffard, L’ésotérisme: Qu’est-ce que l’ésotérisme? Anthologie de l’ésotérisme occidental (Paris: Laffont, 󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀀); as an important theoretical study, I indicate: Aldo Magris, La logica del pensiero gnostico (Brescia: Morcelliana, 󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀇).

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or in the symbolic visions of the builders of cathedrals, in certain Renaissance currents and in a myriad of groups and organisations that reach the 󰀁󰀉th and 󰀂󰀀th centuries, when esotericism takes on powerfully articulated theoretical structures in works by authors such as Ananda Coomaraswamy, Titus Burckhardt, Frithjof Schüon and especially, René Guénon.󰀂󰀂 Esotericism has been and is expressed in different forms (and it can effectively give life to forms of eclecticism on a popular level), but a conviction common to all of them is maintained based on gnostic logic: it is deemed to understand the truths transmitted by religions and cultures better than they can understand themselves. As a consequence, it can live together with any religion which always represents the “surface” of the truth whereas esoteric knowledge knows the deep heart of the truth which is reserved for the “initiated.” Put differently, esotericism can behave in a way that replaces religions since it maintains the deep truth, freed from the system of rites and superstitions that religions would add. That is what happens in the ideological version of the “lay morality”; it makes no sense to keep the different cultural and religious traditions alive, since an unprecedented ideological combination, which we could define with an oxymoron as “progressive esotericism,” is in a position to gather all the truths spread in the different traditions and to build a new vision with them, the new humanism of “laïcité.” The esotericism which distinguishes between the “initiated” and those who are not, and which creates a hierarchy based on knowledge (at least at the origin of the different esoteric organisations), also characterises the teachings “on several levels” corresponding to the different grades of the Masonic hierarchy. The “affaire des fiches” involving Combes󰀂󰀃 and many other scandals occurring subsequently through the 󰀂󰀀th century show that an elite initially based on knowledge can easily be transformed or replaced by a political, social or economic elite; since this latter is largely interested in maintaining and increasing its own power, it becomes more comfortable with eclecticism which makes an easy, 󰀂󰀂  On Guénon and the esoteric milieu of the 󰀂󰀀th century: Antonio Maria Baggio, “René Guénon e il cristianesimo: Considerazioni su una gnosi contemporanea,” Nuova Umanità 󰀅󰀄 (󰀁󰀉󰀈󰀇): 󰀂󰀅-󰀄󰀆; id., “René Guénon e il cristianesimo: Ermeneutica dei simboli e realizzazione spirituale,” Nuova Umanità 󰀆󰀇 (󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀀): 󰀄󰀇-󰀇󰀄. 󰀂󰀃  The “affaire des fiches” consisted in the “indexing” of military officers by the Masonic “Grand Orient” organisation. It collected information on military officers’ religious and political orientations, to control their advancement, with the complicity of the War Ministry.

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superficial adaptation to all situations possible, more than an esoteric doctrinal foundation. In any case, it is a matter of an elite cultivating schemes for social and institutional transformation which flow from the top down, tending to impose an arrangement on society instead of building it together with society. Joël-Benoît d’Onorio also brings out the more ideological components of the idea of laïcité, particularly the replacing attitude: that is the conviction that the principles and virtues originating with Christianity can be lived, and lived better, without any reference to religion. This is one of the strong themes emerging with the propaganda and persuasion effort carried out by the laicist movement, especially with regard to youth, as d’Onorio brings out when he quotes from Ernest Lavisse in the Annales de la jeunesse laïque.󰀂󰀄 There are many examples of this replacing attitude;󰀂󰀅 on this basis the great traditions are thanked and gratitude is also shown for what they have given to modernity. But from now on it is held that this can be carried on alone, taking on a rationalism without history, without narration, without symbols, and especially without rational and intellectual understanding, making it possible for the Western traditions to recognise or introduce or interpret the principles and values which modernity secularised as time passed. As an ideology, laïcité is all-encompassing, as we read in Buisson. So it is not limited to the educational and institutional sphere, but it penetrates into the social dimension. Solidarity is one of the key notions to underpin laïcité in the later 󰀁󰀉th century. This is why the main reference point is Léon Bourgeois,󰀂󰀆 who played an important role in two ways. As a political personality first of all, he would head the government from November 󰀁󰀈󰀉󰀅 until April 󰀁󰀈󰀉󰀆. This brief experience is revealing about the power relations which existed then between the Masons and the political class; in fact, as many as nine ministers in Bourgeois’ cabinet were registered in lodges.

󰀂󰀄

 No. 󰀁, January 󰀁󰀉󰀀󰀂.  For example, Gian Enrico Rusconi, “Laicità ed etica pubblica,” in Laicità: Una geografia delle nostre radici, ed. Giovanni Boniolo (Turin: Einaudi, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀆), 󰀅󰀄. Historically, we find the cause close to this phenomenon with the proponents of the Enlightenment; it is an important part of the secularisation process of Christian principles. In this regard, see the part concerning “L’opération des Lumières et la fraternité révolutionnaire,” from my article, “La fraternité comme catégorie politique: Les fondements religieux et laïcs d’un paradigme relationnel dans l’espace public,” in Le défi de la fraternité, ed. Marie-Jo Thiel and Marc Feix (Zürich: LIT Verlag, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈), 󰀅󰀉-󰀇󰀂. 󰀂󰀆  Léon Bourgeois, Solidarité (Paris: Librairie Armand Colin, 󰀁󰀉󰀀󰀂, 󰀃rd ed. [󰀁󰀈󰀉󰀆]). 󰀂󰀅

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The other reason to study Bourgeois’ thought lies in the spreading of the idea of solidarity which he promotes. From Bourgeois’ point of view, the idea of solidarity is designed to replace that of fraternity which is so strongly present in the social thought of the 󰀁󰀉th century. In spite of its passage through the crucible of the Revolution of 󰀁󰀇󰀈󰀉, it was apparently still too tied to its Jewish-Christian roots. Therefore it did not fit with the development of a social thought meant to cut any link with religion; rather, it was meant to take its place. This is why it was necessary to transfer positive values, civic virtues, and the sense of responsibility and generosity that the concept of fraternity had contained over the centuries, to another concept – i.e. solidarity –, incorporated into the context of the “lay” anti-religious culture which was then being formed.󰀂󰀇 This consciously pursued process of replacing Christianity is openly declared 󰀅󰀆 years before Bourgeois by Pierre Leroux, the real initiator of the theory of solidarity in the 󰀁󰀉th century.󰀂󰀈 Being a Mason like Bourgeois, Leroux’s doctrinal system was esoteric, and from this standpoint, he maintained that Christian charity is nothing other than an imperfect concept of solidarity; it should be replaced by solidarity.󰀂󰀉 But Bourgeois distances himself from Leroux right from the first pages of his work,󰀃󰀀 because he gives a different foundation to his theory, more closely linked to law, to Henri Marion’s social psychology,󰀃󰀁 and to sociology; eclecticism prevails during the period associated with Bourgeois and the esoteric cultural line fades. The two lines of thought really co-exist; they are interwoven, alternating throughout the 󰀁󰀉th and 󰀂󰀀th centuries.

 Michel Borgetto made an important contribution on this topic: La notion de fraternité en droit public français: Le passé, le présent et l’avenir de la solidarité (Paris: Librairie Générale de Droit et de Jurisprudence, 󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀃), 󰀃󰀄󰀄-󰀄󰀁󰀉. 󰀂󰀈  Pierre Leroux, De l’Humanité, de son principe et de son avenir, 󰀂 vols. (Paris: Perrotin, 󰀁󰀉󰀄󰀀). 󰀂󰀉  Ibid., 󰀁󰀅󰀇-󰀁󰀅󰀈. 󰀃󰀀  “Il faut citer toutefois le livre de P. Leroux, de l’Humanité, 󰀁󰀈󰀃󰀉. Mais ce livre, célèbre en son temps, ne semble pas avoir eu d’action sur les générations suivantes.” Bourgeois, Solidarité, 󰀅-󰀆, note 󰀁. Leroux’s link with the theory of solidarity instead is appropriately emphasised by Armelle Le Bras-Chopard, “Métamorphoses d’une notion: La solidarité chez Pierre Leroux,” in La solidarité: Un sentiment républicain?, ed. Jacques Chevalier and Dominique Cochart (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀂), 󰀅󰀄-󰀆󰀉. Marie-Claude Blais outlines the history of the concept of solidarity in France from Leroux to the First World War in: La solidarité: Histoire d’une idée (Paris: Gallimard, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀇). 󰀃󰀁  Henri Marion, De la solidarité morale: Essai de psychologie appliquée (Paris: Éd. Germer Baillière, 󰀁󰀈󰀈󰀀). 󰀂󰀇

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󰀃. The “Moral Laïque” and the Process of Replacing Religious Ethics Baubérot wants to be sure to clarify that the lay point of view of the Third Republic does not exalt an “abstract citizen” unlike the revolutionary vision of 󰀁󰀇󰀈󰀉: En fait, la République a besoin d’un être humain moral et libre, capable d’intérioriser des règles pour pouvoir les vivre déraciné de ses allégeances traditionnelles et du regard d’autrui [...] Les aspects majeurs de la morale laïque dépassent ses rapports avec la religion. Cette dernière devient facultative, cas particulier d’un processus où la logique de la société moderne s’impose désormais.󰀃󰀂

The “replacement process” is explicit here. On the other hand, Baubérot’s arguments on this issue do not seem convincing; they seem rather to precisely describe the condition of an “abstract citizen,” made such by this interpretation of the “lay morality.” Baubérot explains that students in the schools are urged to acknowledge their debt to the generations before them, and consequently, to actively strive to foster “humanity’s march ahead.” But it is a debt that young people acquire without receiving any membership or identity in exchange: the lay morality separates the student from his/her own native culture and from any tradition in order to hand him/her over to an anonymous humanity, quite similar to Feuerbach’s “Gattungswesen.” Whether they are religious or not, existing traditions have no place in the schoolroom and the educational programme encourages their abandonment. The school’s plan in the Third Republic is to entrust some values to young people, but those values are uprooted from the great cultural streams which generated them; they are uprooted from the human milieu in which they can be naturally transmitted. When those values are reinterpreted in the light of an inexistent subject which is abstract “humanity,” do they not end up being empty themselves? What then is meant to be transmitted to young people in the République’s schools? Each educator or teacher really knows that the axiomata, values, can only be communicated through the experience of real life, which as such is always particular. Acquiring a value means making it one’s own, in other words personalising it by internalising something that “an” other (a person, a community, a culture) put me in a position to experience. The value’s universality is not a given from its conceptual abstract  Baubérot, Histoire, 󰀅󰀂-󰀅󰀃.

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expression, but from its possibility of being received into a concrete milieu and re-lived originally in an other, rendering existence something with meaning, worth being lived. Outside the logic of what is concrete, values transmitted in the schools can easily be transformed into an institutional ideology’s mechanism. Or it might be better to say an ideology that has taken ownership of the political institution. In his classification of the different interpretations of laïcité, François Méjan grasps the formation of a pejorative interpretation of laicity during the 󰀁󰀉th century, an interpretation which he calls “laïcisme d’État.” It was for this that, il s’agissait de fonder l’unité de la nation sur un humanisme doctrinaire considéré soit comme un minimum valable pour tous (patriotique, morale et anticlérical – non antireligieux), soit comme un idéal philosophique (rationaliste, positiviste ou scientiste par exemple) devant être érigé en doctrine d’État et encouragé par lui.󰀃󰀃

Claude Nicolet clearly expresses and explicitly shares the concept of laicity replacing the religions.󰀃󰀄 As Buisson had explained, the believer renounces being a free thinker and stops using reason at a certain point in order to entrust him- or herself to a ready-made truth which he/she cannot control.󰀃󰀅 But how is this reason used? Jules Ferry was Prime Minister twice in the first half of the 󰀁󰀈󰀈󰀀’s and a leading proponent of the laws for scholastic reform. In his speech of July 󰀂󰀈, 󰀁󰀈󰀈󰀅, he justified French and European colonialism as a moral duty. He transformed the colonial invasion into a civilising mission; the use of force against the indigenous populations was transfigured into a sort of right of strength, and in the end: “Messieurs, il faut parler plus haut et plus vrai! Il faut dire ouvertement qu’en effet, les races supérieures ont un droit vis-à-vis des races inférieures.”󰀃󰀆

󰀃󰀃  François Méjan, “La laïcité de l’État en droit positif et en fait,” in La Laïcité, ed. A. Audibert and A. Bayet (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 󰀁󰀉󰀆󰀀), 󰀂󰀀󰀇. 󰀃󰀄  Claude Nicolet, L’idée républicaine en France (󰀁󰀇󰀈󰀉-󰀁󰀉󰀂󰀄): Essai d’histoire critique (Paris: Gallimard, 󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀄 [󰀁e 󰀁󰀉󰀈󰀂]), 󰀅󰀀󰀀. 󰀃󰀅  Ibid. Ferdinand Buisson’s quoted passage can be found in: Ferdinand Buisson and Charles Wagner, Libre pensée et protestantisme libéral (Paris: Librairie Fischbacher, 󰀁󰀉󰀀󰀃), 󰀄󰀃. 󰀃󰀆  Jules Ferry, “Discours du 󰀂󰀈 Juillet 󰀁󰀈󰀈󰀅,” in Discours et Opinions de Jules Ferry. Tome Cinquième. Discours sur la politique extérieure et coloniale (󰀂e Partie) (Paris: Armand Colin, 󰀁󰀈󰀉󰀇), 󰀂󰀁󰀀.

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It is true that not all those wanting the laicisation of instruction were in favour of colonialism;󰀃󰀇 but it is a fact that some of those advocating “reason” in place of natural law, had a remarkably distorted idea of reason, that was compatible with their colonial convictions and was susceptible to explicit or disguised racism.󰀃󰀈 After all, we already find a notable presence of analogous positions in the revolutionary Enlightenment of 󰀁󰀇󰀈󰀉.󰀃󰀉 Chassaing acutely observed, “La doctrine de Ferry rattache donc la laïcité au combat de la raison contre l’obscurantisme religieux. Le paradoxe – qui sera souligné bien plus tard par Adorno󰀄󰀀 – que constitue la raison comme instrument de domination, n’est pas vu.”󰀄󰀁 This “omnipotence of reason” constitutes one of the strongest points of contact between the esoteric and eclectic methodologies in the processes of replacing religion and appropriating its principles. It is here that the ideological dimension of the interpretation of laïcité prevailing in the Third Republic becomes most clearly manifest. At this point it is possible to appreciate Jean-Baptiste Trotabas’s acute observation: La laïcité n’est plus la conséquence d’un principe: elle devient principe elle-même. Elle cherche en elle-même sa raison d’être, sa signification et elle s’identifie avec la raison. Tout ce qui est hors de la laïcité ne peut être raisonnable et s’apparente aux ténèbres de l’esprit.󰀄󰀂

 In fact, see Georges B. Clemanceau’s polemical speech against Ferry: Politique coloniale: Discours prononcé par M. Clemanceau à la Chambre des Députés le Jeudi 󰀃󰀀 Juillet 󰀁󰀈󰀈󰀅 (Paris: Bureaux du Journal La Justice, 󰀁󰀈󰀈󰀅). 󰀃󰀈  Antonio Maria Baggio, “La double idée de fraternité – comme héritage de la tradition et comme projet de transformation – et la fondation des droits de l’homme dans le contexte colonial,” in Droits de l’Homme et des colonies: De la mission de civilisation au droit à l’autodétermination, ed. Alexandre Deroche, Éric Gasparini, and Martial Mathieu (Aix-en-Provence: Presses Universitaires d’Aix-Marseille, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀇), 󰀁󰀀󰀁-󰀁󰀀󰀉. 󰀃󰀉  In this regard see: Antonio Maria Baggio, “Toussaint Louverture et l’existence politique du Peuple Noir,” in Toussaint Louverture, Lettres à la France (󰀁󰀇󰀉󰀄-󰀁󰀇󰀉󰀈). Idées pour la libération du Peuple noir d’Haïti, Introduction et appareil critique d’Antonio Maria Baggio et Ricardo Augustin (Paris: Nouvelle Cité, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀁), 󰀁󰀁-󰀁󰀄󰀁. 󰀄󰀀  Chassaing refers to Dialectic of Enlightenment by Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, indicating the original edition as well: Philosophical Fragments (New York, 󰀁󰀉󰀄󰀄), 󰀅󰀅ff. 󰀄󰀁  Chassaing, “La laïcité et la République française,” 󰀁󰀂󰀃-󰀁󰀂󰀄. 󰀄󰀂  Trotabas, La notion de laïcité, 󰀂󰀀󰀁-󰀂󰀀󰀂. 󰀃󰀇

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III. Towards Shared Laicity 󰀁. From the Philosophy of Laicity to the Laicity of the State One century later, the law of 󰀁󰀉󰀀󰀅 abolishes the system based on a concordat, but an effort is made in the subsequent jurisprudence to limit changes to concrete conditions for worship by the faithful. This was also to avoid popular rejection of the broken relations with the Vatican and the separation of Church and state – which were far removed from the “common feeling” of most of the population. The principles of 󰀁󰀉󰀀󰀅 were actually retained in the subsequent constitutional texts of 󰀁󰀉󰀄󰀆 and 󰀁󰀉󰀅󰀈. Louis de Naurois notes that the law of 󰀁󰀉󰀀󰀅 was the outcome of mediation among diverse philosophical currents, defining a relationship between the idea of laicity, French law and democracy.󰀄󰀃 It can be observed in Abbé de Naurois’s reconstruction of the debate, that he strongly attenuated the role of ideological radicalism in comparison to the reality. But by separating the religious, philosophical, and ideological positions of those wanting the law from the actual juridical outcome that was reached, he introduces a correct criterion to judge the text, which he believed to be good for everyone. Émile Poulat takes the same line; he believes that a “laicity of living together” had prevailed over a “battling laicity.”󰀄󰀄 And Jean Rivero recognises how the law of 󰀁󰀉󰀀󰀅 did not have the substantially anti-Catholic “philosophie de la laïcité” in its text, adjusting the passage from a “lay vision of the world” to a “lay conception of the state,” refusing to impose an explanation of humanity and the world through a legal text. According to Rivero, this position prevailed because it was the only one compatible with the foundations of the liberal state.󰀄󰀅 According to de Naurois the law of 󰀁󰀉󰀀󰀅 constitutes a turning point, opening up a historical period in which Christianity must develop and exercise influence exclusively on the basis of the work of Christians 󰀄󰀃  Abbé Louis de Naurois, “Le fondement philosophique et le régime juridique de la laïcité en droit français,” in Genèse et enjeux de la laïcité: Christianisme et laïcité. Actes du Colloque de Montpellier, 󰀂-󰀃 mars 󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀀, ed. Hubert Bost (Geneva: Labor et Fides, 󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀀), 󰀂󰀅󰀅. 󰀄󰀄  Émile Poulat, “En 󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀀, la laïcité pour une confession majoritaire: Le catholicisme,” in Genèse et enjeux de la laïcité, 󰀁󰀁󰀁. 󰀄󰀅  Jean Rivero, “Laïcité et jurisprudence,” in La Laïcité, ed. Audibert and Bayet, 󰀂󰀈󰀁. See also: Jean Rivero, “La notion juridique de laïcité,” Archives de Philosophie du Droit 󰀄󰀈 (󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀄): 󰀂󰀅󰀇-󰀂󰀆󰀄 (first publication 󰀁󰀉󰀄󰀉).

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themselves, and not based on institutional support giving a privileged position to its principles. It is possible to accept this assessment as long as the law of 󰀁󰀉󰀀󰀅 is seen from a historical standpoint and the many subsequent legislative acts and agreements are taken into account; this legislation is designed to favour religious worship to a certain extent, for example the possibility to celebrate Mass without requesting the civil authority’s permission for the gathering; or reserving the churches which had become municipal property or in the case of cathedrals which had become state property, for Catholic worship. In fact, different authors emphasise the role of the “Conseil d’État”’s opinions (and decrees pursuant to the laws) adopting a “principle of continuity” in its decisions, more in applying the law of 󰀁󰀉󰀀󰀅 to concrete cases than in a formal sense (considering that the juridical framework had been deeply modified).󰀄󰀆 As subsequent history showed, the law of 󰀁󰀉󰀀󰀅 allows decisions to be made which lead in different directions depending on the strength of political positions in the moment, decisions regarding topics related to education and religious issues in general. The “principle of laicity” is constantly discussed and interpreted over and over again in this way.󰀄󰀇 Although it is not a matter of a linear trajectory, a “pacific” evolution of the interpretation of the “principle of separation” can be noticed even by the Catholic Church. 󰀂. Positive Laicity The idea of a “laïcité positive,” a laicity which has “come to maturity,” was articulated by the President of the French Republic, Nicolas Sarkozy, in his December 󰀂󰀀th, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀇 speech at the Lateran: La France a beaucoup changé. Les citoyens français ont des convictions plus diverses qu’autrefois. Dès lors la laïcité s’affirme comme une nécessité et oserais-je le dire, une chance. Elle est devenue une condition de la paix civile. [...] La laïcité n’a pas le pouvoir de couper la 󰀄󰀆  The role played by the Conseil d’État as a balanced regulator, has been highlighted in different ways: Jean Morange, “La laïcité selon le droit de la IIIe à la Ve République,” in La laïcité au défi de la modernité: Actes du Xe Colloque National des Juristes Catholiques. Paris, 󰀁󰀁-󰀁󰀂 Novembre 󰀁󰀉󰀈󰀉, ed. Joël-Benoît d’Onorio (Paris: Téqui, 󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀀), 󰀁󰀀󰀃-󰀁󰀁󰀉; Gabriel Le Bras, “Le Conseil d’État, régulateur de la vie paroissiale,” Études et Documents du Conseil d’État 󰀄 (󰀁󰀉󰀅󰀄): 󰀆󰀃-󰀇󰀆. An interesting text documenting the Conseil d’État’s activity concerning laïcité in more recent years: Jean-Marie Sauvé, “Laïcité et République,” December 󰀆 (󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀆), Le Conseil d’État et la Juridiction Administrative http://www. conseil-etat.fr/Actualites/Discours-Interventions/Laicite-et-Republique. 󰀄󰀇  As occurred in the debate regarding the “Law about the Veil” on March 󰀁󰀅, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀄.

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France de ses racines chrétiennes. Elle a tenté de le faire. Elle n’aurait pas dû. [...] C’est pourquoi j’appelle de mes vœux l’avènement d’une laïcité positive, c’est-à-dire d’une laïcité qui, tout en veillant à la liberté de penser, à celle de croire et de ne pas croire, ne considère pas que les religions sont un danger, mais plutôt un atout.󰀄󰀈

This idea has been spreading in France for some time and it is not a monopoly of the political right.󰀄󰀉 This is a sign of a maturation which has come about in society. Pope Benedict XVI at the Elysée Palace in Paris on September 󰀁󰀂, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀈, sets forth his own interpretation of the concept in response to the welcome speech of Nicolas Sarkozy:󰀅󰀀 The Church in France currently benefits from a ‘regime of freedom’. Past suspicion has been gradually transformed into a serene and positive dialogue that continues to grow stronger. [...] You yourself, Mr. President, have used the fine expression ‘laïcité positive’ to characterise this more open understanding. At this moment in history when cultures continue to cross paths more frequently, I am firmly convinced that a new reflection on the true meaning and importance of laïcité is now necessary. In fact, it is fundamental, on the one hand, to insist on the distinction between the political realm and that of religion in order to preserve both the religious freedom of citizens and the responsibility of the state towards them; and, on the other hand, to become more aware of the irreplaceable role of religion for the formation of consciences and the contribution which it can bring to – among other things – the creation of a basic ethical consensus in society.󰀅󰀁

󰀄󰀈

 Nicolas Sarkozy, “Verbatim du discours prononcé le 󰀂󰀀 décembre 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀇 par Nicolas Sarkozy,” Le Monde; https://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀇/󰀁󰀂/󰀂󰀁/ discours-du-president-de-la-republique-dans-la-salle-de-la-signature-du-palais-dulatran_󰀉󰀉󰀂󰀁󰀇󰀀_󰀈󰀂󰀃󰀄󰀄󰀈.html [accessed March 󰀅, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀇]. Sarkozy had already expressed himself on this topic in: Nicolas Sarkozy, La République, les religions, l’espérance (Paris: Cerf, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀄). 󰀄󰀉  Jean-Pierre Chevènement, “Speech on the Occasion of Bishop Joseph Doré’s Ordination in Strasbourg, November 󰀂󰀃, 󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀇.” Jean-Pierre Chèvenement at the time was Interior Minister responsible for religious relations. https://www.portstnicolas.org/ place/christianisme-et-laicite/la-laicite-selon-jean-pierre-chevenement.html. 󰀅󰀀  Nicolas Sarkozy, Discours de bienvenue du président Nicolas Sarkozy à Benoît XVI, palais de l’Élisée, September 󰀁󰀂, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀈. https://fr.zenit.org/articles/ discours-de-bienvenue-du-presidente-nicolas-sarkozy-a-benoit-xvi/. 󰀅󰀁  Benedict XVI, Address of His Holiness Benedict XV. On the dialogue between Sarkozy and Benedict XVI: Emmanuel Tawil, Laïcité de l’État & liberté de l’Église: La doctrine des relations entre l’Église et l’État dans les documents magistériels de Pie IX à Benoît XVI (Perpignan: Artège, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀃), 󰀁󰀁󰀃-󰀁󰀂󰀀.

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It is evident that the state must recognise faith’s public role in the present time for Benedict XVI; the past historical role is simply not enough. The Pope is not asking for a return to a political role for the ecclesiastical institution, but recognition of the Church’s activity in forming consciences which contributes to the social body’s unity and continues to inject into public life the values democracy needs. Contrary to any plan to “replace” Christian culture, the Church entrusts to lay Christians, to their active presence as citizens, the task of incarnating the content of Christian faith, of “inculturating it” through language shared by everyone in civil and political life, respecting the just rules which give order to society. The Catholic Church reaches this position by gradually accepting laicity; the Second Vatican Council is a turning point for this. Comparable to the maturation occurring outside the Church, this requires distinguishing between the ideological antagonistic interpretation of laicity on one hand, and a laicity which is considered instead to be necessary and “healthy.” This distinction is expressed by means of the distinction between laicity and laicism. Paul VI asks, But how should the laity behave? The question would require not one, but many differentiated responses. Let’s be satisfied for now with a general preliminary observation: the Church today, the one reflected in the Constitution Gaudium et Spes, is not afraid to recognise the profane world’s ‘values’; it is not afraid to affirm what Pius XII, Our predecessor of venerated memory, had already openly recognised, that is ‘the state’s legitimate healthy laicity’ as ‘one of the principles of Catholic doctrine’ (A.A.S., 󰀁󰀉󰀅󰀈, p. 󰀂󰀂󰀀); this is how the Church distinguishes today between laicity on one hand, that is between the proper sphere of temporal realities that are managed with their own principles and with relative autonomy stemming from the demands intrinsic to such realities – science, technology, administration politics etc. – and laicism on the other hand which we said excludes globally human moral references from the human order and which demands relations with religion which cannot be legislated.󰀅󰀂

This distinction became a constant in John Paul II’s pontificate.󰀅󰀃 󰀅󰀂  Paul VI, “L’impegno ardente e primario d’ogni redento.” General audience, May 󰀂󰀂, 󰀁󰀉󰀆󰀈. https://w󰀂.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/it/audiences/󰀁󰀉󰀆󰀈/documents/hf_p-vi_ aud_󰀁󰀉󰀆󰀈󰀀󰀅󰀂󰀂.html [accessed March 󰀅, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀇] (own translation). 󰀅󰀃  For example, see: John Paul II, Address of His Holiness Pope John Paul II to the Diplomatic Corps Accredited to the Holy See for the Traditional Exchange of New Year Greetings, January 󰀁󰀂, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀄 http://w󰀂.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/speeches/󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀄/ january/documents/hf_jp-ii_spe_󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀄󰀀󰀁󰀁󰀂_diplomatic-corps.html [accessed March 󰀅, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀇]; id., Address of Pope John Paul II to Spanish Bishops on Their ad limina Visit,

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Commenting on the Catholic Church’s acquisition of the concept of “positive laicity,” Giuseppe Dalla Torre still remembers the publication of Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani’s fourth edition of the treatise on ecclesiastical public law in 󰀁󰀉󰀆󰀀 shortly before the Council began; this document reaffirmed that the state must be Catholic.󰀅󰀄 Instead Vatican II takes up an ancient patristic theme again, reflected for example in the Epistle to Diognetus where Christians are described as a community of persons who “animate” civil society through their everyday commitment next to the others.󰀅󰀅 󰀃. At the Origin of the Lay State Dalla Torre’s reference to the secularisation process is more than ever opportune because it opens the outlook on the origins and history of the principle which is the basis of the requirement for the state and the Church to be distinct and autonomous in their own respective fields. This history is not only a history of institutions, but it is also a history of the formation of the culture of laicity. Before anything else in fact, it is a culture of the limit, in other words awareness of the proper field for an institution’s, or in general a subject’s, action; a culture of respect for other subjects and their sphere of activity. With respect to the relationship between the Church and the state, the first important action that gives origin to the culture of distinction and limit which is the basis of laicity, was taken by Pope Gelasius I who, addressing Emperor Anastasius I in 󰀄󰀉󰀄, asserted the existence of an “authority of the Pontiff” (auctoritas sacrata pontificium) which is distinct from the power of the king (regalis potestas).󰀅󰀆 With Constantine, January 󰀂󰀄, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀅 https://w󰀂.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/speeches/󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀅/january/ documents/hf_jp-ii_spe_󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀅󰀀󰀁󰀂󰀄_spanish-bishops.html [accessed March 󰀅, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀇]; Lettre du pape Jean-Paul II aux Évêques de France, du Vatican, le 󰀁󰀁 février 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀅, http:// w󰀂.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/fr/letters/󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀅/documents/hf_jp-ii_let_󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀅󰀀󰀂󰀁󰀁_ french-bishops.html [accessed March 󰀅, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀇]. 󰀅󰀄  Alfredo Ottaviani, Institutiones Iuris Publici Ecclesiastici. Vol. II: Ecclesia et Status, 󰀄a ed. adiuvante I. Damizia (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 󰀁󰀉󰀆󰀀). 󰀅󰀅  Giuseppe Dalla Torre, “Sana laicità o laicità positiva?,” Stato, Chiese e pluralismo confessionale 󰀃󰀄 (󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀂): 󰀁󰀀. https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/statoechiese/article/viewFile/󰀂󰀅󰀂󰀂/󰀂󰀇󰀆󰀂 [accessed March 󰀅, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀇] (own translation). Earlier Dalla Torre had published an ample study of the topic: Dio e Cesare, paradigmi cristiani nella modernità (Rome: Città Nuova, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀈). 󰀅󰀆  Gelasius I, Letter “Famuli vestrae pietatis” to the Emperor Anastasius I (a. 󰀄󰀉󰀄), in Heinrich Denzinger and Peter Hünermann, Enchiridion Symbolorum definitionum et declarationum de rebus fidei et morum, 󰀃󰀄󰀇 (Bologna: Edizioni Dehoniane, 󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀅), 󰀁󰀉󰀁.

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Christianity became the empire’s official religion; although on the one hand persecution was ended, new problems arose on the other hand. The separation between the state and religion was not part of the ancient mentality: the ancient imperial view would rather reinforce one with the other: the emperor, who already was “Roman,” also became “Christian,” and religion was subject to the emperor, in whom both religious and political power were concentrated. Pope Gelasius’s act is very relevant since it broke the ideology of the “universal empire” sustaining the “great kingdoms” of antiquity. Such an ideology maintained that each person and human activity found their ultimate meaning in the sovereign, who governed as a representative of the divine (or as a deified being himself). Gelasius bases his claims on the actions of Jesus who separated “what is of Caesar and what is of God.” In the words reported by Matthew’s Gospel (󰀂󰀂:󰀂󰀁), we find the principle of giving to each its own, to respect, in other words, different identities, tasks and the “logic of the thing.” I stress the fact that the Gospel lays down the principle; Gelasius starts to put into practice, but it is only the first step in a long and difficult historical and cultural process. The sacred political ideology Gelasius breached was so strong that it managed to permeate the Church itself. It took a long time for the Church to free itself from some aspects of the ancient mentality which survived into the Christian era, and in some respects, it continues to do so. We cannot hide the toll paid by the Church to the mentalities of the various ages. Likewise, we cannot ignore the elements of true development it introduced into human history. The principle of the distinction between temporal power and religious authority, in fact, is present in the Church and continuously nourishes a corresponding culture that is spreading even through paths that seem at times to be a return to the past. IV. Laicity between Revelation and History 󰀁. The Path of Laicity inside the Church The concept of laicity even has an itinerary within the ecclesial reality, or else in close connection with it. The ancient Church is aware of being the “people of God” with a new significance, as the apostolic Fathers’ texts already demonstrate. From this standpoint, Peter’s First Letter is one of the New Testament reference texts.

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The Letter presents the idea of the people of God in a manner that radically reverses the ancient sacral view. God’s people, the Church, are not an aristocracy, and there is no aristocracy within the Church: everyone, even the smallest and the humblest, receive this calling; and those who answer it become the people of God, because God “desires all men to be saved” (󰀁 Tim 󰀂:󰀄); and as the Epistle says, they are, all together “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation” (󰀁 Pet 󰀂:󰀉). This entire people, and not only some privileged part of it, participates in Christ’s three offices, as priest, prophet, and king, and it bears responsibility for the mission and tasks that come from them. There are several duties and ministries within this people. The first Christian communities become “stratified” in a relatively short time however, distinguishing different categories of “the faithful” among the people of God. As Ignace de la Potterie explains in a study contributing substantially to our topic, this differentiation is expressed in the first three centuries of Christianity with the meaning that is commonly attributed to the adjective “lay.” The meaning was firmly established beginning with Tertullian. The meaning is very different from the word’s meaning today, a meaning at the centre of the theological interpretation of “people of God” starting from the Second Vatican Council; in fact, it does not indicate the people in their entirety, but only a part of them. The reason for that lies in the fact that the term laikós was not developed in a Christian setting, but it was utilised on the basis of an earlier meaning consolidated over the centuries: “L’opposition qu’on trouve dans les textes est toujours la même: celle de deux catégories à l’intérieur du peuple de Dieu: laïc s’opposait à ‘prêtre’ et ‘diacre’, ou encore à ‘clerc’; le mot signifie donc toujours une catégorie spéciale de chrétiens, ceux qui ne sont pas consacrés pour le service de Dieu.”󰀅󰀇 At the beginning of Greek literature, laós can mean both the people all together as well as the masses distinct from the leaders. We find the same twofold use in the Greek translations of the Bible. But the second meaning, recurring in descriptions of religious functions where “the priests and the people” or else “the priests, the prophets, and the people”󰀅󰀈 are distinguished, is the one that comes to be adopted. It is not only a matter of distinguishing among different functions and ministries, but the introduction of a vision that distinguishes Christians into different 󰀅󰀇  Ignace de la Potterie, “L’origine et le sens primitif du mot ‘laïc’,” Nouvelle Revue Théologique 󰀈 (󰀁󰀉󰀅󰀈): 󰀈󰀅󰀂. 󰀅󰀈  Ibid., 󰀈󰀄󰀃-󰀈󰀄󰀄.

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“categories” within the community. Latin translations make the kind of stratification present within the community even more explicit since the lay person, the laikós anthropos is rendered as plebeius homo. So, we see that the lay Christian and the non-Christian lay person are placed in a relationship by a process of emancipation involving the Church and society. It is a journey passing through the theologies of the various “orders” over the centuries where the Church comes to be subdivided from time to time.󰀅󰀉 The Church bears a new message with respect to the ancient world’s social stratifications; at the same time, it absorbs the world’s mentalities and a lot of time is required for these to be transformed inside and outside the Church. Referring to the “three orders” in which he subdivided the Church, Giorgio Picasso brings to light the deep connection that develops between the Church and society: While from the patristic age to Gregory the Great the term order is used to describe categories within the Church, beginning with the middle of the 󰀇th century it will be used to designate an actual social class. During antiquity the Romans were distinguished into three classes, ordo senatorius, ordo equester, ordo plebeius; in the same way, during the Early Middle Ages there will only be the three status vitae, as Le Bras masterly described them, that is to say the monks, the clerics and the laypersons.󰀆󰀀

The Church suffers this conditioning, but it is also a condition of osmosis permitting the passage of the new content of Revelation little by little to human society. An example of this process is the movement of spiritual and cultural reawakening connected to the lay movements that began in the 󰀁󰀁th 󰀅󰀉  For Gregory the Great: Moralia in Job, 󰀃󰀂.󰀂󰀀.󰀃󰀅; Sancti Gregorii Magni, In expositionem Beati Job Moralia seu Moralium libri, Liber XXXII, Caput XX, 󰀃󰀅, in Patrologiae Cursus Completus […] Series Prima, T. 󰀇󰀆, ed. Jacques-Paul Migne, Petit MontrougeParis: Apud Editorem, 󰀁󰀈󰀄󰀉, col. 󰀆󰀅󰀇B. For Gratian: Concordia Discordantium Canonum – “Decretum Gratiani,” Causa XII, q. 󰀁, c. 󰀇, Excerptum Æ. Friedberg, 󰀁󰀈󰀇󰀉, Ed. Lipsiensis secunda (Rome: Online Edition, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀇), 󰀅󰀅󰀀. http://www.internetsv.info/ Archive/DecretumGr.pdf. The interpretation of Noah, Daniel and Job in the Book of Ezekiel does not begin with Gregory the Great, but with Origen; Augustine of Hippo is the one to connect it with the categories of persons facing the final judgment; in this regard see: Yves M.-J. Congar, “Les laïcs et l’ecclésiologie des ‘ordines’ chez les théologiens des XIe et XIIe siècles,” in I laici nella “societas christiana” dei secoli XI e XII: Atti della terza Settimana internazionale di studio. Mendola, 󰀂󰀁-󰀂󰀇 agosto 󰀁󰀉󰀆󰀅, ed. Giuseppe Lazzati and Cosimo Damiano Fonseca (Milan: Vita e Pensiero, 󰀁󰀉󰀆󰀈), 󰀈󰀅. 󰀆󰀀  Giorgio Picasso, “Laici e laicità nel Medioevo,” in Laicità: Problemi e prospettive. Atti del XLVII corso di aggiornamento culturale dell’Università Cattolica, ed. Giuseppe Lazzati and Bruno Maggioni (Milan: Vita e Pensiero, 󰀁󰀉󰀇󰀇), 󰀈󰀆-󰀈󰀈 (own translation).

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century.󰀆󰀁 On the basis of these experiences, a first “theology of laity” was developed, arriving at important assertions. According to Gerhoc of Reichersberg (󰀁󰀀󰀉󰀃-󰀁󰀁󰀆󰀉), it is through baptism that a Christian renounces evil, so it is not necessary to be a cleric or a monk to have a holy life; what matters is the profession of Christian life, in whatever state of life a Christian might be.󰀆󰀂 Jacques de Vitry (󰀁󰀁󰀇󰀀-󰀁󰀂󰀄󰀀) observes the awakening of the lay movement, rising above the traditional religious structures and compares laypersons to monks who have one only “Abbot” and the Gospel as their Rule: Marie-Dominique Chenu explains that, the monastery is no longer the ‘city of God’, to which the world is reduced; the world exists and there are Christians living in it; it’s their vocation. The profane states of life are a matter of grace and salvation. Outside of the monastic profession, outside of the clerical state, baptism is already renunciation of the devil and the world.󰀆󰀃

This was not a definitive achievement in ecclesial culture, however. The concept of laicity has been continuously reconquered and studied over the centuries. The modern age represents a radical break for society and the Church. Luigi Sartori writes, “the form of the Christian universe of union between faith and reason, produced over the centuries, was being destroyed piece by piece; this is the direction of the second millennium until today, a period of progressive laicisation, of progressive secularisation of the world, of the emancipation of human realities from 󰀆󰀁  On this topic, see: Gioacchino Volpe, Movimenti religiosi e sette ereticali nella società medievale italiana. Secoli XI-XIV (Florence: Vallecchi 󰀁󰀉󰀇󰀇 [󰀁󰀉󰀂󰀂]); Herbert Grundmann, Movimenti religiosi nel Medioevo: Ricerche sui nessi storici tra l’eresia, gli Ordini mendicanti e il movimento religioso femminile nel XII e XIII secolo e sui presupposti storici della mistica tedesca (Bologna: il Mulino, 󰀁󰀉󰀇󰀄 [󰀁󰀉󰀃󰀅]); Yvonne Labande-Mailfert, I laici nella “societas christiana” dei secoli XI e XII (Milan: Vita e Pensiero, 󰀁󰀉󰀆󰀈); Raul Manselli, ed., La religiosità popolare nel Medio Evo (Bologna: il Mulino, 󰀁󰀉󰀈󰀃). 󰀆󰀂  Gerhoch di Reichersberg, Liber de aedificio Dei, 󰀄󰀃; Ven. Gerhohi Prepositi Reicherspergiensis, Liber de aedificio Dei, Caput XLIII, in Patrologiae Cursus Completus […] Series latina, T. 󰀁󰀉󰀄, ed. Jacques-Paul Migne (Petit Montrouge-Paris, Apud J.-P. Migne Editorem, 󰀁󰀈󰀅󰀅), col. 󰀁󰀃󰀀󰀂D. Wolter and Beck write, “they all have in common what Gerhoch of Reichersberg expresses as: ‘Judices, milites, praefecti vectigalium, mercatores, rustici regulam apostolicam sequuntur’. The Gospel itself becomes their rule of life, as would happen subsequently with St. Francis.” Hans Wolter and Hans G. Beck, Civitas medievale. La scolastica. Gli ordini mendicanti (XII-XIV sec.) (Milan: Jaca Book, 󰀁󰀉󰀇󰀆), 󰀅󰀁. 󰀆󰀃  Marie-Dominique Chenu O.P., La théologie au douzième siècle (Paris: Vrin, 󰀁󰀉󰀅󰀇), 󰀂󰀃󰀉 (own translation). On the theme of the “awakening of laypersons” see: Antonio Maria Baggio, Lavoro e dottrina sociale cristiana: Dalle origini al Novecento (Rome: Città Nuova, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀅), 󰀁󰀀󰀂-󰀁󰀁󰀇.

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the Church’s guardianship.”󰀆󰀄 Sartori indicates two key moments in this process. In the first, Protestantism “vigorously concentrated on the evangelical nucleus of the Church, thereby bringing about a precise theological justification of the movement to claim temporal reality’s autonomy, denouncing the undue promiscuities inherent in a cultural universe denominated ‘Christian’, but which actually included much that was mundane and irrelevant to the faith.”󰀆󰀅 Subsequently, to the critical sensitivity of the faith represented by Protestantism, was then joined the critical sensitivity of reason with the Enlightenment, which melded operative ideologies from the single issues born in different provinces; these were aspiring for autonomy (in politics, science, law, philosophy, art, literature, history, economics…). Some global and globalising plans took root designing a new world where it could be possible to accommodate a new faith again, a new Christianity, a new Church.󰀆󰀆

Yves Congar summarises what occurred in the historical process in this way: Historiquement, le régime de chrétienté qui a été celui de l’Occident […] a impliqué une mise en tutelle de toutes réalités relatives. […] Dans cette régulation des choses terrestres par l’autorité religieuse interprète de l’absolu, il y avait un aspect de confiscation ou, dirait-on dans le vocabulaire marxiste, d’aliénation […] C’est contre la confiscation de la vérité interne des causes secondes par la Cause première que c’est élevé le laïcisme moderne, qui a voulu être, en son fond, une reprise des droits des causes secondes, c’est-à-dire des choses terrestres.󰀆󰀇

This “rebellion of reason” was morally legitimate and also very consistent with Christian anthropology that gives value to the human capability of knowing the truth of things. By and large however, the separation between those we could call the “keepers of the first cause” and laypeople dealing with the “second causes,” continued to exist even within the Church.

󰀆󰀄  Luigi Sartori, “La laicità nella problematica teologica oggi,” in Laicità: Problemi e prospettive, 󰀁󰀉󰀇 (own translation). 󰀆󰀅  Ibid. 󰀆󰀆  Ibid., 󰀁󰀉󰀇-󰀁󰀉󰀈. 󰀆󰀇  Congar, “Qu’est-ce qu’un laïc?,” La vie spirituelle (supplément), no. 󰀁󰀅 (󰀁󰀉󰀅󰀀): 󰀃󰀈󰀈-󰀃󰀈󰀉.

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󰀂. After the Second Vatican Council The theology of the laity which had occasionally emerged in different forms in the course of history, developed into a wide-ranging debate in the 󰀂󰀀th century, manifesting the desire for a correct arrangement for the laity within the Church and a thorough understanding of the mission in the world.󰀆󰀈 The desire to go beyond the logic of “two orders” made reflection on the laity advance. Domenico Spada writes, “We can say that lay people have progressively evolved from ‘object’ of the pastors’ care to ‘co-operators’ in their apostolic mission, and ultimately fullfledged ‘subjects’ in the ecclesial community itself. They have evolved from an ecclesiological ‘question’ to an ‘integral part’ of an encompassing ecclesiology, being included in each point of its development.”󰀆󰀉 Since they were fully integrated into the ecclesial theme of the “people of God,” Spada concluded that this ended up being the only topic on which serious work could be done. This is why studies of the laity dwindled to the point of disappearing a few years after the Council. Attention was reignited a few years later however because of the convocation of the bishops’ 󰀁󰀉󰀈󰀇 synod dedicated to “The Lay Vocation and Mission in the Church and the World.” The preparatory work and the debate during and after the synod up to John Paul II’s publication of the post-synodal exhortation, Christifideles Laici (󰀁󰀉󰀈󰀈), produce a new generation of studies.󰀇󰀀 This reawakening derived from some bishops’ demands for Christians’ renewed commitment in a society which was rapidly undergoing changes. At the same time many lay ecclesial movements were developing within the Christian churches precisely in the years that theology’s attention was turned to other topics. Catholic bishops recognise that new resources are growing within the Church. At the same time, they want to better understand and accompany the realities of lay people – many of whom are pursuing new paths with respect to the world. The “Pontifical Council for the Laity” is an expression of

󰀆󰀈  Marco Vergottini, Il cristiano testimone: Congedo dalla teologia del laicato (Bologna: Edizioni Dehoniane, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈). Vergottini’s text reconstructs the discussion about the theology of the laity in an exemplary way. 󰀆󰀉  Domenico Spada, “Les laïcs et leur mission dans le développement de la théologie moderne,” Éléments pour une théologie du laïcat (special issue of Laïcs aujourd’hui) 󰀂󰀆 (󰀁󰀉󰀇󰀉): 󰀂󰀆 (own translation). For a thoughtful bibliography, see also Rosemary Goldie, “Laïcs, laïcat et laïcité: Un sondage bibliographique à travers trois décennies,” ibid., 󰀁󰀀󰀉-󰀁󰀄󰀇. 󰀇󰀀  I refer to Vergottini, Il cristiano testimone, 󰀂󰀄󰀅-󰀂󰀄󰀆.

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this new phase. It organises the first meeting for lay movements in 󰀁󰀉󰀈󰀁;󰀇󰀁 many other encounters follow in addition to the Council’s ordinary activity. What are the new questions brought forth by the ecclesial movements? In 󰀁󰀉󰀇󰀉 a special issue of Laïcs aujourd’hui organises a panel discussion among some representatives of the leading movements. Chiara Lubich includes the role of lay Christians in the wider context of the transformation of the whole society where people want more participation, where they want to build their own history. And this, puts the lay Christian in front of some possibilities, some tasks which he/she did not have before [...]. The Church’s magisterium has the duty to teach and enlighten; priests offer supernatural life through the sacraments; but only a lay person who has matured through an authentic up-to-date Christianity, who is living a deep spiritual life and a worthy temporal commitment in his/her own milieu, can incarnate the Gospel spirit in the social body and thereby effectively contribute to the birth of a new society together with others.󰀇󰀂

Lubich concludes, “those living this way become saints, attract others and transform their environment; and there is nothing ‘clerical’ about this.”󰀇󰀃 From this standpoint we may understand the logic of many of Pope Francis’s acts, beginning with the very night he was elected when, before giving the universal blessing as the Pope, he asked the people of Rome to accept him as bishop: “And now I would like to give the blessing, but first – first I ask a favour of you: before the bishop blesses his people, I ask you to pray to the Lord that he will bless me: the prayer of the people asking the blessing for their bishop. Let us make this prayer in silence, your prayer over me.”󰀇󰀄 Francis turns to the people present in St. Peter’s Square, composed mostly of lay people, so he does not only include a section of the faithful, but everyone comprising the Church. 󰀇󰀁

 Conseil Pontifical pour les Laïcs, “Spiritualité du laïc: Formes actuelles” (Première rencontre des Mouvements qui promeuvent la vie spirituelle des laïcs. Rocca di Papa, 󰀁󰀄-󰀁󰀈 avril 󰀁󰀉󰀈󰀀). Service de documentation 󰀇. Vatican City, 󰀁󰀉󰀈󰀁. Bishop Paul J. Cordes, Vice President of the Council for the Laity, specified in his conclusions that, “Only some international movements” had really been invited (p. 󰀉󰀉). 󰀇󰀂  Chiara Lubich’s contribution to the Panel Discussion with leaders of the lay movements, Éléments pour une théologie du laïcat, 󰀈󰀀 (own translation). 󰀇󰀃  Ibid., 󰀉󰀁. 󰀇󰀄  Apostolic Blessing “Urbi et Orbi”: First Greeting of the Holy Father Pope Francis. Central Loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica, 󰀁󰀃 March 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀃 (Rome: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀃). http://w󰀂.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀃/march/documents/papafrancesco_󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀃󰀀󰀃󰀁󰀃_benedizione-urbi-et-orbi.html [accessed March 󰀅, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀇].

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With this act, Francis activated and underlined a deep reality in the Church, concerning its own identity, something that was not always adequately understood and appreciated: it is the consensus fidelium – which takes different forms as John Henry Newman emphasised in his “On Consulting the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine,”󰀇󰀅 but it always expresses the Holy Spirit’s action in the Church. In fact, Francis puts himself in the hands of the people; the people respond by praying over him to God, thereby confirming the Conclave’s choice in this way. This is how that “pastorum ac fidelium conspiratio” is put into practice. It bears witness to the Church’s unity in the Christian tradition.󰀇󰀆 Pope Francis’s ecclesial understanding comes from tradition, but at the same time, it is “activated” by the contemporary Church’s experience, in particular the Church in Latin America,󰀇󰀇 where new and original philosophy and theology have been developed. These look at the “people” as an operator in history, first and foremost as “people of God,” and then in several other civil meanings, like “popular movements” for instance, and many other typical lay subjects operating inside civil society. 󰀃. Foundations of Western Laicity How can laicity be defined today in a way that maintains all the wealth and avoids any kind of ideological reductionism? Nicola Abbagnano, who is a non-Christian Italian philosopher and an exponent of 󰀂󰀀th century existentialism gave a broad definition along with historical and descriptive elements in his philosophical dictionary which was translated into many languages. Although he does not use the word “laicity,” he does use the word “laicism.” I believe that Abbagnano made this choice because he presents “laicism” as a wide-ranging historical movement about which he gives a narration, and not just a simple dictionary entry. He writes that, 󰀇󰀅  John Henry Newman, “On Consulting the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine,” The Rambler (July 󰀁󰀈󰀅󰀉): 󰀁󰀉󰀈-󰀂󰀃󰀀. http://newmanreader.org/works/rambler/consulting/html [accessed March 󰀅, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀇]. 󰀇󰀆  For a commentary on Newman’s text, Samuel D. Femiano, Infallibility of the Laity: The Legacy of Newman (New York: Herder and Herder, 󰀁󰀉󰀆󰀇); John Coulson, John Henry Newman, On Consulting the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine (London: Collins Publications, 󰀁󰀉󰀈󰀆). 󰀇󰀇  Cf. Juan Carlos Scannone SI, “Papa Francesco e la teologia del popolo,” La Civiltà Cattolica 󰀃󰀉󰀃󰀀, no. 󰀁 (󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀄): 󰀅󰀇󰀁-󰀅󰀉󰀀; id., “La filosofía de la liberación: historia, características, vigencia actual,” Teología y Vida 󰀅󰀀 (󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀉): 󰀅󰀉-󰀇󰀃.

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this term states the principle of the autonomy of human activities, or, in other words, the requirement, for said activities, to take place according to their own rules, that must not be imposed from the outside, for no purpose or interest other than those they are inspired by. This is a universal principle, and it can be legitimately claimed by any legitimate human activity, and by ‘legitimate’ we mean any activity that does not impede, destroy or make impossible another one.󰀇󰀈

As Abbagnano put it, there are many important things inside the “principle of laicism” that need to be carefully underlined: the acknowledgment of the value of human beings not only for their transcendent destiny, but also in consideration of their natural and historical dimension; the formation of a personal, free and mature conscience that is able to defend its own rights and to establish its own duties, without any external coercion; the development of critical intelligence that allows, throughout all the possible disciplines and means of expression, people to form opinions freely, to develop scientific knowledge and to seek the truth in any field of existence; the recognition of humankind’s ability to make rules for itself and to choose and organise its own institutions, the establishment of the rule of law that grants freedom and tolerance for diversity. As we can see, this is a list of the greatest achievements of Western civilisation maturing over the last millennium – based on the heritage of the ancient world as well. More than that, it is a view of all of Western civilisation in terms of “laicism,” since Abbagnano himself goes back to the early centuries of the Christian era to explain the concept. Abbagnano is a proponent of the “idealistic laicism,” as Francesco Traniello calls it, that is laicism as a view of the world, as a culture.󰀇󰀉 My criticism of this use is the following: it is strongly arbitrary to attribute to “laicism” all the things Abbagnano does; in the past few decades in fact, the term “laicism” assumed ideological traits, particularly anti-religious ones, traits that we do not find in Abbagnano’s words, but we do find them in the public debate and in the way others use the term. More properly, we should say “laicity,” and give to this term the contents Abbagnano gives to “laicism”; otherwise, one particular contemporary ideology, namely “anti-religious laicism,” would take over the whole tradition that contains religious elements as well, which Abbagnano does admit. 󰀇󰀈  Nicola Abbagnano, “Laicismo,” Storia della filosofia. 󰀁󰀁. Dizionario di filosofia (Rome: Gruppo Editoriale L’Espresso, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀆), 󰀄󰀆󰀉 (own translation). 󰀇󰀉  Francesco Traniello, “Clericalismo e laicismo nella storia moderna,” in Laicità: Problemi e prospettive, 󰀁󰀂󰀀.

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When it is well understood, laicity reaps the benefits of a long historical process that led to the recognition of the proper and reciprocal autonomy of the different fields of human activity, freeing them from any form of totalitarian and ideological control that might prevent their development and the free expression of the people who practice them. Laicity comes from a culture of respect and limit: it is not by chance that the idea was fully developed in the 󰀂󰀀th century, after we experienced the “unlimited” use of violence shown by the totalitarian regimes to establish “truth” and official “confessions.” In its acts and in its search for truth, the freedom of a person does not need an external force to guide it; rather, the very guide is the truth contained in the things themselves and, in the first place, in the people and their rights: the truth within things requires recognition and respect, and it may become, for a true lay person, a stronger limit than any external power. The “culture of laicity” is, essentially, the culture growing up from the search for answers, to the question about the meaning of the thing, respecting the logic of the thing: it is the assertion of the free search for the truth about ourselves and the world. Abbagnano indicates two champions of free and rigorous research: William of Ockham,󰀈󰀀 who claimed the freedom of the philosophical thought, and Galileo Galilei, who did the same for science; the former was a Franciscan friar, the latter a scientist who was trying to read the “book of nature” which he thought was written by God on a par with Scripture. To call this historical process “laicism” – against Abbagnano’s intentions – means to expropriate religions, particularly Judaism and Christianity, of the fundamental role they played in it. The deliverance from the cycle of time and destiny, the overcoming of spirit-matter dualism, the goodness of creation and the freedom of the human being within it, the plurality of the natural logics, of the life forms and, thus, respect for diversity and awareness of the limit – these are the elements of the Jewish-Christian tradition that create laicity as a culture of respect, limit, and acceptance of the other. Nicola Abbagnano described the process developed in the West correctly; we underline that it was achieved through the internalisation of cultural elements that come from the religious traditions that interacted with the West, giving it form. Without these religions, there would be no laicity. 󰀈󰀀  Georges de Lagarde dedicated the fifth volume of his work to Ockham: La naissance de l’esprit laïque au décclin du Moyen Âge. V. Guillaume d’Ockham, critique des structures ecclésiales (Louvain and Paris: Nauwelaerts, 󰀁󰀉󰀆󰀃).

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Abbagnano’s reflection on laicity is in profound agreement with a well-known expression of the Catholic theologian, Yves Congar: “un laïc est un homme pour qui les choses existent; pour qui leur vérité n’est pas comme engloutie et abolie par une référence supérieure.”󰀈󰀁 In this text, Fr. Congar is defining the specificity of Christian laypeople with respect to clerics and monks. Therefore, he is talking about “endochristian” laicity, unlike Abbagnano’s secularism that had an extra-confessional character. The two definitions indicate two paths that must be considered – on the one hand, the conceptual path of the laity within the Church concerning the distinction between laypeople and clerics, and on the other hand, the development of laicity outside the ecclesiastical context and the confessional identity. The paths are by all means distinct, both conceptually and historically, but the two are also connected and interact with each other. In fact, we see that Congar’s and Abbagnano’s definitions share the same core: the belief in the presence of a meaning in the things themselves, with all this implies. The text also contains an explicit reference to its source: Thomas Aquinas. Reading Thomas’s passages on this theme, we understand that the existence of things is not only a central element for lay people as a particular category within the Church, distinct from monks and clerics, but it is a key element for humanity per se. In fact, Thomas writes, “Thus, to subtract [something] from the creature’s perfection is to subtract from Divine perfection. But if no creature was acting to produce some effect, this would subtract much from the perfection of a creature. […] Hence, this position also diminishes Divine virtue.”󰀈󰀂 “This way God communicated its own good to created things, so that each one may transfuse in the other what it received. Hence, to subtract their own actions from things, is to diminish the Divine Good.”󰀈󰀃 The underlying idea of all this is the powerful concept of creation found in the book of Genesis in Jewish revelation. Creation is good and desired by God through his free will. The Jewish idea of creation overcomes the dualism of spirit-matter; they both come from God. There is no fate forced upon man: he is free to take on a task, to pursue his own  Yves Congar, “Qu’est-ce qu’un laïc?,” La vie spirituelle (Supplément) 󰀁󰀅 (󰀁󰀉󰀅󰀀): 󰀃󰀉󰀂.  Sancti Thomae de Aquino Summa contra Gentiles, lib. 󰀃, cap. 󰀆󰀉, n. 󰀁󰀅; Textum Leoninum emendatum ex plagulis de prelo Taurini 󰀁󰀉󰀆󰀁 editum ac automato translatum a Roberto Busa SJ in taenias magneticas denuo recognovit Enrique Alarcón atque instruxit [󰀂󰀆󰀁󰀉󰀃], http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/scg󰀃󰀀󰀆󰀄.html [accessed March 󰀅, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀇]. 󰀈󰀃  Ibid., n. 󰀁󰀆 [󰀂󰀆󰀁󰀉󰀄]. 󰀈󰀁

󰀈󰀂

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ends. Jewish Revelation gives form to a linear conception of time: things are not trapped within a cyclical view of the universe, as was common in many ancient civilisations. For Judaism, time has a beginning, so there is a “past.” God’s promise to Abraham introduces the idea of an expectation, and thus a “future.” The human being, as he realises his own limits, is also capable of measuring it, of looking at it as a whole that he understands. To be here and now is not a penalty; rather it is the possibility given to me, a finite being, to understand infinity, whatever or Whoever that might be. All that exists, the flower blooming, a dying man, gets infinity in its own way. Congars believes that: “Thomas d’Aquin a su comme pas un respecter tout à la fois l’unité ordonnée des choses – la plus foncière et la plus universelle idée du Moyen Age – et la propriété de leur nature, chacune selon sa note spécifique et sa teneur de vérité.”󰀈󰀄 In fact, Thomas observes, “God, who is the one that institutes nature, does not take from things what is proper to their own natures.”󰀈󰀅 God’s creative act does not create an “abstract” nature; rather, He creates the different “natures” of things. From the Christian perspective, creation is an act of the Trinity: God the Trinity, communicating Himself to the things he creates, also communicates His dynamics of trinitary distinction to the things; He differentiates them, thus creating the concrete natures of the single things as Thomas writes. The distinction of Persons within God (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) is the foundation of created multiplicity. Each and every being is thus an expression of the Creator’s same trinitarian life, but each one in its own way, according to its own possibilities, rules and limits. This takes us a step further, moving us beyond the limits of the visible Church. Thomas considers the natural law as coming from God, thus consisting of the same eternal divine law given to created things.󰀈󰀆 “Given,” in other words entrusted to nature, to be fulfilled in the infinite laws that regulate all beings’ life. The natural law of the human being allows Thomas to declare that faith in God is not required in order to distinguish good from evil and to establish the rules of coexistence; this all lies within the possibilities of human nature, in the exercise of 󰀈󰀄

 Congar, “Qu’est-ce qu’un laïc?,” 󰀃󰀉󰀁.  Sancti Thomae de Aquino Summa contra Gentiles, lib. 󰀂, cap. 󰀅󰀅, n. 󰀁󰀄; Textum Leoninum [󰀂󰀄󰀉󰀄󰀇], http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/scg󰀂󰀀󰀄󰀆.html [accessed March 󰀅, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀇]. 󰀈󰀆  Sancti Thomae de Aquino Summa Theologiae, Iª-IIae q. 󰀉󰀁 a. 󰀂 co; Textum Leoninum Romae 󰀁󰀈󰀉󰀂 editum…, [󰀃󰀇󰀄󰀇󰀁], http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/sth󰀂󰀀󰀉󰀀.html. 󰀈󰀅

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righteous reason and free will; and it does not apply only to Christians, but to everyone.󰀈󰀇 As we can see, Christian culture gives the foundation not only to the freedom to be a Christian, but also to the freedom to not be one; and it creates the grounds for laicity, observing its own limits within itself. As Sofia Vanni Rovighi comments, “every thing, then, has a meaning that answers to a divine idea, and man not only has a meaning, but he also gives a meaning to his own life, because he can freely direct himself and analyse such direction.” Here lie “the foundations of laicity, because, it says that each thing has a value per se, and not as a symbol, as a shadow of a higher reality to be fulfilled only in the future life, or as a tool to bring others to the Church.”󰀈󰀈 This concept gives rise to “a morality which does not allow justifying the means with the end, nor does it allow a violation of human values on behalf of a higher religious goal [...] In this sense, a lay morality is a morality seeking to decipher God’s will in the order of things.”󰀈󰀉 I believe this must be understood in such a way that a “sufficient reason,” a meaning coming from God’s will, exists in the “things,” including the “things” that we are as well. But this reason and meaning are infused in the nature of the “thing” and so even someone that does not accept or know God can come to know such a meaning in the “thing.” V. Inside the “Thing” – Being Lay People Today Abbagnano’s and Congar’s generation fought to defend or achieve democracy. Today however, the crisis through which democracy is passing is evident. The perception of a “deficit” in theory and in the meaning of our life together is being studied. And this is certainly not happening because of a lack of tools, of goods, or of opportunities (the “order of means” is abundant), but perhaps it is because it is becoming increasingly difficult to think democracy, to think and live it in the complexity, plurality and universality of its principles or “evident truths” – liberty, equality, fraternity, life, pursuit of happiness. It is known that principles refer back to the “order of ends,” but many limit the analysis 󰀈󰀇  Sancti Thomae de Aquino Summa Theologiae, Iª-IIae q. 󰀉󰀁 a. 󰀃 co; Textum Leoninum Romae 󰀁󰀈󰀉󰀂 editum…, [󰀃󰀇󰀄󰀇󰀉], http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/sth󰀂󰀀󰀉󰀀.html. 󰀈󰀈  Sofia Vanni Rovighi, “Fondazione critica del concetto di laicità,” in Laicità: Problemi e prospettive, 󰀂󰀃󰀇. 󰀈󰀉  Ibid., 󰀂󰀄󰀁.

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to procedures, to the calculation of what is useful, and they look to the past, to moments of great democratic hopes, convinced with disillusionment by now that they had dared to hope for too much. Today democracy is that “fragile” subject about which Paul Ricoeur spoke. We must assume responsibility for it, meaning and respecting first of all the logic of its need. So this is the question: What will we do with this fragile being? What will we do for it? [...] The appeal, the injunction, even the trust stemming from what is fragile tend to always make another declare our responsibility; or better, another that makes us responsible, or as Lévinas says, that calls us to responsibility. An other relying on me, makes me responsible for my actions.󰀉󰀀

It seems important to investigate the meaning of this calling which appears more and more to be a plea for meaning today, like a question arising in the night. And the nature of the question does not change by the fact that it is coming from an institution, from a group of humans, from an entire culture instead or from a single human being. By now we are accustomed to give meaning and depth to this question from within our modern and post-modern culture, oftentimes forgetting that “meaning” and “depth” have not always been considered as characteristics of human life. Our culture had to learn the importance of being human. It received the deep meaning of its own human consistency from Christian revelation. And it did not receive it in the form of a reassuring answer, but through and inside the form of a radical question about meaning and purpose. Dietrich Bonhoeffer reminded us of it in letter written in prison on June 󰀈, 󰀁󰀉󰀄󰀄 in the context of a reflection focusing on one of the fundamental pillars of laicity which we already encountered in Thomas and different Christian authors: “The movement that began about the thirteenth century … towards the autonomy of man … has in our time reached an undoubted completion. Man has learnt to deal with himself in all questions of importance without recourse to the ‘working hypothesis’ called ‘God’.”󰀉󰀁 In its deepest nucleus, this autonomy seems true to Bonhoeffer, offering Christianity the chance to take a step ahead. This is why he criticises the different efforts to “restore” Christianity which 󰀉󰀀  Paul Ricoeur, “Responsabilité et fragilité,” in Autres Temps: Cahiers d’éthique sociale et politique 󰀇󰀆-󰀇󰀇 (󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀃): 󰀁󰀃󰀀 (own translation). 󰀉󰀁  Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters & Papers from Prison. The Enlarged Edition, ed. Eberhard Bethge (London: SCM Press, 󰀁󰀉󰀇󰀃), 󰀃󰀂󰀅.

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focus on a reductive, utilitarian, consoling idea of “redemption”: “Redemption now means redemption from cares, distress, fears, and longings, from sin and death, in a better world beyond the grave. But is this really the essential character of the proclamation of Christ’s in the gospels and by Paul? I should say it is not.”󰀉󰀂 Christian hope in the resurrection is not a mythology about what is beyond; instead it sends human beings back to live their life on earth fully. And that is what Bonhoeffer is doing in his challenge to the Nazi regime on that June 󰀈. For him prison means full participation in the human condition, breaking free from any form of sacred “separation.” It is not surprising that such a man orients himself towards the truth in an essential way, to the point of desiring for himself and for others to go beyond a “religion” understood as a set of laws and non-essential human rites. On August 󰀉, 󰀁󰀉󰀄󰀂, two years earlier, Edith Stein who was a Jew and a Carmelite nun, decided to renounce the defence that religion could have constituted for her by “taking” the religious habit separating her from other Jews. Instead of fleeing Nazi persecution as a Catholic, she followed to Auschwitz the destiny of her first people, the one in which she was born. Edith carried out a twofold faithfulness this way – to the Jewish people and to her “chosen people,” the Christian people. She accomplished this by surrendering herself to her killers as Christ had done. It is full laicity, the same to which Bonhoeffer would soon follow her. He writes, The Christian, unlike the devotees of the redemption myths, has no last line of escape available from earthly tasks and difficulties into the eternal, but, like Christ himself (‘My God, why hast thou forsaken me?’), he must drink the earthly cup to the dregs, and only in his doing so is the crucified and risen Lord with him, and he crucified and risen with Christ. This world must not be prematurely written off; in this the Old and New Testaments are at one. Redemption myths arise from human boundary-experiences, but Christ takes hold of a man at the centre of his life.󰀉󰀃

Stein and Bonhoeffer are just two examples. We could also recall Simone Weil and her exit from the academic “clergy” to go and work in a factory, and many other cases. What is their meaning? It is that of

 Bonhoeffer, Letters & Papers from Prison, 󰀃󰀃󰀆.  Ibid., 󰀃󰀃󰀇.

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bringing to light the reality of a shared laicity, a laicity which faith does not impede but feeds. But what faith? Giuseppe Maria Zanghì writes, Through and through the Christ put everything on the side of the creature in the abandonment, offering his Godly reality to the creature. So he gives an extraordinary density of being to the creature; you really are because I, Being, made myself you through and through! This is where the passion of European culture is born for example, for creatures precisely in their dimension as creatures, and for scientific knowledge not as provisional knowledge, but as knowledge of a world which is true in itself, and which should be known in this truth. But in the abandonment, Christ is also completely on the Father’s side. He is the fully opened up Word of love. So the creature is thrown into the Father’s arms; he/she is torn without losing what is his/her own, toward God’s own Being. This is divinisation.󰀉󰀄

So, in the abandonment, Jesus is completely faithful to humanity because he reaches the point of not knowing, of having to ask, of dying. The question he cried out, He Who is God’s Son, is an answer to humanity, which is told that God shares everything of the human being, and He waits for him/her in the time and place that he/she will feel most alone, empty and broken, there where Jesus Himself arrived. That question is an answer for God at the same time. Jesus, who no longer understands the meaning of his own life and the purpose of that abandonment, demonstrates his own fidelity to God because he keeps on believing that God, precisely the One that had abandoned him, will continue to take care of his secret. And Jesus asks this of him. The question’s forcefulness cannot be a surprise precisely because the question receives its density from the Incarnation, from the transformation it introduced into our culture. It is the same Revelation that constantly presses human reason to measure itself with the measureless dimension of the gift received. And from the side of humanity, the question of reason constantly arises, asking faith to give an answer in history; believers themselves pose this question. So it would be a mistake to consider the “two rationalities” – that of the believer and that of the non-believer – which often appear to be in conflict in the public debate, as if they were two separate realities marching in parallel lines requiring a negotiated compromise between the two to reach a decision. No, the connection is much more intimate; it is one understanding alone living through the game of question and  Giuseppe Maria Zanghì, Notte della cultura europea: agonia della terra del tramonto? (Rome: Città Nuova, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀇), 󰀇󰀅-󰀇󰀆. 󰀉󰀄

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answer, where the question and the answer are terribly real and unpredictable and free. This logic belongs to the deepest and most specific dynamic of Western civilisation which also germinated from Christianity. The Incarnation creates distinctions among the “things” because it gives consistency to plurality, but it keeps the “things” in relationship with each other because of the fundamental unity of the Word incarnate. This is how it makes “things” like God and humanity subsist together, “things” which antiquity kept separate. It replaces the exclusive certainty of “either-or” with the relational challenge of “both-and.” Humanity ends up crushed by the greatness that it received, by its own “divinisation.” Divine light blinds and becomes a shadow for human thought: “the human person which is finitude understands that it can either be or not be; it struggles to understand that it can be by not being, that it cannot be by being (Christ expresses it in an absolute way on the cross).”󰀉󰀅 In conclusion, the culture of respect and limit is radically linked to the possibility created by the Incarnation to have distinct and real identities which are neither symbolic nor illusory, but whose being has consistency. These identities must learn to live together; they must understand that what is “most true” in distinction is the relationship in which each thing recognises itself – differently – in the other. This is why for example the “believer” can never really think that not believing, “not possessing” an answer – at least in the form of the radical question that Jesus posed to the Father – is strange to him/her. And the one that believes in other ideals and principles can never think that faith in God is an impediment for another person to fully experience common humanity and to meet him/her in it. It is a difficult dynamic; its logical archetype is that trinitarian personalism – mentioned several times in these pages – constituting the secret that the West simultaneously keeps and hides from itself. This is difficult. A monolithic civilisation comprised only of believers, with only answers, might be too easy. But it would not be Christian; it would not be ours.

 Zanghì, Notte della cultura europea, 󰀇󰀆.

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The Freedom not to Honour the State Freedom of Religion as a Constitutive Human Right Erik Borgman Western societies at the moment seem to be caught up in a strange contradiction. They consider themselves to be incarnations of respect for human rights. At the same time, when classical human rights urge people to respect something they find difficult to agree with, they tend to think that not their cultural habits, but the human rights have to change. Not everybody will state this as bluntly as the atheist Dutch philosopher Floris van den Berg with whom I once was engaged in a public debate. He pleaded to forbid all religion that did not explicitly endorse the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. When his attention was drawn to the fact that the freedom of religion was one of the fundamental human rights, according to the same declaration he wanted to be respected unconditionally, his response was that of course we had to change that as soon as possible, because the right to religious freedom had become obsolete. However, more subtle but analogous attempts to both have our cake and eat it are not uncommon, especially since 󰀉/󰀁󰀁 when it became usual to present religion in general as a threat to freedom in general. I will argue here that freedom of religion is still of the utmost importance. It grants people the right to fundamentally disagree with everything that is claimed as evidently true and good, invoking a higher principle than the state or the norms we take for granted. Freedom of religion could in that sense be seen as a secular translation of the religious conviction that only God is god. Making something else into the ultimate foundation of who we are, what we are allowed to think and how we ought to live, comes down to creating an idol, even if this foundation is taken from a sacred text, a religious heritage or a revelation of the divine. It might be good to remember that – at least in the Netherlands – the freedom to be recognised and respected as an atheist was historically granted on the basis of the freedom of religion. Thus, the argument against religious freedom that has become highly popular in some circles, that the right to freedom of religion is problematic because it gives religious people

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a right secular people by definition cannot claim, is empirically false. Not just in theory, in actual fact the right to freedom of religion ultimately states that the state is not the absolute and exclusive norm for what can be believed, even when the state endorses a religious tradition. To the rhetorical question of the apostle Peter in Acts (󰀄:󰀁󰀉) “whether it is right in God’s sight to listen to you rather than to God,” a state that respects the freedom of religion answers: “no, you should not listen to us rather than to what you think God tells you.” It is truth and justice we ultimately must obey, not the image of truth and justice the state or our culture brings forward. Since we can only know truth and justice through the various ways people are speaking about and bearing witness to them, we must have freedom of religion – and of other fundamental convictions and philosophies of life – in order to find out what truth and justice truly are. I. A New ‘Established Religion’ Contemporary Western civilization considers itself, and the modern democratic state, the ultimate guarantee for liberty and tolerance. This, combined with a common prejudice that religion stands for authoritarian views and enforced conduct that is the other side of the same coin, has made the freedom of religion into a precarious right. For many, the ultimate question has become how much (religious) intolerance can and should be tolerated in the name of tolerance. The battle cry is that we finally must start being intolerant to the intolerance that is undermining what, after the recent attacks of Islamist terrorism on European soil, has been called ‘our way of life’. Thanks to our tolerant culture we supposedly have a way of dealing with diversity, but that has now come under pressure by the religious intolerance behind the assassinations. That young people may become desperate suicide bombers not because of a pre-existing intolerance in the Islamic tradition they identify with, but because of frustration with the intolerance that they have experienced for years on a day-to-day basis, is hardly seriously considered, let alone thoroughly researched as a possible hypothesis. But it may be the hidden intolerance of the West to certain presences of religious traditions that is at least partly responsible for the violence we unanimously and rightly abhor. If this is the case, less tolerance is not a very sensible answer. Rather, I would argue, more freedom is required in the sense in which the right to religious freedom speaks about freedom.

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It could be argued, I think, that the reluctance of contemporary Western culture to really accept religious freedom, shows that we do not live in what Charles Taylor so influentially called ‘a secular age’.󰀁 At least in our time in the West, modern culture constitutes a new form of ‘established religion’ that finds it difficult to allow for any fundamental deviation from its confession.󰀂 It can only see convictions and forms of life as legitimate, if they can be understood within the terms it routinely uses to define what is justifiable from its own perspective. Those who consider their religion as personal and subjective, are respected. Those, however, who think that religious faith contains knowledge that is important for everybody and act upon it in the public sphere, are considered intolerant, patronising and at the very least latently dangerous. We allow for religion as a way of seeing, writes Dutch cultural historian Willem Frijhoff, but not for religion as a way of being, encompassing all of life and impossible for the believer to think about as just one possible option among many.󰀃 The problem with this is, of course, that from the point of view of religion in this encompassing sense, our culture itself is a way of being par excellence. Our common culture defines what we ought to believe makes for a good life and to what our desires should be directed.󰀄 Not to allow religion to manifest itself as a way of being in its own right, means that religion should be principally subjected to the approval of the dominant culture. Against enforced subjection of this kind, a religion based on the Biblical traditions can only protest. Judaism and Christianity see themselves as expressions of the willingness to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind” (cf. Luke 󰀁󰀀:󰀂󰀇). It is ultimately from this point of view that Christians found themselves unable to allow the state to have power over the Church. In 󰀁󰀉th century Western Europe, especially in Germany and France, this led to long-term struggles to establish the Roman Catholic Church as what it came to consider itself to be: a societas perfecta, founded on and directed by its own principles 󰀁  Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀇). 󰀂  Cf. Gavin D’Costa, Christianity and World Religions: Disputed Questions in the Theology of Religions. An Introduction to the Theology of Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀉), 󰀇󰀄-󰀁󰀀󰀁. 󰀃  Willem Frijhoff, De mist van de geschiedenis: Over herinneren, vergeten en het historisch geheugen van de samenleving (Nijmegen: Vantilt, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀁). 󰀄  See John F. Kavanaugh, Following Christ in a Consumer Society: The Spirituality of Cultural Resistance (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀆), 󰀈󰀀.

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and not dependent on what any other institution allowed it to be – certainly not the modern bureaucratic state. II. A Blind Spot for the State It is remarkable how thoroughly in the current debates on the freedom of religion in Western Europe the concern that led to the formulation of this freedom as a right, is absent. In the 󰀁󰀉th century the alleged danger was that states would try to bind the conscience of the people. People in Western Europe are no longer afraid to be told how to think and what to believe, or so it seems. They show themselves much more fearful that some groups or factions may hold on to ideas they consider to be fundamentally at odds with what they consider to be justified. Their faith in democracy for them is so self-evident, that they do not hesitate to demand of those living in their midst to unambiguously subscribe to what they consider to be democratic values. The people in North-Western Europe spontaneously see the power of the state not as a danger to, but as a protection for democracy. This sometimes has led to profound changes in approach. In the Netherlands, for instance, we used to have a long tradition of integrating people with different convictions in our national community by allowing those conscientiously objecting to certain practices not to partake in them. When gay marriage became a possibility in the Netherlands, civil servants who objected in conscience to it were allowed not to perform them and someone else, who did not object, would. However, by now it is officially impossible to be a wedding officer without the willingness also to marry same-sex couples. Regardless of how one thinks about gay marriage, it is obvious that the pressure to think alike has increased and that the concern to enable people with different convictions and beliefs to be represented in the state bureaucracy has decreased. From living with profound differences in convictions and value orientations, democracy tends to become regarded as itself a value that is supposedly expressed in certain practices, such as same-sex marriage, and that is therefore violated by those objecting to these practices.󰀅 Often this is seen as a way of solving the inherent 󰀅  Interesting enough, an anonymous commentator wrote in response to an earlier draft of this articles that “there is no such thing as ‘gay marriage’; rather, marriage was ‘opened up’ to same-sex couples. It is not as if ‘gay marriage’ is some new and special kind of marriage.” This, of course, is exactly what those who are against same sex

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conflict between two fundamental rights: the freedom to confess one’s (religious) conviction and the right not be discriminated against, but this blurs the issue. Leaving aside for the moment whether not allowing gay couples to marry is by definition discrimination, the question here is not whether gay couples can marry. The question is the position of those who disagree with the official, democratically approved view. Seeing the current state as by definition the guarantor of democracy and the common good, is in my view an unintentional side-effect of the construction of a welfare state. Having taken the role traditionally belonging to community organisations in first organising protection against misfortunes and then regulating how people can and should pursue their happiness, the state and its institutions tend to become monopolists in spheres that were traditionally dominated by religious and value and meaning orientated discourses. Healthcare becoming a state responsibility means that the state has to develop not only a view on care and good care, but also on what makes human beings important to care for. The same holds true, mutatis mutandis, for dealing with poverty and taking care of the poor, and for receiving and caring for refugees and other aliens. In other words, in order to do its job, a welfare state has to increase its power to define the problems, to restrict what could count as solutions, and to regulate on what basis the issues at stake could be addressed. Thus, the state takes up a number of roles traditionally belonging to religions and their organisational expressions. The welfare state started off as an attempt to professionalise practices traditionally performed by religious groups and their organisations. It ended up being if not the sole provider, then at least the jealous director. The ongoing decline in most countries in North-Western Europe not just of Church affiliation, but also of faith-commitment and the ability to understand how religious traditions bring a different approach to familiar issues and circumstances, shows how effective this approach has been. The welfare state has become the institution tout court that people turn to in order to learn what to do, how to do it, why it should be done that way, and whether it should be done at all. They may vaguely feel that they need something else or more than what is offered to them, but they cannot imagine what this could possibly be, within the framework of the welfare state that has become their overarching framework entirely. This implies that the raison d’être of a right to religious freedom becomes marriage would contest. The definition of what is taking place or what exactly a culture is and can be claiming is not neutral.

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indeed unclear. There is no perception anymore of the necessity to be able to fundamentally criticise the current way of thinking and acting. And when this criticism is nevertheless put forward from a religious point of view, it will almost automatically be understood as an attack from an authoritarian system of the past, trying to make itself heard again. Those who adhere to these systems should be tolerated and approached with some understanding, but they should know their place and not behave as if they have something to contribute to the future. In short, the freedom of religion is understood as the freedom to remain religious for the time being, but not as the freedom to present religion as a fundamental alternative to the current way of thinking and living. And the latter is exactly how at least Christianity – but Judaism and Islam also, in a somewhat different manner – traditionally understands itself. III. Inherent Dignity and Unalienable Rights for Human Beings That the freedom of religion is nevertheless still worth fighting for may for instance be illustrated by recent attempts in different Western countries to forbid by law to help – to house and to feed, to hide and to support – ‘illegal’ aliens: people without the right to live in the country. In practice, I would argue, this comes down to the obligation to condone what Pope Francis had called a ‘globalisation of indifference’, at least in practice.󰀆 This clarifies why, from a religious point of view, it is impossible to always subject to the law of the land because it is the law, even in democracies. Ultimately, the legitimacy of any law comes from whether or not it is just and justified. Therefore, there always should remain a possibility not to obey for people who sincerely believe that a law is fundamentally violating justice. A truly democratic society 󰀆

 Pope Francis, “Visit to Lampeduse: Homily of the Holy Father (󰀈 July 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀃),” http://w󰀂.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/homilies/󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀃/documents/papa-francesco_󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀃󰀀󰀇󰀀󰀈_omelia-lampedusa.html [accessed March 󰀁, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀉]. See also id., Evangelii Gaudium: On the Proclamation of the Gospel in Today’s World (󰀂󰀄 Nov. 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀃), no. 󰀅󰀄, http://w󰀂.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀃󰀁󰀁󰀂󰀄_evangelii-gaudium.html [accessed March 󰀁, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀉]; id., “Message for Lent ‘Make your hearts firm’ (Jas 󰀅:󰀈)” (󰀄 Oct., 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀄), http://w󰀂.vatican.va/ content/francesco/en/messages/lent/documents/papa-francesco_󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀄󰀁󰀀󰀀󰀄_messaggioquaresima󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀅.html [accessed March 󰀁, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀉]; id., encyclical Laudato si’: On the Care of Our Common Home (󰀂󰀄 May 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀅) no. 󰀅󰀂, http://w󰀂.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/ encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀅󰀀󰀅󰀂󰀄_enciclica-laudato-si.html [accessed March 󰀁, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀉].

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is a society that is aware that debates on what we should do and how we shall live are never finished. Therefore, these debates are open for everyone and there should be as much freedom as possible to present every position, not just in words and theories, but in practice. And this is what the right to religious freedom is ultimately about. What was truly revolutionary in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is not contained in the individual rights themselves. All of these rights had been formulated well before 󰀁󰀉󰀄󰀈. The Universal Declaration was revolutionary in the fact that it declared these rights to be unalienable. They did not have to be given or granted by any state or community, and therefore they cannot be taken away by any state or community.󰀇 They are not founded on any particular understanding of what is right or wrong, on any culture or tradition. They claim to be founded on the obligation to recognise “the inherent dignity and … the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family,” as it is stated in the first sentence of the preamble of the Universal Declaration.󰀈 This recognition is presented as the only true “foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.” So, it is not the other way around: it is not because we live in a situation of freedom, justice and peace, that we can afford to recognise religious freedom. In general terms, but with a clear reference to the Second World War and its genocides, the drafting committee wanted to remind the readers of de Declaration how “disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind.” Therefore, the preamble states, people have to be able to freely commit themselves to the common good as they see it in order to contribute “to the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want” that is ultimately the “highest aspiration of the common people.” It is this latter aspect of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that the Catholic Church would recognise as in accordance with its tradition of thinking in terms of natural law.󰀉

󰀇  See Johannes Morsink, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Origins, Drafting and Intent (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀉), 󰀂󰀈󰀄-󰀂󰀉󰀀; id., Inherent Human Rights: Philosophical Roots of the Universal Declaration (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀉), 󰀅󰀅-󰀁󰀁󰀁. 󰀈  The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is quoted from the text at http:// www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/ [accessed March 󰀁, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀉]. 󰀉  The preparation of the philosophical ground that made this possible was mainly done by Jacques Maritain (󰀁󰀈󰀈󰀂-󰀁󰀉󰀇󰀃); cf. his Man and the State (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀈), 󰀇󰀆-󰀁󰀀󰀈 (first French edition 󰀁󰀉󰀅󰀁).

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The relation between the Roman Catholic Church and Human Rights, and in particular the right to religious freedom, has not always been a happy one. The Church steadfastlty protested against the idea that people could sovereignly decide what is considered to be lawful and what liberties they were willing to grant to whom. The Church stressed, and in the 󰀁󰀉th century officially declared that the freedom to confess the Catholic faith did not depend on whether this right was formally declared by the state in positive law. It is the truth the Church presents that in itself carries with it the freedom to confess and proclaim it. For a long time, the Roman Catholic Church thus tried to clearly distinguish between itself and other religious institutions. Only the truth can claim rights, the reasoning was, and error has no right whatsoever so the Church spoke out against a general freedom of religion.󰀁󰀀 Only at the Second Vatican Council the Church officially turned the argument around and concluded that because it was only possible to confess to the truth in freedom, freedom of religion needed to be protected.󰀁󰀁 IV. The Right to Contradict all Consensuses Dignitatis humanae, the Second Vatican Council’s declaration on religious freedom, makes clear what is important in the right to freedom of religion. The declaration starts with a highly positive interpretation of what happened with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: A sense of the dignity of the human person has been impressing itself more and more deeply on the consciousness of contemporary man, and the demand is increasingly made that men should act on their own judgment, enjoying and making use of a responsible freedom, not driven by coercion but motivated by a sense of duty.󰀁󰀂

The very fact that religious freedom is a right on the basis of human nature implies, according to Dignitatis humanae, that this right “continues to exist even in those who do not live up to their obligation of 󰀁󰀀  See Pope Pius IX, Sylllabus errorum (󰀈 Dec. 󰀁󰀈󰀆󰀄); Pope Leo XIII, Immortale Dei (󰀁 Nov. 󰀁󰀈󰀈󰀅); id., Libertas praestantissimum (󰀂󰀀 June 󰀁󰀈󰀈󰀈). Cf. for background K. Hilpert, “Religionsfreiheit – historisch,” Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche󰀃 󰀈 (󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀉): 󰀁󰀀󰀄󰀈-󰀁󰀀󰀄󰀉. 󰀁󰀁  This argumentation was first clearly developed by the US Jesuit John Courney Murray (󰀁󰀉󰀀󰀄-󰀁󰀉󰀆󰀇). 󰀁󰀂  Declaration on Religious Freedom Dignitatis humanae (󰀇 Dec. 󰀁󰀉󰀆󰀅), no. 󰀁, http:// www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_ decl_󰀁󰀉󰀆󰀅󰀁󰀂󰀀󰀇_dignitatis-humanae_en.html [accessed March 󰀁, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀉].

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seeking the truth and adhering to it.” This explicitly denies that only the truth has rights, as the Church had declared earlier. However, it also implies that not only the religious practices or ideas that are judged positively by the majority of the people should be considered lawful. It is religion that is free, not just good religion. The foundation of this rather robust understanding of religious freedom is the view that people can only come to a real assent to the truth when they are free from internal and external coercion. But negative freedom is not sufficient. Dignitatis humanae states: Truth … is to be sought after in a manner proper to the dignity of the human person and his social nature. The inquiry is to be free, carried on with the aid of teaching or instruction, communication and dialogue, in the course of which men explain to one another the truth they have discovered, or think they have discovered, in order thus to assist one another in the quest for truth …󰀁󰀃

Moreover, churches, religious communities and individual believers have the right to participate in the debates on the nature and the identity of a society as a whole. They may not be hindered, according to Dignitatis humanae, in “freely undertaking to show the special value of their doctrine in what concerns the organization of society and the inspiration of the whole of human activity.”󰀁󰀄 In other words, they should be able to contribute to the bonum commune as they see it, from their own conviction and point of view. They should be able to fully participate in public debates in a manner fitting to what they consider to be their specific contribution. They should be able “freely to hold meetings and to establish educational, cultural, charitable and social organisations, under the impulse of their own religious sense.”󰀁󰀅 In other words, we can only genuinely speak of religious freedom if the dominant social, cultural, and religious consensus can be debated and if necessary contradicted. Indeed, this is the very point of religious freedom: the possibility to critique these consensuses in the name of a not yet fully recognised truth we ultimately live by. According to Dignitatis humanae, religious freedom can only justifiably be limited on the basis of the necessity that “the just demands of public order are observed.”󰀁󰀆 In case of concrete danger for violence resulting from  Dignitatis humanae, no. 󰀃.  Dignitatis humanae, no. 󰀄. 󰀁󰀅  Ibid. 󰀁󰀆  Ibid.

󰀁󰀃

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religious tensions, the freedom to express religious ideas could obviously be restricted. But caution is important here, because fundamentally the right for everybody to bring forward his or her view on what a good life and a just society entails, are presented as the necessary basis of a good life and a just society to be realised. V. Leaving Space for God’s Spirit As indicated, the current hesitation in North-Western Europe to defend religious freedom as an unalienable human right has to do with a blind spot for the dangers of the state. On the other hand, I would suggest, it also has to do with a loss of faith in the possibility to genuinely live on the basis of this freedom. Trust that a society based on different understandings of what is truly good and ultimately important is actually possible when these understandings are given space to express themselves and debate one another, does not seem to be particularly strong at the moment. Which brings us to the paradox that in order to allow for freedom of religion, faith is needed: faith that everything is connected and mutually interdependent.󰀁󰀇 Let me briefly explain. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church states in a passage that is remarkably poetic for a Catechism: The sun and the moon, the cedar and the little flower, the eagle and the sparrow: the spectacle of their countless diversities and inequalities tells us that no creature is self-sufficient. Creatures exist only in dependence on each other, to complete each other, in the service of each other.󰀁󰀈

This is how it works in nature, the Catechism points out and Pope Francis stresses in his encyclical letter Laudato si’: On Care for Our Common Home.󰀁󰀉 An analogous mutual interdependence can be seen between individuals and groups within society. Pope Francis quotes from Thomas Aquinas’s commentary on Aristotle’s physics, comparing the building of a good society to the building of a ship. Aquinas states that it is not justified to conclude that creation has no goal or direction simply from the 󰀁󰀇  Cf. Samuel Moyn, Last Utopia: Human Rights in History (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀀); id., Human Rights and the Uses of History (London: Verso, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀄). 󰀁󰀈  Catechism of the Catholic Church (󰀁󰀁 Oct. 󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀂), no. 󰀃󰀄󰀀, http://www.vatican.va/ archive/ENG󰀀󰀀󰀁󰀅/__P󰀁A.HTM [accessed March 󰀁, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀉]. 󰀁󰀉  Pope Francis quotes this passage in Laudato si’, no. 󰀈󰀆.

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fact that there is no plan presented first, according to which it is then made. Whoever observes things, plants, animals and humans, sees how they are directed towards co-operation and mutual support. From this, Aquinas concludes: Nature is nothing other than a certain kind of art, namely God’s art, impressed upon things, whereby those things are moved to a determinate end. It is as if a shipbuilder were able to give timbers the wherewithal to move themselves to take the form of a ship.󰀂󰀀

In this view, nobody has to implement or guarantee the divine plan for the world. Things, plants, animals, and human beings, with all their differences in possibilities, goals, desires, and viewpoints, contribute to the divine plan by doing what they discover they can and should do in their circumstances. Only from the trust that even what I abhor can ultimately be a vital contribution to what the world is meant to become, it is possible to give everyone his or her freedom to discover how she or he can become in their own way like timber moving itself to take the form of a ship, the boat we are in together. This suggests that the foundation of religious freedom itself might ultimately be religious. Be that as it may, it is the firm duty of Christians at least to bring forward the unalienable right to religious freedom. Not just for themselves, of course, but for everybody. Even for people condoning the prejudice of Western culture that religion is dangerous and that it is this culture and this culture alone that guarantees freedom and tolerance. It is a dangerous belief, but even dangerous beliefs are free.

󰀂󰀀  Thomas Aquinas, Commentaria in octo libros Physicorum. Liber 󰀂, lectio 󰀁󰀄, http:// www.corpusthomisticum.org/cpy󰀀󰀃.html [accessed March 󰀁, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀉]. Quoted by Pope Francis in Laudato si’, no. 󰀈󰀀.

Part II

Case Studies in European Countries

Religious Diversity and Secularism The Case of Italian Schools Maria Chiara Giorda and Roberta Sala I. Introduction Nowadays, Italy can no longer ignore the history of those religions – the many Christian denominations, Judaism, Islam, but also the oriental traditions – which have contributed to forging its identity throughout the centuries. They animate a present characterised by diversity and by continuous exchange between majority and minorities.󰀁 In 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈, people belonging to non-Catholic religious communities numbered between 󰀄,󰀃󰀀󰀀,󰀀󰀀󰀀 and 󰀆,󰀄󰀀󰀀,󰀀󰀀󰀀 (󰀇-󰀁󰀀,󰀅% of the population: among them 󰀂󰀆% Italian citizens and 󰀇󰀄% non-Italian citizens): Muslims (󰀁,󰀆󰀀󰀀,󰀀󰀀󰀀) Orthodox (󰀁,󰀆󰀀󰀀,󰀀󰀀󰀀), Evangelicals (󰀆󰀅󰀀,󰀀󰀀󰀀), Jehovah’s Witnesses (󰀄󰀀󰀀,󰀀󰀀󰀀), Hindus (󰀁󰀃󰀅,󰀀󰀀󰀀), followed by different denominations of Protestants, Jewish, Sikh, Mormons, and Baha’i (less than 󰀆󰀀,󰀀󰀀󰀀).󰀂 In this variegated scenario of religious affiliations, schools may be interpreted as multi-faith places of meeting, exchange, and education. They represent multi- and inter-cultural laboratories, which should spearhead all new challenges for creating processes for peaceful interactions and cohabitation among cultures, including religious ones.󰀃

*  This is the result of a common work. Maria Chiara Giorda is responsible for paragraph III (pp. 󰀉󰀅-󰀁󰀀󰀁) and Roberta Sala for paragraph II (pp. 󰀈󰀉-󰀉󰀄). 󰀁  Paolo Naso and Brunetto Salvarani, Un cantiere senza progetto: L’Italia delle religioni Rapporto 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀂 (Bologna: Emi, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀂); Giuseppe Giordan and Enzo Pace, eds., Religious Pluralism: Framing Religious Diversity in the Contemporary World (New York: Springer, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀄); Enzo Pace, Vecchi e nuovi dei: La geografia religiosa dell’Italia che cambia (Rome: Carocci, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀁); id., “Achilles and the Tortoise: A Society Monopolised by Catholicism Faced with an Unexpected Religious Pluralism,” Social Compass 󰀆󰀀 (󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀃): 󰀃󰀁󰀅-󰀃󰀃󰀁. Marco Ventura, Creduli e credenti: Il declino di Stato e Chiesa come questione di fede (Turin: Einaudi, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀄). 󰀂  IDOS, ed., in collaboration with Confronti, Dossier statistico immigrazione, Centro studi e ricerche IDOS (Rome, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈) www.cesnur.com [accessed May 󰀁󰀇, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀉]. 󰀃  Jean Paul Willaime, ed., Le défi de l’enseignement des faits religieux à l’école: Réponses européennes et québécoises (Paris: Riveneuve éditions, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀄).

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Nevertheless, Catholicism is still mostly perceived as forging Italian collective identity, that is, as the core of Italian national culture and tradition. Now, if this is a widespread belief among the Italian populace, it may be generally observed that the Italian way of life is no longer as ‘Catholic’ as it was in the past.󰀄 Theory and practice do here, as elsewhere, part company. Although the public role of Catholicism is changing, Italy is not properly a secular society.󰀅 By saying that, we mean that often public choices mirror religious beliefs and ethics. We dare say that these choices only appear to be ‘secular’, since sometimes political decision-makers manifest themselves to be influenced by their religious commitments. To put it crudely, it happens that the rulers do not behave in a neutral manner with regards to collective decisions. They are somehow confident that their beliefs should have an automatic political authority against any moral and religious pluralism. In our view, a secular society may be basically defined as the one in which political decisions are not dictated by any religious authority. They may be labelled as secular decisions insofar as they obtain the consensus of the ruled. Having said that, we are aware that there are several accounts of secularism and of what this term imposes on societies that call themselves secular. For instance, it may be recalled that in the post-Reformation history of tolerance, tolerance has assumed various meanings according to the variety of contexts in which it has been invoked. However, for the purposes of the following analysis, we will adopt a basic definition of the term in order to address the issue of public schools in Italy with special regard to the food code. The notion of secular society we adopt is basic: a society may be called secular provided that it is not modelled on one specific religion, not even the majority religion. The secular society we have in mind is also one in which any religion is entitled to participate in the public debate, without prejudice to the do-no-harm principle, and, generally, to the principle of mutual respect.󰀆 Finally, a further clarification to the reader is needed. Our discourse has the ambition to be both normative and descriptive. We adhere to the normative paradigm of a political liberal society: we opt for a sort of revised secular society, one in which religious differences may be hosted within a framework of shared political values such as mutual tolerance, freedom, and equal respect. 󰀄  Roberto Mazzola, “La religion à l’école en Italie: État des lieux et évolutions,” in Le défi de l’enseignement des faits religieux à l’école, 󰀁󰀀󰀃-󰀁󰀂󰀀. 󰀅  Pace, “Achilles and the Tortoise.” 󰀆  Anna Elisabetta Galeotti, Tolerance as Recognition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀂).

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Our argument will be presented as follows: a) the next section (II) deals with the notion of secularism in order to understand if such a notion may be adapted to Italian society; b) the third section (III) focuses on religious diversity in the Italian education system: religious education and canteen food are presented as litmus tests of possible secularism in society; c) some remarks about the status of Italian society in conclusion (IV). II. Secularism: Meanings and Fields 󰀁. Secular Society and Beyond So far, we have sketched the Italian scenario as characterised by religious diversity. This diversity represents a challenge to the idea of secularism and secular society. Our aim is to shed some light on the place of religious minorities in a liberal democracy, the institutions of which have been shaped by the culture and beliefs of the majority. Specifically, our concern is about those contexts in which the instances of public visibility of religious minorities seem undervalued. An example of this lack of visibility may be provided by the Islamic veil issue. Cases where women have been prevented access to public offices and positions because of the veil are not rare. We proceed as follows. First, we sketch some notes about the secular society. Second, we deal with major objections to secularism interpreted as a way to exclude religions from the public sphere; those objections arise in light of so-called post-secularism. Third, we defend a revised idea of secularism, by pursuing an ideal of a secular society in which religions may be accommodated and in which political institutions protect religions in being publicly practiced. Let us recall a traditional idea of secularism, consisting of the principle of separation between politics and religion. In this view, public space is to be shaped free from any reference to a transcendental dimension. Political institutions are to be legitimatised by the consensus of citizens, according to a democratic procedure. This idea finds its antecedents in the classical doctrine of tolerance. According to John Locke, religion is not the business of the magistrate, that is, of the political authority, and the state is not a proper instrument for the saving of souls. In Italy, following the 󰀇th and 󰀈th articles of the constitution, church(es) and state are distinct domains. What Locke’s principle of tolerance prescribes is exactly the separation of the church

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from the state.󰀇 The principle of tolerance as the principle of separation between state and church aims to enable different religious and nonreligious practices to coexist peacefully. Tolerance as mutual non-interference of church and state is the pillar of a secular society, in which political authority governs the external behaviour of citizens in spite of their ‘sincerity’ as believers. Later, tolerance would transform itself into religious freedom and, thus, into equal respect. With regards to institutions, being tolerant means being neutral, that is, impartial to religious differences: the only condition they are forced to respect is exactly that mutual tolerance. No religion is assumed to be superior to others; political authority tolerates any religion provided that each religion tolerates others. Thus, tolerance may be said to be both vertical and horizontal. With regards to individuals, tolerance leaves room for freedom of conscience and association, and institutional impartiality is a guarantee of non-discrimination for them.󰀈 Nowadays, secularism may be interpreted as the way in which the cohabitation among different people may be politically feasible. A secular political authority organises the space for their simultaneous coexistence.󰀉 It means that, in order to assure a peaceful society, in which people may live safe from any discrimination against religious differences, political authority must be neutral. That is, political authority should act independently from any religious claims or pressures. Having recalled some highlights of the general doctrine of tolerance, this argument must be expanded in order to detail further meanings of secularism. Indeed, secularism may receive further alternative interpretations: as simple secularism and as ‘public reason’ secularism. Simple secularism is basically the same as tolerance (as depicted above): it is equivalent to separation of politics and religion, with no reciprocal interference allowed. By contrast, public reason secularism is built on the recognition that such complete detachment is not achievable. It entails that, instead of pursuing a total separation of politics and religion, the 󰀇  John Locke, A Letter Concerning Tolerance and Other Writings, ed. Mark Goldie (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀀), 󰀁-󰀆󰀈. 󰀈  Anna Elisabetta Galeotti, La tolleranza: Una proposta pluralista (Naples: Liguori, 󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀄), 󰀈󰀁. 󰀉  Nadia Urbinati, “Laicità a rovescio,” in Marco Marzano and Nadia Urbinati, Missione impossibile: La riconquista cattolica della sfera pubblica (Bologna: il Mulino, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀃), 󰀆󰀃-󰀁󰀃󰀈, 󰀆󰀅. Roberta Sala, Il silenzio di Dio: Religione, credenze e rispetto (Cinisello Balsamo: San Paolo, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀄).

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political domain should be framed by common rules: those rules should enable individuals and groups to exchange arguments and beliefs in a public discourse. When individuals and groups make public choices, the fact that they are all expected to argue for these publicly common rules in public discourse could be seen as ‘rules of translation’: any choice should be explained and possibly justified to others although they do not share them. The idea is that such common rules function as conditions for a reasonable coexistence among differences, be they religious or philosophical or other. Now, both these two versions of secularism have been criticised in light of so-called post-secularism:󰀁󰀀 neither classical tolerance nor public reason are guarantees for people to be treated as equals. People want to be respected in an equal way, not in spite of their beliefs but for these beliefs, since they qualify their existence. What post-secularists reject is the idea that to be recognised as public interlocutors requires any ‘translation’: religious content should have a place in the public arena, be it understandable or not. That is, any believer should be free to participate in the public discourse without any additional effort. Participation in public discourse should be granted to anyone, independently of their respective religion or beliefs, backed by same rights. Having sketched this post-secular criticism to secularism, further problems arise. What we mean is that, when pluralism is just a word, that is, a declaration of intent, minorities are not actually protected on the same footing as the majority. Minorites are spoken of as equal members of a secular society, but in fact, they are far from being granted equal respect. They are not equally recognised because of an ambiguous legal and judicial system and because of the absence of a law about religious freedom. When there is asymmetry among the religious interlocutors, when the majority religion speaks up in the public debate, minorities risk 󰀁󰀀  Post-secularism refers to a new way of interpreting society after the secular turn in approaching political issues as opposed to religious and metaphysical ones. Against a traditionally secular society, in which there is no place left for religious beliefs and values to be defended as politically relevant, a post-secular society is the one in which religions and religious beliefs and values find a legitimate space in public discourse and deliberation on the same footing as any other. See: Jürgen Habermas, Tra scienza e fede (Rome and Bari: Laterza, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀆); id., “La rinascita della religione: una sfida per l’autocomprensione laica della modernità?,” in Religione e politica nella società post-secolare, ed. Alessandro Ferrara (Rome: Meltemi, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀉), 󰀂󰀄-󰀄󰀁. Some criticisms about post-secularism: Anna Elisabetta Galeotti, “Secolarismo e oltre,” in Religione e politica nella società post-secolare, 󰀈󰀁-󰀉󰀉; Urbinati, “Laicità a rovescio.”

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being silenced. The innovative point of secularism cannot be lost: it consists in leaving room for differences, in assuring them to speak in a different voice. Thus, in a society – like the Italian one – where the cultural and religious majority prevails against minorities, be they cultural or religious, where political institutions have been widely forged by the culture of the majority, i.e. Roman Catholic traditions, post-secularism may represent a double-edged sword. There are issues – for example, the bioethical ones – trespassing the limits of democratic deliberation: they are cases in which the majority rule may dictate the exclusion of minorities’ moral points of view. It is extremely dangerous and even unfair, especially when conflicts of values represent deep disagreements. Such conflicts are, for instance, religious or moral controversies, in which no solution seems reachable without unbearable losses. To put it crudely: the question is whether religious or moral majorities have the right to coerce minorities by imposing their habits and beliefs or not.󰀁󰀁 The question is further whether majority-rule decisions should be enforced as collective decisions for all or not. It is quite obvious in healthy democracies, in which deliberation is actually an open debate in which all parties participate; it is less obvious in ‘mono-religious’ societies in which the outcomes of a deliberation end up getting modelled by the majority interests. In these societies, the institutions have been shaped by the preferences of a majority and members of minorities are hardly proper interlocutors on the same footing as those belonging to the majority. This is exactly the point: how to rectify asymmetries between majority and minorities; specifically, how to compensate inequality from which minorities suffer, as they are not equally accommodated in a (self-defined) neutral society. 󰀂. School as a Public Space: How Secular Is It? As far as Italian society is concerned, it is pretty undeniable that in several circumstances differences are not equally accommodated, even if the constitution guarantees religious freedom for all, and cultural and political institutions deal with diversity from a secular perspective (“principio di laicità dello Stato”). To avoid being limited to mere slogans, a specific example of a public space, i.e. schools, may help. Discussing schools as secular spaces entails discussing the character of secularism although specific to a portion of public space. That is, the question is 󰀁󰀁

 Galeotti, “Secolarismo e oltre,” 󰀈󰀉.

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about which kind of public space a school might be, which functions it is presumed to have. Thus, we will be able to ‘test’ secularism in Italian society with regard to schools as specific public spaces. To investigate schools as public spaces, we start from few considerations about the notion of public space.󰀁󰀂 Generally speaking, if we can label as stricto sensu public spaces those for general use, typically public squares and streets, pedestrian areas and malls, there are also special public spaces assigned to special functions, in which more specific public activities take place: schools, or hospitals and libraries or even parks are among them.󰀁󰀃 This distinction between stricto sensu public spaces and special public spaces makes sense with regard to the types of limits in using those spaces. Specifically, limitations in stricto sensu public spaces are minimal, and concern only the protection of the space’s openness. Occasionally some a posteriori limitations are applied relative to the specific behaviour that generates negative externalities.󰀁󰀄 By contrast, in special public spaces, possible limitations are usually linked to the specific function performed in the space in question. Here limitations may be a priori too: admittance is granted only to those performing the present functions of the place in question, such as students in schools. In the case of a posteriori limitations, only behaviours compliant with the specific function of the place are allowed. Having said that, a problem of tolerance arises in public spaces, since regulations for access and behaviour are crucial both in stricto sensu public spaces and in special ones. The question is what kind of limitations can be legitimately placed on such spaces.󰀁󰀅 In stricto sensu the right of 󰀁󰀂  Marco Ventura, “Italy,” in International Encyclopaedia of Laws: Religion, ed. Rik Torfs (Alphen aan den Rijn: Kluwer Law International, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀃); Maria Chiara Giorda and Alessandro Saggioro, La materia invisibile (Bologna: Emi, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀁). Maria Chiara Giorda, “Religious Education in Italy: Themes and Problems,” in Religious Education Politics, the State, and the Society, ed. Ansgar Jödicke (Würzburg: Ergon-Verlag, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀃), 󰀁󰀇󰀇-󰀁󰀉󰀇. Ead., “L’insegnamento della storia delle religioni nella scuola italiana,” in Proposte per l’insegnamento della storia delle religioni nelle scuole italiane, ed. Giampiera Arrigoni, Claudio Consonni, and Anna Però (Bergamo: Sestante, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀄), 󰀁󰀄󰀉-󰀁󰀇󰀆. 󰀁󰀃  Francesco Chiodelli and Stefano Moroni, “Typology of Spaces and Topology of Tolerance: City, Pluralism and Ownership,” Journal of Urban Affairs 󰀃󰀆, no. 󰀂 (󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀃): 󰀁󰀆󰀇-󰀁󰀈󰀁. 󰀁󰀄  See Stefano Moroni and David Weberman, eds., Space and Pluralism: Can Contemporary Cities Be Places of Tolerance? (Budapest and New York: CEU Press, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀆). See especially: Ali Madanipour, “Culture and Tolerance in Public Spaces,” https://eprint. ncl.ac.uk/file_store/production/󰀂󰀂󰀆󰀂󰀀󰀈/󰀅󰀂A󰀇B󰀉󰀈󰀅-F󰀈󰀆󰀈-󰀄DCF-A󰀉󰀅D-󰀉󰀁󰀈A󰀅󰀂󰀆󰀄C󰀀󰀄󰀃. pdf: 󰀃󰀅-󰀅󰀄 [accessed November 󰀁󰀂, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈]. 󰀁󰀅  Daniel Mitchell, The Right to the City: Social Justice and the Fight for Public Space (New York: The Guilford Press, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀃).

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public use is maximal, consequently in these public spaces tolerance is maximal as well. Limits concern activities that possibly generate significant negative outside reactions.󰀁󰀆 We do not focus on them here and opt to concentrate on the special public spaces’ limitations. As said above, these limits concern access and behaviour in conflict with the specific function assigned to a given space. Any other form of limitation should qualify as a form of intolerance. Let us focus now on schools: whereas it is intolerant to deny access to a school because a student is Italian, more complex problems arise when specific limitations that are less directly involved in the specific function of the place are proposed. A typical example was the affair du foulard in the public schools in France in 󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀀, when the Islamic veil was banned. Now, we are not interested in verifying if what we said above is meaningful with respect to schools in Italy. Our concrete focus is indeed on Italian schools and the way in which they are secular. We want to scrutinise if and how Italian schools accommodate religious differences; that is, which role religions are granted in schools as so-called public spaces. Again, the scope of tolerance in schools as special public spaces is at stake. Tolerance concerns religious differences and related education and food habits. Thus, tolerating religious differences at school implies tolerating related beliefs (teaching this or that religion in one way or another) and differences in food habits (preparing meals according to food codes). By referring to these two practical cases – teaching and canteen –, schools offer themselves as litmus test of secularism in the public space. What we are going to show is how secularism in Italian schools is at least double-faced: on the one hand, Italian schools prove to be still ‘confessional’ (or, prudently, quasi-confessional) insofar as the teaching of religion is not pluralistic; on the other hand, they prove to be secular (in our special sense of including differences into society) insofar as they provide pupils with meals in accordance with the food code of their own religious affiliation. Our next task is to defend an idea of recognition of religious differences at public schools. Specifically, the recognition of different food habits as according to religious differences is a requisite of a secular society (at least in our vision of it). 󰀁󰀆  Discussion on the theme continues. See for example: Jeremy Waldron, Liberal Rights (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀃); Setha Low and Neil Smith, eds., The Politics of Public Space (New York: Routledge, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀆).

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III. Italian Schools: A Janus between Religion(s) and Secularism 󰀁. Catholic Religious Education in Italy: Some Historical Notes To start a debate about the context of Italian schools, some historical notes about Catholic religious education (IRC) are needed. The majority of pupils in Italy are educated at public schools (about 󰀉󰀀% of the students in 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀄; about 󰀆󰀅% of non-state schools are Catholic).󰀁󰀇 Article 󰀃󰀃 of the constitution states in reference to “private schools” that entities and private persons have the right to establish schools and institutions of education at no cost to the State. Private schools are mostly Roman Catholic (an average of 󰀇󰀅% over the last 󰀂󰀀 years)󰀁󰀈: the Concordat of 󰀁󰀉󰀈󰀄 (Act No. 󰀁󰀂󰀁 of 󰀁󰀉󰀈󰀅) strengthens the general protection granted by article 󰀃󰀃 of the constitution and the general laws regulating the inclusion of private schools in public education. Article 󰀉 of Act No. 󰀁󰀂󰀁 of 󰀁󰀉󰀈󰀅 provides a specific guarantee of freedom and autonomy to Catholic schools.󰀁󰀉 Only a few private schools belong to religious minorities (󰀄 Jewish schools, 󰀂 Waldensian, and no Muslim schools at all). Concerning the teaching of religion in public schools, the political environment, which had so radically changed with the passage to a republic and with the adoption of constitutional regulations, did not change the established agreements of 󰀁󰀉󰀂󰀉:󰀂󰀀 at Italian schools, the usual period of religion as catechetical education, a compulsory discipline from which parents were allowed to withdraw their children, continued for several decades after 󰀁󰀉󰀄󰀆. It was only in the 󰀁󰀉󰀆󰀀s that it began to appear necessary to identify and implement choices, which could establish a new relationship between school and religion, which would take into account heretofore unheard-of examples of cultural and religious pluralism, thus acknowledging the presence of children coming from families with different views or practices concerning religion. 󰀁󰀇  A comprehensive description of the Italian education system (reference year 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀇󰀁󰀈) is presented here http://www.indire.it/wp-content/uploads/󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀇/󰀁󰀁/Structures_󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀇_󰀁󰀈_diagrams_final_report.pdf [accessed February 󰀇, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈]. 󰀁󰀈  Data: Italian Ministry of Public Education and the Catholic Schools federation FIDAE 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀁-󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀂. 󰀁󰀉  Article 󰀁󰀀 of Act No. 󰀁󰀂󰀁 of 󰀁󰀉󰀈󰀅 secures the autonomy of ecclesiastical educational establishments, and a framework for civil recognition of academic degrees delivered by Catholic institutions. 󰀂󰀀  The Lateran Pacts, including the Concordat, a Treaty establishing the State of Vatican City, and a financial settlement, were signed on 󰀁󰀁 Feb. 󰀁󰀉󰀂󰀉 and ratified by the Italian Parliament on 󰀂󰀇 May 󰀁󰀉󰀂󰀉 (L 󰀂󰀇 May 󰀁󰀉󰀂󰀉, No. 󰀈󰀁󰀀).

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Discussions held in the late 󰀁󰀉󰀇󰀀s were crucial, and they paved the way for the turning point in 󰀁󰀉󰀈󰀄 when the possibility of choosing whether attending the subject or not was given to students in every level and type of public school. This complies with the Church doctrine and respects the students’ freedom of conscience, imparted by teachers who have been considered suitable by the religious authority and have been assigned, in full agreement, by the school authority. The agreements between the state and religions and denominations other than the Catholic Church (“Intese”), also concern teaching their religion in public schools.󰀂󰀁 They identify and defend the right of pupils and parents belonging to other denominations not to attend classes teaching Roman Catholicism. Contrary to the IRC, these minority religions or denominations have to finance the teaching themselves and the time for teaching must be found outside the regular timetable. Besides, while IRC is also a ‘regular’ school subject in terms of the fact that grades are given to the pupils attending it, this is not so in the case of other kinds of confessional religious education. This system also stipulates the right of the relevant denomination to organise the teaching of religion in state schools, under two conditions: a congruous number of students will have to request the activation of the teaching, and that teachers shall be paid by the denomination. The same happens in private non-confessional schools, whereas confessional ones can organise their religious education even more than 󰀂 hours per week (including, for example, language and literature as in the case of Jewish schools). In the last few decades, cultural and academic environments have promoted projects, petitions and events concerning religious education, 󰀂󰀁

 The cults which are currently permitted in Italy are partially regulated by an agreement (Intesa) with the state; concerning the latter case in these agreements, the status is as follows: agreements were signed with the Waldensian Church on 󰀂󰀁st February, 󰀁󰀉󰀈󰀄 and on 󰀂󰀅th January, 󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀆, with the Assemblies with the Lord in Italy on 󰀂󰀉th December, 󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀆, Act No. 󰀅󰀁󰀆 dated 󰀂󰀂nd November, 󰀁󰀉󰀈󰀈 approved the agreements of 󰀂󰀉th December, 󰀁󰀉󰀈󰀆 and again on 󰀆th November 󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀆, with the Unione Comunità Ebraiche in Italia (UCEI – Union of Jewish Communities in Italy). Agreements with the UCEBI, Unione Cristiana Evangelica Battista d’Italia – Union of Christian Evangelic Baptists in Italy, were signed on 󰀂󰀉th March, 󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀃 and approved with Act No. 󰀁󰀁󰀆 dated 󰀁󰀂th April, 󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀆 and with the CELI, Chiesa Evangelica Luterana in Italia – Lutheran Evangelic Church in Italy, on 󰀂󰀀th April, 󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀃, approved with Act No. 󰀅󰀂󰀀 dated 󰀂󰀉th November, 󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀅; the Apostolic Church in Italy, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Holy Archdioceses in Italy and the Exarchate for Southern Italy, UBI. – Italian Buddhist Union), the Italian Hindu Union were approved in 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀂 act. No. 󰀂󰀄󰀆 and Soka Gakkai in 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀆, while agreements were signed, but are not yet approved, on April 󰀄th, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀇 concerning the Christian Congregation of Jehovah’s witnesses. Source: www.governo.it/ Presidenza/USRI/confessioni/intese_indice.html#󰀂 [accessed May 󰀁󰀇, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀉].

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which have had, or at least have attempted to have, political repercussions. We shall take into account projects on a national level, as addressing the multitude of local experiments would take this paper too far away from its original intent.󰀂󰀂 Exploratory alternative teachings have been conducted on a local basis, often upon the initiative of a coalition of minority religions supported by local councils. Projects and designs have remained on paper and have never been made into concrete options, neither de facto nor de iure. Confessional religious education has become closely linked to the politically powerful idea about Italian culture and national identity as deeply influenced by Catholicism, and it seems – also with regard to the constitution – difficult to imagine that the process of secularisation and the increase in religious and cultural diversity can lead to rapid and immediate changes.󰀂󰀃 The teaching remains Catholic, even if it is not confessional anymore.󰀂󰀄 󰀂. School Canteens in Italy: Accommodating Religious Differences Successfully Let us come to the second test of secularism in Italy: the school canteens. Because of the differences in food codes among children attending Italian schools, public institutions such as primary schools’ canteen services increasingly have to accommodate different religious and traditional beliefs regarding nutrition. Certainly, food consumption can be considered a religiously and culturally defined social issue. Furthermore, it can be seen as an instrument for inclusion and as a route to social cohesion.󰀂󰀅 The Italian school system has been experimenting with 󰀂󰀂  Maria Chiara Giorda and Luca Bossi, “Mense scolastiche e diversità religiosa: Il caso di Milano,” in Statoechiese: 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀆: http://www.statoechiese.it/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=󰀈󰀄󰀇&Itemid=󰀄󰀁 [accessed February 󰀇, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈]. 󰀂󰀃  Alessandro Ferrari, “Religious Education in Italy,” in The Routledge International Handbook of Religious Education, ed. Derek Davies and Elena Miroshnikova (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀃), 󰀁󰀇󰀉-󰀁󰀈󰀄. 󰀂󰀄  Luc Pépin, Teaching about Religions in European School Systems: Policy Issues and Trends – NEF Initiative on Religion and Democracy in Europe (London: Alliance Publishing Trust, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀉), http://unesdoc.unesco.org/Ulis/cgi-bin/ulis.pl?catno=󰀁󰀈󰀆󰀃󰀃󰀁&set= 󰀄B󰀁BC󰀉󰀈󰀁_󰀁_󰀉󰀀&gp=󰀁&lin=󰀁&ll=󰀁 [accessed February 󰀇, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈]; Maria Chiara Giorda, “Different Illiteracies for Different Countries: Are There No Data for Religious Illitaracy?,” in Religious Literacy, Law and History: Perspecives on European Pluralist Societies, ed. Alberto Melloni and Francesca Cadeddu (New York: Routledge, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈), 󰀂󰀉-󰀄󰀅. 󰀂󰀅  Collected data in Italian, English and French is available at: http://benvenutiinitalia.it/wp-content/up- loads/󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀄/󰀀󰀁/ifwdfoodandreligionweblowrespublications.zip [accessed May 󰀁󰀇, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀉].

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strategies to manage these changing scenarios where different cultural habits and behaviours are interlinked. The school canteen may represent a place where one can build commensality and knowledge in matters of food, instilling important values for the population. Food and food traditions are cultural and even religious symbols. Interpreting food traditions is a way to understand diversity; the respect of those traditions – as far as possible – is a step in the development of a more inclusive educational system.󰀂󰀆 A survey conducted by Slow Food and including 󰀅󰀀 Italian schools showed that 󰀇󰀉% of the schools offer the possibility for each family to choose from menus built with medical or ethical and religious considerations. However, there are several cases in which schools refuse to offer this service. While in the case of education (religious teaching/education about religions) there are national regulations, in this case practices and norms are based locally since every city has the power to choose how to organise and manage the service. As a consequence, there is more variety and difference based on scalar perspective (small villages, medium and big cities have different opportunities). In order to have a general framework of strategies in managing diversities in school canteens, we suggested 󰀃 different useful models for analysing school menus and canteen services: the family-based model; the ontological rejection model; and the cultural identity rejection model.󰀂󰀇 The first model includes the experiences in which the educational institution establishes direct contact with the families, in order to be aware of the families’ and pupils’ needs. This is the prevalent model within Italian schools; for each family it is mandatory to complete and fill out online forms with the required information. Through this information, each family can illustrate its own needs, depending on medical or ethical and religious issues. The application of this model may be considered as good practice, since it also guarantees and protects the right to freedom of religion and freedom of expression, according to canteen logistical considerations. 󰀂󰀆  Massimo Montanari, Il cibo come cultura (Rome and Bari: Laterza, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀄). See Lucio Meglio, Sociologia del cibo e dell’alimentazione (Rome: Franco Angeli, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀂); Antonio G. Chizzoniti, ed., Cibo, religione e diritto: Nutrimento per il corpo e per l’anima (Tricase: Libellula edizioni, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀅); Antonio Fucillo, Il cibo degli dei (Turin: Giappichelli, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀅); Paolo Corvo, Food Culture, Consumption and Society (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀅); Maria Chiara Giorda and Sara Hejazi, eds., Nutrire l’anima: Le religioni in cucina (Rome: Effatà, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀆). 󰀂󰀇  Maria Chiara Giorda, “A tavola con le religioni: Il cibo plurale delle mense scolastiche,” Notizie di Politeia 󰀃󰀀, no. 󰀁󰀁󰀄 (󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀄): 󰀇󰀀-󰀉󰀃.

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Combining food needs due to both medical and religious needs, this model defends religious and ethical diversity. Regarding the menus, there are many possibilities: • fixed formula system, canteen menu, from which it is possible to exclude some foods; • fixed formula menu and alternatives, canteen menu, from which it is possible to exclude some foods and to indicate some alternative options, because of ethical or religious reasons; • mixed system, canteen menu, from which it is possible to exclude some foods and to indicate some alternatives; both for medical and ethical or religious reasons. Although school canteen services are important educational resources and they have an important role in the provision of food to students, and although school canteens should reflect the educational goals of the school and support and complement student learning, some municipalities in Italy decide not to differentiate types of menus because of cultural and religious needs. One of these municipalities is Adro (Brescia) – ontological rejection model –: the director of the elementary school of this village decided in 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀀 to offer a menu without pork in the school canteen only if this request is accompanied by a medical certificate, thereby proving a medical condition.󰀂󰀈 It represents a form of cultural discrimination, directed towards associations and religious groups, which leads to the denial of the possibility to choose nutritious foods in school following one’s own religious or cultural need which is normally accorded without a medical certificate (which, of course, cannot be related to a cultural or religious need). Concerning the third model, the cultural identity rejection model, we can remember the case of Albenga: when the representative of the local administration of the municipality of Albenga proposed to introduce halal meat in the school canteen in order to actively promote social inclusion, ENPA – Ente Nazionale Protezione Animali (Italian Authority for Animal Protection) criticised the proposal, considering halal slaughter a barbaric rite.󰀂󰀉 The halal way of slaughtering, made by a deep incision with a sharp knife on the neck cutting the jugular veins – even  Nicola Fiorita, Scuola pubblica e religioni (Tricase: Libellula edizioni, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀂), 󰀃󰀀.  “Enpa: no alla carne halal nelle mense scolastiche (September 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀁),” http://www. ilsecoloxix.it/p/savona/󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀁/󰀀󰀉/󰀂󰀁/AOIPUS󰀆-scolastiche_carne_nelle.shtml [accessed February 󰀇, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈]. 󰀂󰀈

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though the animal is stunned beforehand (as in Western and Italian slaughterhouses) – should, in the opinion of the ENPA representatives, never be promoted, above all in public institutions such as schools. Quite the same polemics occurred in Sarzana in 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀄, regarding the idea of serving halal meat at the school canteens.󰀃󰀀 The need to compile more homogeneous and inclusive menus is becoming increasingly clear in order to deal with the changing food identities of the students using the canteen. More inclusivity may result from a re-thinking of the quantity of meat served in school meals. From 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀂 to 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀆, the project “A tavola con le religioni”󰀃󰀁 was coordinated by professor Giorda in different European cities: 󰀁󰀅 primary schools (Bucharest, Milan, Paris, Rome, Tirana, Turin, Zaragoza, Sesto Fiorentino), including 󰀅,󰀃󰀅󰀀 students and 󰀄,󰀁󰀀󰀀 families. 󰀁󰀀% of the children had different menus for religious and ethical reasons. According to the data gathered by the project, meat represents the most prominent problem in building menus and its exclusion from the school menu is not a problem for the majority of the surveyed families (󰀆󰀅% of the families were willing to remove meat from the menu).󰀃󰀂 Beyond the protection of both food practices and cultural and religious diversity, is there any possibility to create an innovative menu? To respond to both majority and minorities needs, given that food practices are sets of knowledge concerning products and their preparation in different areas of the world, school meals might be conceived of as an interesting experiment in the cohabitation of different traditions, cultures, and religions. Schools may provide a model for positively influencing children’s eating habits through hands-on education about nutrition and through community involvement. Learning the benefits of supporting religious and cultural diversity as a fundamental value within society seems to be

󰀃󰀀  See: “Sarzana: carne “halal” per i bimbi musulmani, e scoppia la polemica (July 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀄),” http://www.ilsecoloxix.it/p/la_spezia/󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀄/󰀀󰀇/󰀀󰀃/ARGGo󰀂󰀁-polemica_musulmani_scoppia.shtml [accessed February 󰀇, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈]. 󰀃󰀁  The surveys aimed to collect data with reference to: significance of religious and cultural pluralism in schools; (children’s and families’ personal data); religious dietary laws within selected families; perception of religious pluralism in school canteen service. With reference to the multicultural nature of the cities, the questionnaire was translated into Arabic, French, English, Spanish, Chinese and Romanian. Response rate is a crucial factor in evaluating the reliability of survey results; the response rate was almost 󰀆󰀇%. 󰀃󰀂  Giorda, “A tavola con le religioni.”

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a good starting point for building an Italian way to secularism, which means an acknowledgement and accommodation of diversity.󰀃󰀃 IV. Conclusion The double case study highlights the ambiguity of Italian secularism: at school we have two opposite examples, as the analysis shows: school canteens have been recording cultural and religious changes and they have tried to adapt structures and organisations, whereas the educational system is still anchored to a past characterised by a Catholic majority and a confessional teaching not exactly secular. As Enzo Pace has recently demonstrated,󰀃󰀄 in comparison with other situations in Europe,󰀃󰀅 Italy appears to have become secularised while remaining faithful to its image, memory, and identity as a Catholic country, thanks to the Church’s organisational strength. Italy cannot be named as a country of true-believers. Nonetheless, Catholicism is still the majority religion. The Catholic Church is still a strong moral agent, influencing political decisions (at least at a descriptive level).󰀃󰀆 The same happens at school. At the moment, there are no alternative paths of education concerning the integration of minorities as equal members of society. We look at this phenomenon as a proof of a diminished or not completely realised secularism (in the inclusive sense in which we have argued for it so far).

󰀃󰀃  Maria Chiara Giorda, “Religious Diversity in Italy and the Impact on Education: The History of a Failure, ” New Diversities 󰀁󰀇, no. 󰀁 (󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀅): 󰀃󰀇-󰀅󰀃. 󰀃󰀄  Pace, “Achilles and the Tortoise.” 󰀃󰀅  Paul Bramadat and Matthias Koenig, International Migration and the Governance of Religious Diversity (Montréal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀉); Marian Burchardt, Monika Wohlrab-Sahr, and Matthias Middell, eds., Multiple Secularities Beyond the West: Religion and Modernity in the Global Age (Berlin: De Gruyter, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀅); Alberto Melloni, ed., Rapporto sull’analfabetismo religioso in Italia (Bologna: il Mulino, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀄). 󰀃󰀆  Alessandro Ferrari, “La religion dans l’éducation publique – le cas italien,” in Religion in Public Education, ed. Gerhard Robbers (European Consortium for Church and State Research, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀁), 󰀂󰀅󰀇-󰀂󰀇󰀂. See also Luca Ozzano and Alberta Giorgi, European Culture Wars and the Italian Case: Which Side Are You On? (Abingdon: Routledge, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀅).

Spain and Catholicism: a Work-in-Progress Relationship Church Transformations in an Increasingly Secular Society and State (󰀁󰀉󰀃󰀉-󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈) Rafael Ruiz Andrés* I. Brief Introduction and Conceptual Framework In this volume on the relations between Religion, secularism, and politics in Europe today, the Spanish historical evolution could be used to help us throw some light on the subject thanks to the particularity of its case. The Catholic religion has both constituted the Spaniards’ majority faith and been a vital element of their definition of national identity for centuries. Before starting the article itself, it would be useful to have a quick overview of the main contemporary historical developments to give some clues about the Spanish case to the reader and later, in the same introduction, clarify the objective of this article. Although 󰀁󰀉th/󰀂󰀀th-century European secularisation could not completely erode the Christian milieu either in the majority of European countries or in Spain, it can be affirmed that Spain positioned itself as an important Catholic stronghold in Western Europe during the Franco Regime (󰀁󰀉󰀃󰀉-󰀁󰀉󰀇󰀅). This was already announced by Francoist troops during the Civil War (󰀁󰀉󰀃󰀆-󰀁󰀉󰀃󰀉), when they declared to be defending the “spiritual reserve of Europe” in Spain.󰀁 However, the accelerated process of secularisation experienced by Spanish society from the 󰀁󰀉󰀆󰀀s and 󰀁󰀉󰀇󰀀s changed the paradigm in parallel with the European context. Nowadays, the Catholic population who practice their faith constitutes a minority within the secular society. This is one of the results of a rapid transformation that has had profound consequences on Spanish society. However, this Catholic “minority” has very special characteristics that * This chapter by Rafael Ruiz Andrés has been prepared during the period of his FPU󰀁󰀄/󰀀󰀅󰀄󰀆󰀀 scholarship (Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture, and Sports). All translations are mine. 󰀁  Fernando Urbina, Mundo moderno y fe cristiana: Meditación desde España I (Madrid: Editorial Popular, 󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀃), 󰀁󰀄󰀉.

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can be included in categories such as ‘vicarious religion’,󰀂 or within the academic discussion about ‘belonging’ and ‘believing’.󰀃 This minority, the largest religious one, has been seen as the guardian of Spanish historical culture, a social image that has had a great power of attraction over large sectors of the Spanish population during the democratic period (from 󰀁󰀉󰀇󰀅 onwards), as it cannot be ignored that the majority of the population continues to declare themselves Catholic in 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀇, despite the low percentage of them actually practising said religion (󰀂󰀁% of the total population).󰀄 Nevertheless, the situation is currently again undergoing a process of transformation, which could mean the end of the Catholic cultural system with secularisation also turning into exculturation󰀅 (“exculturisation”) in the last decades, above all amongst young people. The purpose of this chapter will be to reflect about the implications of this metamorphosis taking into account three levels: the Spanish state, the civil society and the Roman Catholic Church.󰀆 I will be especially focusing on the importance of the evolving changes in the role of the Catholic Church in this concrete case and its interaction with both the Spanish state and civil society. Why? Faced with the religious institution’s impression of being under pressure from an external process of “secularisation,” sometimes equated with “demoralisation” by them and perceived as a conflict,󰀇 changes in religiosity are traced by the confluence of the different actors involved, and religions themselves in a very specific manner. It is significant that in the Spanish Episcopal Conference database there are only two documents with the word ‘secularisation’ in their title. In said documents, the idea of a certain internal secularisation of the Church is highlighted, but emphasising its character as environmental contagion dynamics such as “the rationalist conception of faith and revelation; immanent humanism applied to Jesus Christ; merely sociological interpretation of the Church, and subjectivism-secular relativism 󰀂  Grace Davie, Vicarious Religion: A Methodological Challenge (New York: Oxford University Press, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀇), 󰀂󰀅. 󰀃  Grace Davie, “Religion in Europe in the 󰀂󰀁st Century: The Factors to Take into Account,” European Journal of Sociology 󰀄󰀇 (󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀆): 󰀂󰀇󰀁-󰀂󰀉󰀆, 󰀂󰀇󰀅. 󰀄  Pew Research Center, Being Christian in Western Europe (May 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈) http://www. pewforum.org/󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈 /󰀀󰀅/󰀂󰀉/being-christian-in-western-europe/ [accessed December 󰀆, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈], 󰀆-󰀇. 󰀅  Term coined by Danièle Hervieu-Léger, Catholicisme, la fin d’un monde (París: Bayard, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀃). 󰀆  René Rémond, Religion and Society in Modern Europe (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀉), 󰀅. 󰀇  Julio De La Cueva, “Conflictiva secularización: Sobre sociología, religión e historia,” Historia Contemporánea 󰀅󰀁 (󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀅): 󰀃󰀆󰀅-󰀃󰀉󰀅, 󰀃󰀇󰀇-󰀃󰀇󰀈.

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in Catholic morality.”󰀈 This fact shows that the main Church judgement on secularisation is based on a critical vision of it being something essentially external (a product of social forces) and negative (a secularisation which produces unbelief or lack of faith). Differently from this impression, Dobbelaere highlighted in 󰀁󰀉󰀈󰀁 (and reiterated in 󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀉), in his multiple analyses of the secular process,󰀉 that a meso-level of analysis plays an essential role in understanding secularisation. This meso-level can be defined as that of religious-institutional changes in modernity (the macro-level is related to social tendencies and the micro-level to individual transformations). Consequently, essential changes in the attitude and role of the Spanish Catholic Church can be seen in parallel with the evolution of religiosity during the second half of the 󰀂󰀀th century, especially since the 󰀁󰀉󰀆󰀀s, and the acceleration of changes in religious behaviour, in line with Callum G. Brown’s work.󰀁󰀀 In the Spanish case, both processes have been profoundly interrelated,󰀁󰀁 and more specifically it can be stated that the secularisation path has been configured not only by the internal secularisation of the Church but also by the action/reaction of the actors in the context of that internal secularisation, due to the authority of the Catholic Church in the public sphere throughout the period (an authority that has been to some extent independent from the practicing Catholicism rate at least until 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀀). Taking into account the conceptual premises of this overview and introduction, the main line and objective of the chapter will be to present the secularisation in Spain in the light of 󰀁) understanding the transformation in the function of the Roman Catholic Church from a national-Catholic context to a rapidly changing society, 󰀂) highlighting the importance of the Church’s actions in shaping the secularisation 󰀈  LXXXVI Asamblea Plenaria de la Conferencia Episcopal Española, “Teología y secularización en España: A los cuarenta años de la clausura del Concilio Vaticano II. Instrucción pastoral,” in Base de Datos de la Conferencia Episcopal (Madrid, March 󰀃󰀀, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀆), http://www.conferenciaepiscopal.es/base-documental/ [accessed January 󰀈, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈]. 󰀉  Karel Dobbelaere, “Towards an Integrated Perspective of the Processes Related to the Descriptive Concept of Secularisation,” Sociology of Religion 󰀆󰀀, no. 󰀃 (󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀉): 󰀂󰀂󰀉󰀂󰀄󰀇, 󰀂󰀃󰀀. 󰀁󰀀  Callum G. Brown and Michael Snape, “Introduction: Conceptualising Secularisation 󰀁󰀉󰀇󰀄-󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀀: The Influence of Hugh McLeod,” in Secularisation in the Christian World: Essays in Honour of Hugh McLeod, ed. Callum G. Brown and Michael Snape (Surrey: Ashgate, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀀), 󰀁-󰀁󰀃, 󰀉-󰀁󰀀. 󰀁󰀁  Jean Baubérot, “Los umbrales de la laicización en la Europa latina y la recomposición de lo religioso en la modernidad tardía,” in La modernidad religiosa: Europa latina y América latina en perspectiva comparada, ed. Jean-Pierre Bastian (México: Fondo de Cultura Económico, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀄), 󰀉󰀄-󰀁󰀁󰀀, 󰀁󰀀󰀆.

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process in Spain, and finally, 󰀃) reflecting on the implications in the current Spanish context. We will reflect on these points by presenting a historical evolution (󰀁󰀉󰀃󰀉-󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈) with three images, three moments that try to unravel the aforementioned points: Christian majority under the Christian regime (󰀁󰀉󰀃󰀆-󰀁󰀉󰀆󰀀); From the rupture of the Christian regime to the Catholic cultural majority in a democratic framework (󰀁󰀉󰀆󰀀-󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀀); Catholicism in 󰀂󰀁st-century Spain: contested speech and a significant minority (󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀀-󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈). II. Christian Majority under the Christian Regime: Spain 󰀁󰀉󰀃󰀉-󰀁󰀉󰀆󰀀 The end of the Civil War (󰀁󰀉󰀃󰀆-󰀁󰀉󰀃󰀉) allowed a certain revitalisation of the religious phenomenon in Spain, which shared similarities with some revitalisation in the rest of Europe after World War II.󰀁󰀂 This religious revival was prompted (as several historians and sociologists point out) by three fundamental reasons. First of all, the dramatic consequences of the Civil War, with its vital uncertainty and loss of existential security that was experienced by the population after the fighting. This context facilitated the search for a religious security in an impoverished situation. Until 󰀁󰀉󰀅󰀇, Spain did not recover the real-terms consumption levels of 󰀁󰀉󰀃󰀁 (before the Spanish Civil War, 󰀁󰀉󰀃󰀆-󰀁󰀉󰀃󰀉).󰀁󰀃 On this subject, Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart wrote: People who experience ego-tropic risks during their formative years (posing direct threats to themselves and their families) or socio-tropic risks (threatening their community) tend to be far more religious than those who grow up under safer, comfortable, and more predictable conditions.󰀁󰀄

Secondly, this religious re-growth during the 󰀁󰀉󰀄󰀀s and 󰀁󰀉󰀅󰀀s was essentially possible due to the persistence of an articulated, collective religious language, a ‘discursive Christianity’, widely extended in Europe,

 Callum G. Brown, The Death of Christian Britain: Understanding Secularisation 󰀁󰀈󰀀󰀀-󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀀 (Oxford: Routledge, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀉), 󰀁󰀇󰀀-󰀁󰀇󰀂. 󰀁󰀃  Jordi Malaquer de Motes, “Consumo y precios,” in Estadísticas históricas de España: Siglos XIX-XX, ed. Albert Carreras and Xavier Tafunell (Bilbao: Fundación BBVA, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀅), 󰀁󰀂󰀄󰀇-󰀁󰀂󰀉󰀆. 󰀁󰀄  Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart, Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politic Worldwide (New York: Cambridge University Press, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀁), 󰀅. 󰀁󰀂

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as has been defended by the historian Callum G. Brown.󰀁󰀅 Despite the struggles between church and state during the 󰀁󰀉th century and the defection of the working class, Christianity still possessed viability as both common and mass discourse until the 󰀁󰀉󰀆󰀀s. This fact is the basis of the Catholic milieu survival until the middle of the 󰀂󰀀th century. The majority of the population in Europe defined itself as Christian and led their lives according to the Christian horizon of meaning (at least partially); weekly religious practice, however, was a different issue. Finally, at the ideological level, the 󰀁󰀉󰀄󰀀s and 󰀁󰀉󰀅󰀀s were marked by the rise of the ideological struggle between the two Potsdam blocks (󰀁󰀉󰀄󰀅): on the one hand, the Soviet area was linked to both a materialist and atheist vision; and, on the other hand, democratic, liberal Europe associated its cultural framework with the Judeo-Christian civilisation legacy. Antonio Fontán and Rafael Calvo Serer, two important Spanish authors of that time and members of Opus Dei (a conservative Catholic association which played an essential role during Francoism, mostly during the late fifties and sixties), summarised this dilemma with the sentence “Americanisation or Sovietisation.”󰀁󰀆 This context is vital to understand the later secularisation process. The Spanish situation shared part of these characteristics associated with the European context. Nevertheless, said characteristics were deeply intensified in Spain due to the Civil War (󰀁󰀉󰀃󰀆-󰀁󰀉󰀃󰀉), in which an intense apology was made by the Francoist side, presenting themselves as crusaders against the atheist Marxists on the Republican side. This position was ratified in 󰀁󰀉󰀃󰀇 by the Catholic Church thanks to the signing of the Collective Declaration of Bishops by which bishops (led by Cardinal Primate, Isidro Gomá) blessed the military uprising in order to defend “Christian civilisation.” Thus, in Western Europe and especially in Spain, this historical context was perceived by the Episcopate as an “opportunity” for the recovery of the losses experienced in the liberal 󰀁󰀉th century. They had a new chance to revitalise the religious message, especially in non-Christian sectors such as the working class (the case of the “apostasy of the masses,” pointed out by M. Arboleya in Spain, 󰀁󰀉󰀃󰀄, or D. Godin in France, 󰀁󰀉󰀄󰀃, is well-known). This spirit of reconquest is observed in Pedro Cantero’s essays. He was one of the main clerical supporters of the  Brown, The Death of Christian Britain, 󰀁󰀂.  Rafael Díaz-Salazar, El factor católico en la política española: Del nacionalcatolicismo al laicismo (Madrid: PPC, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀆), 󰀇󰀁. 󰀁󰀅

󰀁󰀆

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Franco Regime and had fought during the Civil War. In 󰀁󰀉󰀅󰀁, Cantero Cuadrado became Bishop of Barbastro and later, Archbishop of Zaragoza (one of the main bishoprics of the country) between 󰀁󰀉󰀆󰀄 and 󰀁󰀉󰀇󰀇. In 󰀁󰀉󰀄󰀂, after the Spanish Civil War, he wrote: The guidelines of the reconstruction can only follow these two fundamental lines: a Christian reform of life, which makes the integral Catholic man [...] and an equally Christian reform of the institutions, in order to be inspired in the eternal principles of Catholic social justice.󰀁󰀇

For this purpose, a whole national-Catholic ideological apparatus was created in Spain during the regime, supported by the public presence of the Church within two main spheres: • On the everyday level, the parish was the centre of social life in villages and towns and the priest one of the main characters in local life. After the war, their prestige was on the one hand incremented (by occupying the university departments, for example) but on the other hand the population’s suspicion against them grew because of their collaboration in post-war repressive action. This aforementioned prestige was due to the durability (but also the revival in some extent) of the Ancien Régime structures, which still possessed some credibility during the first half of the 󰀂󰀀th century.󰀁󰀈 • At the state level, the hierarchical episcopal apparatus was placed at the same level as the power apparatus. Religious representatives had a reserved place in the main Spanish institutions, such as the Council of State (the largest advisory body of the regime in which the Cardinal Primate was part ex officio) and in the fictive Francoist parliament.󰀁󰀉 In this national-Catholic scheme, the bishop’s individual role and the use of the negotiations between the state and the Holy See (promoted thanks to the recovery of a Vatican state in the Lateran Treaty, 󰀁󰀉󰀂󰀉) compensated for the scarcity of true collegiate episcopal structures, in spite of having an instrument of collective representation since 󰀁󰀉󰀂󰀃 (Junta de Reverendísimos Metropolitanos).󰀂󰀀 This weakness was also due

 Pedro Cantero, La hora católica en España (Madrid: Ediciones Ruta, 󰀁󰀉󰀄󰀂), 󰀃󰀃.  Arno J. Mayer, The Persistance of the Old Regime: Europe to the Great War (New York: Verso, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀀), 󰀆-󰀈. 󰀁󰀉  Stanley G. Payne, Spanish Catholicism: An Historical Overview (Madison, WI: The University of Winsconsin Press, 󰀁󰀉󰀈󰀄), 󰀂󰀀󰀈. 󰀂󰀀  Jesús Iribarren, “Introducción,” in Documentos colectivos del Episcopado Español (󰀁󰀈󰀇󰀀-󰀁󰀉󰀇󰀄), ed. Jesús Iribarren (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 󰀁󰀉󰀇󰀄), 󰀃-󰀅󰀄. 󰀁󰀇 󰀁󰀈

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to the fears during the 󰀁󰀉th century of generating a ‘conciliarist’ Church,󰀂󰀁 an option which was excluded in a period of a reinforced pontifical authority after Vatican Council I, whose clearest symbol was the approval of the Pope’s Infallibility Dogma in 󰀁󰀈󰀇󰀀. Only from the 󰀁󰀉󰀅󰀀s the Junta de Reverendísimos Metropolitanos would start to have a real protostructure, thanks to the creation of the bishop-secretary figure and a higher frequency of metropolitan bishops meetings. Pius XII blessed this tendency to collegiate during the 󰀁󰀉󰀅󰀀s.󰀂󰀂 These two actors, the Catholic Church and the Spanish state, had their main confluence in the 󰀁󰀉󰀅󰀃 Spain-Holy See concordat, the most perfect symbol of the climate of Catholic domination. This treaty shielded the Catholic religion as the religion of the Spaniards, being the ideal type of model agreement for the Holy See until the Second Vatican Council (󰀁󰀉󰀆󰀂-󰀁󰀉󰀆󰀅), as was pointed out by Cardinal Ottaviani.󰀂󰀃 In this concordat, the Spanish state re-proclaimed the Roman Catholic, apostolic religion as the only one for the Spanish nation and, in consequence, this religion would enjoy the “traditional” rights and prerogatives in accordance with the “divine law and canon law” (Art. 󰀁). The concordat also recognised the Church as a “perfect society” (Art. 󰀂). In conclusion, the existence of a Catholic majority and the maintenance of a ‘discursive Christianity’ imbued with the spirit of reconquest, in addition to the ideological support of the pontifical magisterium, enabled the Church to present itself as the “true and eternal” society, according to pre-Vatican II ecclesiology. Its aim was to restore this “perfect society” that liberalism had fractured, and which Marxism was then threatening in Europe (and very specifically in Spain based on the remembrance of the Spanish Civil War). Nevertheless, the climate of religious saturation generated discontent with, and distance from, the ecclesial structure among part of the population, especially among the younger Spanish generations from the start of the social movements against the Franco regime in 󰀁󰀉󰀅󰀆󰀂󰀄 and, above all, from the 󰀁󰀉󰀆󰀀s.

󰀂󰀁  Narciso Jubany, “Las Conferencias Episcopales y el Concilio Vaticano II,” Ius Canonicum 󰀅, no. 󰀂 (󰀁󰀉󰀆󰀅): 󰀃󰀄󰀃-󰀃󰀆󰀃, 󰀃󰀄󰀆. 󰀂󰀂  Vicente Enrique y Tarancón, Confesiones (Madrid: PPC, 󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀆), 󰀂󰀃󰀄. 󰀂󰀃  Díaz-Salazar, El factor católico en la política española, 󰀃󰀁. 󰀂󰀄  Santos Juliá and José-Carlos Mainer, El aprendizaje de la libertad (󰀁󰀉󰀇󰀃-󰀁󰀉󰀈󰀆) (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀀), 󰀁󰀆.

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III. From the Christian Regime to the Catholic Cultural Majority in a Democratic Framework (󰀁󰀉󰀆󰀀-󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀀) The important social changes that took place in Europe and Spain during the 󰀁󰀉󰀆󰀀s led to the modification of the ecclesial situation. The Second Vatican Council (󰀁󰀉󰀆󰀂-󰀁󰀉󰀆󰀅) promoted a process of deep religious change in society.󰀂󰀅 As a consequence, it generated an important feedback between a changing society and a changing Church, as was previously pointed out with Dobbelaere’s theory. It is impossible to think that the “religious” could remain unchanged during a decade, the 󰀁󰀉󰀆󰀀s, in which we can find the origin of many of the 󰀂󰀁st century’s issues,󰀂󰀆 also in Spain. What was happening? In parallel to the Second Vatican Council, the three conditions that promoted a certain religious recovery after the Civil War in Spain and World War II in Europe were being eroded. 󰀁) Faced with the vital uncertainty and loss of existential security, the 󰀁󰀉󰀆󰀀s meant the culmination of the “Thirty Glorious Years” in France, the Italian economic take-off with the governments of Christian Democracy or the Spanish Desarrollismo since 󰀁󰀉󰀅󰀉. These were processes in which, at different rates, consumer societies were being quickly implemented. Since then, times and spaces were progressively marked by the rhythms and spaces of a consumer society, generating significant damage to that “discursive Christianity” based on times such as Lent, Easter, Sundays… and spaces like the parish and the cofradías (religious brotherhoods). In Spain these changes were intense, changing the landscape from a rural society to an urbanised one in the space of just one decade, breaking the chain of tradition and religious memory.󰀂󰀇 Thus, Fernando Urbina, an important writer and priest, wrote in the journal Moralia that what in other parts of Europe took four generations to take place, here [in Spain] has been done in one generation [...] in ten years, 󰀁󰀉󰀆󰀀󰀁󰀉󰀇󰀀, social change has been more intense than the period between 󰀁󰀉󰀀󰀀 and 󰀁󰀉󰀅󰀀.󰀂󰀈

This particularly intense time-acceleration was not harmless to religious memory and tradition. 󰀂󰀅

 Baubérot, “Los umbrales de la laicización en la Europa latina,” 󰀁󰀀󰀆.  Hugh McLeod, The Religious Crisis of the 󰀁󰀉󰀆󰀀s (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀇). 󰀂󰀇  Danièle Hervieu-Léger, La religion pour mémoire (Paris: Cerf, 󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀃). 󰀂󰀈  Urbina, Mundo moderno y fe cristiana, 󰀄󰀃. 󰀂󰀆

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󰀂) Not only the conditions that made discursive Christianity viable changed, but alternative discourses were also generated during the 󰀁󰀉󰀆󰀀s. New conceptions of the individual emerged, with an essential emphasis on sexual liberation. One remarkable fact was the invention of the contraceptive pill in 󰀁󰀉󰀆󰀀. Despite being forbidden in most European countries – and in Spain until the 󰀁󰀉󰀇󰀀s – oral contraception generated one of the most intense debates during these years (i.e. Humanae Vitae, 󰀁󰀉󰀆󰀈).󰀂󰀉 This situation of a progressively changing morality generated profound conflicts with the episcopal guidelines against “modern frivolity [that] enters through your gates and causes you to spend modest resources on amusements and unnecessary things,” as bishops affirmed in a collective declaration of the Spanish Metropolitan Bishops in 󰀁󰀉󰀆󰀀,󰀃󰀀 even prior to the arrival of the contraceptive pill in Spain. In conclusion, a moral abyss was growing between the population and the morals of the Catholic Church, called by Pietro Prini the ‘underground schism’,󰀃󰀁 to which the changes in sexual behaviour and mentalities contributed in an intense manner. 󰀃) At the ideological level, the decline of the great narratives and stories was another part of the great changes in this period. Moreover, the Spanish youth of the 󰀁󰀉󰀆󰀀s were the first generation that had not lived through the war era and their socialisation was being carried out under other conditions, characterised by a consumer revolution,󰀃󰀂 and no longer by the “Crusade” memories against atheism and Marxism. Such changes hastened a complete break of memory related to a genealogical shift.󰀃󰀃 These historical events changed both the credibility of discursive Christianity and the previous religious super-saturation of Spanish society, and it generated a deep Catholic crisis during the 󰀁󰀉󰀆󰀀s with a rapid acceleration of social change from the 󰀁󰀉󰀇󰀀s. The culmination of this process was reached when the ecclesiastical hierarchy came into conflict with the regime for various issues such as the Añoveros case (Antonio  Rémond, Religion and Society in Modern Europe, 󰀁󰀉󰀈.  Junta Metropolitanos españoles, “Declaración Colectiva de los metropolitanos españoles sobre los problemas morales de estabilización y el desarrollo económico,” ABC Sevilla (February 󰀆, 󰀁󰀉󰀆󰀀), 󰀁󰀅-󰀁󰀇. 󰀃󰀁  Pietro Prini, El cisma soterrado: El mensaje cristiano, la sociedad moderna y la Iglesia Católica (Valencia: Pre-textos, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀃). 󰀃󰀂  Michael Richards, Historias para después de una guerra: Memoria, política y cambio social en España desde 󰀁󰀉󰀃󰀆 (Barcelona: Pasado y presente, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀃), 󰀁󰀆󰀃-󰀁󰀆󰀄. 󰀃󰀃  Pierre Nora, “Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Mémoire,” Representations 󰀂󰀆 Special Issue: Memory and Counter-Memory (󰀁󰀉󰀈󰀉): 󰀇-󰀂󰀄, 󰀁󰀃. 󰀂󰀉 󰀃󰀀

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Añoveros was the Bishop of Bilbao, who, in 󰀁󰀉󰀇󰀄, made a declaration in favour of the regional cultures and rights, in this case, of the Basque culture). The succession of conflictive events between the Church and the Franco regime called into question the meaning of a national-Catholic ideology in Spain. How did the Roman Catholic Church itself reach this breaking point and adapt to the new context of the 󰀁󰀉󰀆󰀀s-󰀁󰀉󰀇󰀀s, in which it found itself moving away from its previous ideal of national-Catholicism? First, the negotiation between Vatican and state was no longer the only model of interaction between church and state. Episcopal conferences arose after Vatican II with the decree Christus Dominus promulgated by Pope Paul VI in 󰀁󰀉󰀆󰀅.󰀃󰀄 From that moment, the Catholic representation was not only held by the Holy See or the personal actions of bishops, but the episcopal conference gained importance as a representative of the Catholic institution itself within each civil society. What is more, episcopal conferences provided the opportunity to create active platforms with a more effective way of sharing the Vatican magisterium. In our context of study, the position of nuncio, the representative of the Pope in the country, became essential as a link between Pope Paul VI – considered a progressive, dangerous Pope by the regime – and the episcopal conference, originally dominated by traditional bishops. Consequently, Luigi Dadaglio, nuncio in Spain (󰀁󰀉󰀆󰀇-󰀁󰀉󰀈󰀀), progressively generated a new consensus of the Spanish Episcopal Conference in two lines that broke the previous national-Catholic relationship between church and state. Firstly, from 󰀁󰀉󰀆󰀇 to 󰀁󰀉󰀇󰀅, bishops critical towards the regime were slowly promoted, first to the status of auxiliary bishops, and later to the main bishoprics of the country. As a consequence, the Spanish auxiliary bishops, who depended only on the Roman decision and whose appointment did not have to be negotiated with the Spanish state, became essential players in the change of the Church and its departure (despegue) from the national-Catholic model. This also deepened the aforementioned tension between the Catholic Episcopate and Francoism. The changed relationship between church and state had another key moment promoted by Vatican II in the approval of the Law of Religious Freedom (󰀁󰀉󰀆󰀇) in order to adapt the Spanish situation to Council premises. It 󰀃󰀄  Joaquín Losada, “Los nuevos acuerdos Iglesia-Estado y la Conferencia Episcopal: Un problema de negociación de identidad,” Iglesia Viva 󰀇󰀉: Nuevos acuerdos IglesiaEstado (󰀁󰀉󰀇󰀉): 󰀂󰀅-󰀃󰀂, 󰀂󰀆.

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ended (to some extent) the previous Catholic exclusivity (but in an incomplete manner, as other religions were more tolerated than really equalled to Catholicism in this law). Secondly, from 󰀁󰀉󰀇󰀅 to 󰀁󰀉󰀇󰀈, between Franco’s death (󰀁󰀉󰀇󰀅) and the year of the signing of the Spanish constitution (󰀁󰀉󰀇󰀈), the Episcopal Conference facilitated the arrival of democracy by abandoning the idea of creating a Christian denominational party.󰀃󰀅 If in the pre-Civil war period (󰀁󰀉󰀃󰀁-󰀁󰀉󰀃󰀆), the authority of the Christian conservative party (CEDA) was fundamental, during the last part of the regime and the first years of democracy the Church wanted to overcome the connection between religion and ideology that had led, among other reasons, to the crisis of the II Republic (󰀁󰀉󰀃󰀁-󰀁󰀉󰀃󰀆) and, finally, to the Civil War (󰀁󰀉󰀃󰀆󰀁󰀉󰀃󰀉). Cardinal Tarancón, archbishop of Madrid and president of the Spanish Episcopal Conference (󰀁󰀉󰀇󰀁-󰀁󰀉󰀈󰀁) explicitly rejected the creation of a Christian political party as he significantly declared in 󰀁󰀉󰀇󰀅: In Spain the national concept and the Catholic concept have always been linked, to the point that in my young times it was an axiom that Spain ceases to be Spain if it ceases to be Catholic […] It must be clarified that the Christian gift is for all the people and not only for certain groups.󰀃󰀆

This was also possible thanks to the new political valuation of democracy after the Vatican Council which considered parliamentarism as the best representation system. In the case of Spain, the episcopate action facilitated the creation of both a democratic and pluralistic framework, endorsed by the 󰀁󰀉󰀇󰀈 constitution. The 󰀁󰀉󰀇󰀈 constitution, which recognised plurality of confessional options as a constitutional basis, was an essential milestone in the increasing secularisation process of Spain.󰀃󰀇 This plural situation was accelerated during the 󰀁󰀉󰀈󰀀s and, in parallel with the advance in the elimination of the Francoist Catholic confessional regime, the religious change in the Spanish population increased its speed. The 󰀁󰀉󰀈󰀇 CIS report (Spanish national statistic report) already showed us a society in 󰀃󰀅  Susana Aguilar, “La jerarquía católica española en perspectiva comparada: La confrontación política entre la Iglesia y el Gobierno socialista a comienzos del siglo XXI,” Revista Internacional de Sociología 󰀇󰀁, no. 󰀂 (May-August 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀃): 󰀃󰀀󰀉-󰀃󰀃󰀄, 󰀃󰀂󰀀. 󰀃󰀆  Europa Press, “Importante discurso del Cardenal Tarancón en Salamanca (May 󰀃, 󰀁󰀉󰀇󰀅),” Archivo General de la Administración (AGA) (󰀃) 󰀁󰀀󰀇.󰀁 󰀄󰀂/󰀀󰀈󰀈󰀁󰀈.󰀁󰀆. 󰀃󰀇  Ana Fernández Coronado and Gustavo Suárez-Pertierra, “Identidad social, pluralismo religioso y laicidad del Estado, Documento de trabajo 󰀁󰀈󰀀/󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀃, Fundación Alternativas (󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀃),” http://www.fundacionalternativas.org/public/storage/laboratorio_documentos_archivos/󰀄󰀇󰀉󰀅󰀂󰀁f󰀀󰀆󰀇󰀆󰀆afd󰀈󰀆e󰀇󰀃󰀁f󰀉󰀂dc󰀁󰀇da󰀃󰀄.pdf [accessed January 󰀂󰀁, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈], 󰀂󰀃.

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which 󰀄󰀅% declared themselves as practicing Catholics, followed immediately by 󰀄󰀃.󰀈% who defined themselves as non-practicing Catholics. Nevertheless, it also showed us a society that continued, even in 󰀁󰀉󰀈󰀆, to baptise 󰀈󰀆.󰀂󰀄% of those born, or with a 󰀇󰀇.󰀈󰀇% of Catholic marriages. These facts brought Spain closer to the notions of “implicit religion” or “diffuse religion” than were being applied in the rest of democratic European societies.󰀃󰀈 During these decades (the 󰀁󰀉󰀇󰀀s and 󰀁󰀉󰀈󰀀s) the Spanish population stopped being legally a Catholic country so as to become a cultural Catholic society, with important implicit, and not always visible, consequences for a real religious pluralism. Again, the episcopate discovered a new opportunity for Catholicism in a democratic context via cultural Catholicism. From the 󰀁󰀉󰀈󰀀s onwards, the episcopate has not abandoned the vocation of influence over the whole of national life through an interesting discursive change: the emphasis has no longer been on the restoration of Christianity, as during the regime, but in the defence of the Catholic culture and values in a Spanish secular era.󰀃󰀉 We can read this Catholic construction – a construction more tied to tradition, culture and customs than political issues󰀄󰀀 – in coherence with their intention of not creating a confessional party. This Catholic cultural discursive change was also favoured by three events: the Socialist Party victory in the 󰀁󰀉󰀈󰀂 general elections, the arrival of a new nuncio, Tagliaferri – who worked for John Paul II’s speech about New Evangelisation (following the path traced by Paul VI with his encyclical Evangelii Nuntiandi, 󰀁󰀉󰀇󰀅) – and the conflict between these two poles (the Catholic Church and the socialist government with its promise of modernisation of Spanish cultural life). Not by chance, the slogan of the political campaign that led the socialist party to the Moncloa (the Spanish presidential residency) was: “For Change” (Por el cambio). In this context, cultural Catholicism led to the intensification of society-focused Church strategies, without completely rejecting state-focused 󰀃󰀈  Alfonso Pérez-Agote, “Los límites de la secularización: Hacia una versión analítica de la teoría,” in Sagrado/Profano: Nuevos desafíos al proyecto de la modernidad, ed. Josetxo Beriain and Ignacio Sánchez de la Yncera (Madrid: Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀀), 󰀂󰀉󰀇-󰀃󰀂󰀂, 󰀃󰀀󰀆. 󰀃󰀉  Enzo Pace, “Religion as Communication: The Changing Shape of Catholicism in Europe,” in Everyday Religion Observing Modern Religious Lives, ed. Nancy T. Ammerman (New York: Oxford University Press, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀇), 󰀃󰀇-󰀅󰀀, 󰀄󰀃. 󰀄󰀀  Rafael Ruiz Andrés, “El proceso de secularización de la sociedad española (󰀁󰀉󰀆󰀀󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀀): Entre la Historia y la memoria,” Pasado y Memoria: Revista de Historia Contemporánea 󰀁󰀆 (󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀇): 󰀂󰀀󰀇-󰀂󰀃󰀂.

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strategies, in a context of the “troisième seuil de sécularisation.”󰀄󰀁 This notion by Jean Baubérot implies a new frame of fragmentation of cultural values, both of the state and civil society, within a post-modern situation in which the essential vector of secularisation is in social reality and not only in politics (laicism). To face this situation, the concept of “Christian values” – the importance of family, the defence of a “natural order” and the “culture of life,” which has been a constant in the episcopal documents during the Spanish democratic period – was used to target the whole Spanish society beyond just the practicing Catholic sector by focusing on the core of some points shared by a larger part of the population that conserved some remnants of Catholic culture (at least theoretically, although this is more fable than practice). As a consequence, the Christian religious appellation was complemented with values of the person, cultural or natural principles󰀄󰀂 in a context perceived by Catholic bishops of moral destructuration. As a sample of this time we find the important document Católicos en la vida pública (Catholics in public life) (󰀁󰀉󰀈󰀆), in which the following revealing description of the Spanish moral situation can be found. 󰀁󰀈. The current Western culture, with these and other notable values, developed in large part by the influence of the Christian faith, also contains negative elements and solvents, such as, for example, the lack of convictions about the profound being of man, the pragmatism, theoretical or practical materialism and the cult of well-being as the supreme norm of behaviour.󰀄󰀃

Consequently, from what we have stated beforehand, if in the 󰀁󰀉󰀆󰀀s and 󰀁󰀉󰀇󰀀s we could see an important number of episcopal documents talking about politics in itself (i.e. Iglesia y Comunidad Política, 󰀁󰀉󰀇󰀃), in the 󰀁󰀉󰀈󰀀s, the episcopate’s topic changed according to the basic aforementioned ideas. As can be confirmed in the following chart, moral and educational issues occupied an important amount of reflection time, more than politics itself.

󰀄󰀁  Jean Baubérot, Histoire de la laïcité en France (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀇), chapter VII. 󰀄󰀂  Díaz-Salazar, El factor católico en la política española, 󰀂󰀃󰀅. 󰀄󰀃  Comisión Permanente de la Conferencia Episcopal, “Católicos en la vida pública,” in Base de datos de la Conferencia Episcopal (April 󰀂󰀂, 󰀁󰀉󰀈󰀆), www.conferenciaepiscopal. es/documentos/Conferencia/catolicos.htm [accessed January 󰀂󰀈, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈].

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Chart 󰀁 󰀄󰀄

For the dissemination of this message of the defence of Christian culture, the episcopal conference was also supported by the COPE radio, of which it currently still controls 󰀄󰀈.󰀇% of the shares. The importance of this platform cannot be ignored as the COPE has nowadays around 󰀂.󰀈 million daily listeners.󰀄󰀅 Although it was founded in 󰀁󰀉󰀆󰀀, the COPE acquired its current form in 󰀁󰀉󰀇󰀉 and maintained an important critical role during the governments of Felipe González and José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. There were especially tense moments between the episcopate and the socialist government during the episcopal presidency of Cardinal Angel Suquía (󰀁󰀉󰀈󰀇-󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀃).󰀄󰀆 In fact, the tension was so high that this Cardinal, deeply worried about the “secularising wave,” was never received by the socialist president Felipe González during his 󰀆 years of presidency of the episcopal conference.󰀄󰀇 The presidency of archbishop Elías Yanes (󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀃-󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀉) coincided with the conservative victory in 󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀆 and with a 󰀄󰀄  Prepared by the author on the basis of the Spanish Episcopal Conference Database, http://www.conferenciaepiscopal.es/base-documental/ 󰀄󰀅  COPE, “Más de un millón de nuevos oyentes en tres años (November 󰀃󰀀, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀇),” http://www.cope.es/noticias/actualidad/cope-mas-millon-nuevos-oyentes-tresanos_󰀁󰀆󰀃󰀉󰀄󰀂 [accessed January 󰀂󰀆, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈]. 󰀄󰀆  Giulia Quaggio, “󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀂: La modernidad del pasado: El PSOE en busca de una idea regenerada de España,” Historia y Política 󰀃󰀅 (January-June, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀆): 󰀉󰀅-󰀁󰀂󰀂. 󰀄󰀇  William J. Callahan, La Iglesia Católica en España (󰀁󰀈󰀇󰀅-󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀂) (Barcelona: Crítica, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀃), 󰀄󰀉󰀀-󰀄󰀉󰀁.

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re-strengthening of the relations between the episcopal conference and the Spanish government as could be seen in the Ecclesia󰀄󰀈 (Ecclesia is the main review of the Spanish Episcopal Conference and had a very positive vision on conservative Aznar’s policies in the very beginning of his term, in contrast to its critical opinion of the last years of Felipe González’s socialist government). Nevertheless, this tension was re-ignited afterwards during Antonio María Rouco Varela’s presidency (president of the episcopal conference between 󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀉-󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀅 and 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀈-󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀄). Cardinal Rouco Varela’s last part of the first and all of the second presidency were particularly contentious, when conflicts with the socialist government chaired by José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀄-󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀁) were especially intense.󰀄󰀉 For simplicity’s sake, the essential points of the enduring conflict between the socialist party and the episcopate were abortion (since the Decriminalisation Law of 󰀁󰀉󰀈󰀅 and the Abortion Law of 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀀); the subject of Catholic religion in the public school and Catholic school system as well as the creation of the subject of Educación para la ciudadanía (‘citizenship education’) by the socialist government in 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀆 – which was judged by the bishopric to be an indoctrinating subject –; and the Marriage between People of Same Sex Law in 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀅. What is the conclusion of this process? Due to the confrontation between the socialist party, along with progressive groups (especially feminist and LGBT associations), and the Spanish Episcopal Conference, secularisation in Spain has also re-acquired a political character in the last decade of the 󰀂󰀀th century and the first one of the 󰀂󰀁st century, in line with Casanova’s reflection on the public role of religion in modernity󰀅󰀀 and in parallel to the intensification of “culturalist” speech. While back in 󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀂, a report highlighted a blurring process between religious affiliation and political preference,󰀅󰀁 the identification between the conservative world and the Catholic parishioner has been reinforced since then. The main Spanish conservative party, the Popular Party (PP), has defended a position parallel to the Catholic Church in these matters (although, more theoretically than practically). So that, at the end of the

 Clearly perceptible in: Editorial, “Actitud receptiva,” Ecclesia 󰀂󰀇󰀉󰀃 (󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀆): 󰀅-󰀆, 󰀅.  Eduardo López Aranguren, Estado, Iglesia y Sociedad en el proceso de secularización de España. 󰀁󰀉󰀇󰀈-󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀃 (Madrid: Dykinson, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀃), 󰀂󰀉. 󰀅󰀀  José Casanova, Public Religions in the Modern World (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀄). 󰀅󰀁  Pedro González Blasco and Juan González-Anleo, Religión y sociedad en la España de los 󰀉󰀀 (Madrid: Fundación SM, 󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀂), 󰀃󰀃. 󰀄󰀈

󰀄󰀉

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󰀂󰀀th century and beginning of the 󰀂󰀁st “the classical division between a lay left and a Catholic right tends to increase”󰀅󰀂 and a religious [...] vote of considerable strength was reactivated [...] in Spain, despite not being decisive, their presence makes religiousness, when opting for a political party, a relevant factor to reinforce the electoral preferences of the Spaniards.󰀅󰀃

IV. Catholicism in the 󰀂󰀁st Century: Between a Significant Minority and Contested Speech This revival of religious differences has continued during the dawn of the 󰀂󰀁st century thanks to the existence of a widening gap between different generations of Spaniards. A recent article in the most read Spanish newspaper, El País,󰀅󰀄 talked about the deep divergences between the generation under 󰀃󰀅 years of age and the generation over that age, in issues such as politics, valuation of the democratic transition and ... religion, of course. Younger generations, heirs of the non-practicing but Catholic cultural context, are experiencing an important change in mentality. Although their parents were socialised in a context of Catholic social predominance and this has kept them in certain religious structures (marriages, baptisms) within a Catholic cultural context, these issues have progressively lost their meaning for young people, generating a ‘third (and deeper) wave of secularisation’.󰀅󰀅 As an example, we can use the data indicated in the El País article: euthanasia and abortion are accepted by the majority of youths, and only 󰀁󰀉% declare that religion is important in their lives. A growing opposition against episcopal guidelines is derived from this difference in mentality, and it is shown in different public demonstrations for the defence of the aforementioned subjects: abortion or marriage between people of the same sex. Verbal

󰀅󰀂  Feliciano Montero, “Autocríticas del Nacionalcatolicismo en los años cincuenta,” in Religión y política en la España contemporánea, ed. Carolyn P. Boyd (Madrid: Centro de Estudios Políticos y Constitucionales, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀇), 󰀁󰀃󰀉-󰀁󰀆󰀄, 󰀁󰀂󰀄. 󰀅󰀃  José Ramón Montero, Kerman Calvo, and Álvaro Martínez, “El voto religioso en España y Portugal,” Revista Internacional de Sociología 󰀆󰀆, no. 󰀅󰀁 (󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀈): 󰀁󰀉-󰀅󰀄, 󰀄󰀈-󰀄󰀉. 󰀅󰀄  Pérez Colomé and Kiko Llaneras, “Dos generaciones que se dan la espalda,” El País (July 󰀂, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀇), https://politica.elpais.com/politica/󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀇/󰀀󰀆/󰀃󰀀/actualidad/󰀁󰀄󰀉󰀈󰀈󰀂󰀀󰀅󰀃󰀁󰀁󰀄󰀅󰀀󰀅󰀅. html [accessed December 󰀁󰀆, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀇]. 󰀅󰀅  Alfonso Pérez-Agote, Cambio religioso en España: Los avatares de la secularización, Colección monografías 󰀂󰀇󰀆 (Madrid: Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀂), 󰀁󰀃󰀅.

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attacks arise in these demonstrations against the episcopal conference, which is labelled as “male-chauvinist and patriarchal.”󰀅󰀆 On the other hand, relations between the state and the episcopal conference have become fluid. Firstly, this was due to the arrival in power of the conservative Popular Party in 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀁 and its promise to repeal the abortion law (finally, not carried through). Secondly, to the moderate shift of the episcopal conference presidency with the replacement of Cardinal Rouco by Cardinal Ricardo Blázquez, Archbishop of Valladolid, and, finally, thanks to the “Francisco’s Spring” expansion among the Spanish episcopate with the figures of cardinal Juan José Omella in Barcelona and cardinal Carlos Osoro in Madrid, two archbishops with a talkative, moderate spirit. Even with the return of the socialists to power (May 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈), bishops have maintained the spirit of moderation despite having started negotiations around several controversial points (i.e. the removal of Franco’s remains from the Basilica in the Valle de los Caídos to a less symbolic place). However, at the social level, the heterogeneity between the two mentalities, one heir of the progressive mentality and the other related to the defence of Catholic culture, has not diminished and it is shown in the last SM (Santa María foundation for sociological research) report on Spanish youth.󰀅󰀇 In this research it is discovered that, faced with the homogeneity of the National-Catholic Regime and the relative unity of the Christian culture, nowadays the Catholic Church has four very distinct young profiles to address:󰀅󰀈 • Firstly, among young people, there are approximately 󰀁󰀀.󰀃% of practicing Catholics, composed of “very good Catholics” (󰀂.󰀁%) and “practising Catholics” (󰀈.󰀂%). This profile and its episcopal representatives have the dilemmas of all minorities in society: the choice between shielding themselves in an entrenched identity, eliminating their identity, or, finally, with the premises of their identity, introducing debates in the public sphere in questions that can enrich the democratic discussion through dialogue between secular and religious actors.󰀅󰀉 󰀅󰀆  Agencias, “¡Vamos a quemar la Conferencia Episcopal... por machista y patriarcal!,” El País (February 󰀇, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀈), https://elpais.com/elpais/󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀈/󰀀󰀂/󰀀󰀇/actualidad/󰀁󰀂󰀀󰀂󰀃󰀇󰀅󰀈󰀃󰀆_󰀈󰀅󰀀󰀂󰀁󰀅.html [accessed January 󰀈, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈]. 󰀅󰀇  Juan María González-Anleo and José A. López-Ruiz, Jóvenes españoles entre dos siglos 󰀁󰀉󰀈󰀄-󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀇 (Madrid: Fundación SM, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀇). 󰀅󰀈  This set of data is the most up-to-date information available about the Spanish youth’s religiosity. Source: Juan María González-Anleo, “Jóvenes y Religión,” in Jóvenes españoles entre dos siglos 󰀁󰀉󰀈󰀄-󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀇, 󰀂󰀃󰀅-󰀂󰀈󰀀. 󰀅󰀉  Jürgen Habermas and Joseph Ratzinger, Dialectics of Secularization: On Reason and Religion (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀆), 󰀄󰀂-󰀄󰀆.

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• 󰀃󰀂.󰀁% of young people are attached to a broadly defined Catholic identity, the sum of “not very much practising Catholics” (󰀁󰀃.󰀈%) and “non-practising Catholics” (󰀁󰀈.󰀃%); a Catholic identity more related to the abstract term of ‘vicarious religion’󰀆󰀀 since they contemplate this religious institution as the representative (vicarious) of certain social functions (defence of social values, family, or local and national identities). Thus, they confer a certain relevance to the Church’s role in the public space and in their identity construction. Nevertheless, this acceptance of the Church’s public role is ambiguous, due to their distance from the Catholic magisterium in other matters, such as the valuation of sexuality. This ambiguity is also found in the practicing group, but in that case, it is compatible with a stronger identification with the Catholic Church as an institution; an identification that is much weaker in the non-practicing group. • We have to add 󰀅.󰀅% of “believers in other religions” to the group of religious people. This profile would in principle be outside the scope of the episcopal conference’s discourse. • There is a growing importance of “religion-free” groups in Spanish society.󰀆󰀁 They are an increasingly important mass of non-religious people whose opinions range from indifference to atheism; a group very close to Charles Taylor’s idea of “stadial consciousness.” This sector accounts for 󰀅󰀁.󰀅% of the young population and it is divided amongst those who are religiously indifferent (󰀁󰀄.󰀂%), agnostics (󰀁󰀃.󰀆%) and atheists/non-believers (󰀂󰀃.󰀇%). These attitudes have a significant presence, even amongst believers, thanks to a generalised atmosphere of indifference to the episcopate’s message and, in certain issues and sectors, even an explicit rejection of it. For this reason, Eduardo Bericat signals scepticism as the main religious attitude in both the Spanish and European population.󰀆󰀂 Nevertheless, indifference to religion may not correlate with indifference to spirituality, which is contemplated positively by this youthful sector, as long as spirituality differs from the religious institutions. For this reason – and in line with the Spanish sociologist Rafael

 Grace Davie, Religion in Modern Europe: A Memory Mutates (New York: Oxford University Press, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀀), 󰀅󰀉. 󰀆󰀁  Rafael Díaz-Salazar, “La religión vacía: Un análisis de la transición religiosa en Occidente,” in Formas modernas de religión, ed. Rafael Díaz-Salazar, Salvador Giner, and Fernando Velasco (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀆), 󰀇󰀁-󰀁󰀁󰀆, 󰀇󰀁. 󰀆󰀂  Eduardo Bericat Alastuey, “Duda y posmodernidad: El ocaso de la secularización en Europa,” Revista Española de Investigaciones Sociológicas 󰀁󰀂󰀁 (󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀈): 󰀁󰀃-󰀅󰀃. 󰀆󰀀

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Díaz-Salazar – I have chosen the concept “religion-free” and not “religion/spirituality-free.” Returning to the challenges of the interaction between the state, Catholic Church and public sphere, after forty years of religious change, active Catholics have become a minority. As the largest religious minority, they even have a special insertion in the constitution with the explicit citation of the Catholic Church in the article 󰀁󰀆.󰀃 of the Spanish constitutional text,󰀆󰀃 but, nevertheless, they are nowadays a minority.󰀆󰀄 The majority of the population goes from rejection and indifference to partial acceptance of the Catholic ideas. This fact has both deep social and political implications that will mark the future. First of all, the Church is certainly disconcerted because the very framework in which it has moved in these decades (cultural Catholicism) does not work among those young people we have described with the previous statistics. Perhaps Spain is not so far from secular France and its “Catholicism, the end of a world” (Catholicisme, la fin d’un monde),󰀆󰀅 as the sociologist Hervieu-Léger stated at the beginning of the 󰀂󰀁st century for the French situation. Nevertheless, even among young people, almost half of them still have a Catholic identity. Perhaps more weakened than before, but at least it continues to connect with the Catholic label. Moreover, we cannot forget that not all of society is made up of young people and this percentage of identification with Catholicism clearly increases with age. On the other hand, the changing socio-historical conditions put on the table of political and social negotiation several elements of the relationship between church and state in Spanish democracy, which were socially accepted in the past due to the more generalised concept of Spanish Christian culture (i.e. the subject of Catholic religion in public education and fiscal privileges, such as the exemption of property tax in religious premises). Broadly speaking, only one out of the four most voted-for political parties (the Popular Party, conservatives) is willing to continue exactly with the current framework. On the other hand, Podemos (a new left-wing party which was the most chosen by young voters under 󰀃󰀅 years old in the 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀆 general elections) is the party clearest in favour of reforming Church-state relations, reproducing the 󰀆󰀃  Article 󰀁󰀆.󰀃 of the 󰀁󰀉󰀇󰀈 Spanish constitution is related to cooperation between the state and religious institutions. It only explicitly mentions the Catholic Church and no other denominations. 󰀆󰀄  Pace, “Religion as Communication,” 󰀄󰀃. 󰀆󰀅  Danièle Hervieu-Léger, Catholicisme, la fin d’un monde (Paris: Bayard, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀃).

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mentioned generational gap. In February 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀇, the treasury commission of the Congress of Representatives approved a proposal to the government in order to review fiscal benefits of the Church.󰀆󰀆 As we have already mentioned, since the very beginning of Pedro Sanchez’s socialist government (May 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈), these discussions have only just re-started. V. Conclusions After exposing and underlining the main trends in the interactions of the Catholic Church with civil society and the Spanish state, let’s go back to the chapter’s initial questions in order to draw the conclusions. Firstly, what have been the actions of the Catholic Church in a rapidly changing society? After almost forty years in which the Roman Catholic Church benefited from a national-Catholic regime, the Church itself advanced and propitiated democratic change, and to a certain extent favoured a process of secularisation from the previous national-Catholic society to a pluralistic, democratic system through its role in overcoming a confessional regime. The Roman Catholic Church also contributed to the achievement of a democracy that has made a framework of plural coexistence possible by, for example, renouncing the creation of a Christian political party or the endorsement of the constitutional process by the great majority of bishops in 󰀁󰀉󰀇󰀈. Faced with this first progressive change in the 󰀁󰀉󰀆󰀀s and the 󰀁󰀉󰀇󰀀s, we find a second, also rapid change, due to the spectacular increase of individual secularisation in Spain during the 󰀁󰀉󰀇󰀀s and 󰀁󰀉󰀈󰀀s within a secular state. As a consequence, this second transformation could be translated by the search for a space more linked to Catholic cultural values, which to some extent tried to re-edit its moral primacy in a democratic framework, and with the objective of trying to contain Catholic bloodletting during the 󰀁󰀉󰀈󰀀s. How has this determined the secularisation process in Spain? In an essential way, as it has succeeded in creating a resistance against the secularisation of cultural life. An active presence of the Church was culturally possible in social life, which went from the sacramental moments 󰀆󰀆  Europa Press, “El Congreso pide suprimir el 󰀀,󰀇% de la Iglesia y obligar a que pague el IBI e IRPF (February 󰀁󰀅, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀇),” http://www.europapress.es/sociedad/noticiacongreso-pide-suprimir-󰀀󰀇-iglesia-obligar-pague-ibi-irpf-󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀇󰀀󰀂󰀁󰀅󰀁󰀇󰀄󰀂󰀃󰀅.html [accessed December 󰀂󰀀, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀇].

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(weddings, baptisms, and communions) to the existence of a common consensus around the culturally Christian character of Spain until, at least, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀀. It also favoured that the Catholic identity remained a constant value despite the decreasing attendance at mass or the increasing rejection of other premises of Catholic doctrine such as, principally, those related to sexual and private life. At this point, convergence can be found with other European contexts through the term “diffuse religion” or “implicit religion.”󰀆󰀇 Finally, what are the implications of this process in the current context? As we have pointed out, half of the youth is almost completely “deculturized” from the Catholic legacy, and most of the other half only retains a weak Catholic identity. Therefore, the cultural framework that served the Church to model its space during that process of secularisation which spans from the last years of Franco’s regime to the present day is increasingly inoperative. Perhaps, this makes us review Dobbelaere’s concept of the meso-level of secularisation, that which affects the religious institutions. If the outstanding sociologist speaks essentially about secularisation of the religious entities themselves (the process that we have described for Spanish society during the 󰀁󰀉󰀆󰀀s-󰀁󰀉󰀈󰀀s), we could now extend it to include the different ways in which the actions/reactions to the decisions of the religious institutions have shaped the secularisation itself, which has been the case for the Spanish throughout the historical presentation of the chapter. The change would essentially be a complementation in the direction of interrelationships: the concept of a meso-level of secularisation would to some extent prioritise external influence (secularisation) on religious institutions. In this historical reconstruction it has also been pointed out how religious institutions shaped the very advance of secularisation. Although the model of defence of Catholic culture in Spain had an initial approval and spread over the society, its contingent configuration has led to the model’s failure due to its essential link to the adult generation of the 󰀁󰀉󰀈󰀀s. Moreover, its increasing conservatism detached the Catholic identity from politically left-wing voters and redoubled the abyss with the young cohort, as these voters are essentially inclined to favour left-wing parties (as it is stated in the aforementioned article from 󰀆󰀇  José Casanova, “Dimensiones del pluralismo religioso: La inmigración y el nuevo pluralismo religioso. Una comparación Unión Europea/Estados Unidos,” Revista Cidob d’Afers Internacionals 󰀇󰀇 (May-June 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀇): 󰀁󰀃-󰀃󰀉, 󰀁󰀇-󰀁󰀈.

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El Pais). What had been a successful adaptation to both a period and a generation is unsuitable in the present situation, in turn strengthening the effect of secularisation. This is because secularisation, about which we have been talking throughout the article, cannot be conceived as both a determining and necessary fact of modernisation. It is a process that is forged in the interaction between the social and historical actors, such as the Church, the state, and civil society have been for the Spanish case. Perhaps in this more historical and plural understanding of the relationship between religion and modernity, we can revitalise a secularisation debate that has been too marked by normative approaches.󰀆󰀈 It must be remembered that a normative approach tends to ignore the voices of the protagonists of history: the subjects. Precisely, it is they who experience processes such as secularisation (and not vice versa) in a historical work-in-progress relationship between religion and modernity.

 Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀃). 󰀆󰀈

Can Hijab Be Part of the Work Uniform? Finnishness and the Silent Norms in Finland Katri Karhunen I. Introduction Even though on the surface Finland is not a very religious country, the Finnish culture is deeply interlinked with Christianity. At the end of the year 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀇, 󰀇󰀁% of the population belonged to the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland.󰀁 The Evangelical Lutheran Church is deeply rooted in people’s private and public lives, and because of that it is connected tightly to the culture and society of Finland.󰀂 In the past, the Evangelical Lutheran Church had a special position as a state church and it still has a position as a national church. The state government and the church administration are now kept separate, but for example the Lutheran calendar still impacts the Finnish civil calendar, and sessions of parliament and semesters of universities start every year with a church service.󰀃 Even though most Finns belong to the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, Finnish people are passive about taking part in public religious worship, such as church services. In 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀅, only 󰀉% of Finns took part in a church service monthly and only 󰀃󰀀% at least once a year. That is why in public discourse, the Finns are often referred to as “nominal Christians.” In Finnish, this translates to “tapakristitty” which means “habit Christian.” Christianity has its place in traditions and habits, but sometimes these are seen more as a part of Finnishness than religion. Church is still the place, for example, for christenings, weddings, and 󰀁  Statistics Finland, “Population (April 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈),” https://www.tilastokeskus.fi/tup/ suoluk/suoluk_vaesto_en.html [accessed August 󰀂󰀉, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈]. 󰀂  Kimmo Ketola, “Luterilainen usko nykyajan Suomessa [Lutheran Faith in Modern Finland],” in Osallistuva luterilaisuus – Suomen evankelis-luterilainen kirkko vuosina 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀂󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀅: Tutkimus kirkosta ja suomalaisista [Participatory Lutheranism – The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland in the Years 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀂–󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀅: Research about the Church and Finns], ed. Kimmo Ketola, Maarit Hytönen, Veli-Matti Salminen, Jussi Sohlberg, and Leena Sorsa (Kuopio: Grano Oy, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀆), 󰀄󰀇. 󰀃  Leena Sorsa, “Kirkon rooli yhteiskunnassa [The Role of the Church in Society],” in Osallistuva luterilaisuus, 󰀁󰀇󰀂-󰀁󰀇󰀅, 󰀁󰀇󰀈.

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funerals, and in 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀅 󰀄󰀂% of Finns visited a church at least once a year to attend one or some of those ceremonies.󰀄 Another example: at the end of spring semester festivities, children in schools sing the hymn Suvivirsi (Now the time of blossoming arrives),󰀅 which is a Christian hymn, but on this occasion it is seen as something that ends the semester and begins the summer, with no religious value for most people. Christian symbols are also seen as normal in the Finnish public sphere, as said in a television program A-Studio: Covering veils and bus drivers’ turbans disturb people, or do they?: “The cross is a part of Finnish culture and it can be commonly seen on necklaces, but do Finns accept other visible religious symbols in public places?”󰀆 As can be seen in the citation above, visible religious habits that are not Christian in nature still appear to cause public discussions in Finland. This is because immigration started rather late in Finland, mainly towards the end of 󰀂󰀀th century. This is also the reason why questions concerning religious clothing in workplaces (or in public in general) were not asked earlier. There have been Muslims in Finland longer than this, for example the Tatars who came from Russia at the end of 󰀁󰀉th century, but the Muslim community had been rather small and was hardly noticeable. In the 󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀀s the number of Muslims started to increase due to immigration from Muslim-majority countries, mainly from Somalia, making the traditional clothing of Muslim women󰀇 more visible in the streets. There are no exact numbers of how many Muslims there are now in Finland, because the only official data is related to the membership of registered religious associations, and most Muslims living in Finland do not belong to these. The estimated number in the year 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀆 was 󰀇󰀀,󰀀󰀀󰀀, which is 󰀁.󰀃% of the population.󰀈 󰀄

 Ketola, “Luterilainen usko nykyajan Suomessa,” 󰀇󰀃-󰀇󰀅.  Finnish translation of a Swedish summertime hymn, Den blomstertid nu kommer. 󰀆  Translation by author: “Risti kuuluu kyllä suomalaiseen kulttuuriin, se heiluu monen kaulassa, mutta sallimmeko me muita uskonnollisia symboleita julkisilla paikoilla?,” A-Studio: Peittävät huivit ja bussikuskin turbaani kiusaavat, vai kiusaavatko?, YLE Ajankohtaistoimitus. Shown on 󰀉.󰀅.󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀃 YLE 󰀁, Finland. 󰀇  There are different kind of clothing styles and veils. For example, some women use veils that cover the face and body completely, some women cover only the hair. Hijab means the modest clothing of Muslim women, but it is also used to describe the veil covering the hair. In this article the word is used with the latter meaning. Niqab is a veil that covers the face but leaves the area around the eyes clear. Burqa has a mesh screen to see through but otherwise it covers the face and body completely. 󰀈  Teemu Pauha, “Finland,” in Yearbook of Muslims in Europe, vol. 󰀈, ed. Oliver Scharbrodt, Samim Akgönül, Ahmet Alibašić, Jørgen S. Nielsen, and Egdūnas Račius (Leiden: Brill, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀇), 󰀂󰀄󰀁. 󰀅

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My doctoral thesis concentrates on religious clothing in Finnish workplaces. For my research, I interviewed Muslim women who are working in the social and healthcare sectors in the Finnish metropolitan area, which consists of the cities of Helsinki, Espoo, and Vantaa. I am concentrating on this area because Muslim women there have had the option to wear veils at work since the beginning of the 󰀂󰀁st century. In this article, I will concentrate on the general situation in Finland concerning religious clothing in workplaces. I will start by discussing the concept of “Finnishness” and how it relates to Christianity. After that, I will introduce two cases from Finland that were widely publicised in Finnish media, and the laws concerning religious clothing. After that I will go over two specific cases, the Finnish police and the Finnish healthcare sector. At the end of the article, I am going to discuss my own data and the questions arising from it. II. Finnishness The definition of Finnishness is still based mainly on definitions formulated at the end of the 󰀁󰀉th and the beginning of the 󰀂󰀀th century, when Finland was starting to move towards independence (Finland became independent in 󰀁󰀉󰀁󰀇), and Finnish national heroes, for example Zachris Topelius, Elias Lönnrot, and Johan Ludvig Runeberg, constructed a Finnish national identity in their writings.󰀉 Even though Finland and the Finns have changed over the years, the definitions put forward by these men persist deep in the minds of the people: Finns identify as courageous, tough, and stubborn, and also Christian.󰀁󰀀 Finnishness and how to be a good Finnish worker are often linked to the Protestant work ethic, and in Finnish common language it is still used to describe how Finns see work. Like Juha Sihvola has said, the word for “work,” työ, in Finnish common usage means something hard and ascetic, which should not include any freedom, creativity, play, or 󰀉  Olli Löytty, “Erikoisen tavallinen suomalaisuus [Specially Ordinary Finnishness],” in Suomi toisin sanoen [Finland in Other Words], ed. Mikko Lehtonen, Olli Löytty, and Petri Ruuska (Tampere: Vastapaino, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀅), 󰀄󰀀-󰀄󰀁; Matti Klinge, “Suomi-myytti [Myth of Finland],” in Suomi: Maa, kansa ja kulttuurit [Finland: Country, People and Cultures], ed. Laure Kolbe and Markku Löytöne (Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀉), 󰀈󰀉. 󰀁󰀀  Jari Ehrnrooth, “Kipupisteitä kansakunnan ruumiissa [Challenges of Nation],” in Suomi: Maa, kansa ja kulttuurit, 󰀁󰀁󰀅-󰀁󰀁󰀆.

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passion.󰀁󰀁 These values, which belong to the Protestant work ethic, have been popular in Finland since the 󰀁󰀈th century. Some reasons for this can be found in the strong heritage of agriculture, which has taught people to work hard to stave off poverty and be as self-sufficient as possible.󰀁󰀂 In his research about Lutheranism in Finland, Kimmo Ketola noted that almost 󰀇󰀅% of Finns thought it important that their work is seen as purposeful. Work should be something that helps others and society. For Lutheran Finns these values were even more important. Due to this, Ketola comes to the conclusion that “Lutheran work ethic” still exists in Finland.󰀁󰀃 It can be said that hard work is very important in Finland, and it is usually also seen as an important part of integration to Finnish society. Still, as Olga Silfver’s research shows, getting a job is not necessarily enough for integration: one still needs to be part of the work community and adapt to the concept of a “good worker.” Silfver interviewed top experts who had moved from regions of the former Soviet Union to Finland to work. She came to the conclusion that in order to become a part of the Finnish work community it is important to follow the norms of the community, both silent and written rules, and manifest the right kind of work ethic. If the “outsider” succeeds in this they will become “one of us,” but if not, they remain “one of them.”󰀁󰀄 In my interviews, women wearing the hijab reported no major problems in their own working communities when talking about their colleagues and superiors, but they did encounter problems with some customers, who did not perceive them as reliable and professional workers. The only thing separating them from their colleagues seemed to be their appearance, mainly the use of hijab. This raises the question whether wearing religious clothing in the workplace runs counter to

󰀁󰀁  Juha Sihvola, “Sata vuotta protestanttista etiikkaa – suuntaviivoja [Hundred Years of Protestant Ethic – the Guidelines],” in Historiallinen Aikakauskirja 󰀁󰀀󰀃, no. (󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀅): 󰀂󰀅󰀃. 󰀁󰀂  Visa Heinonen, Talonpoikainen etiika ja kulutuksen henki: Kotitalousneuvonnasta kuluttajapolitiikkaan 󰀁󰀉󰀀󰀀-luvun Suomessa [The Peasant Ethic and the Spirit of Consumption: From Housekeeping Guidance to Consumer Policy in 󰀂󰀀th Century Finland] (Helsinki: Suomen Historiallinen Seura, 󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀈), 󰀁󰀂-󰀁󰀆. 󰀁󰀃  Ketola, “Luterilainen usko nykyajan Suomessa,” 󰀈󰀆. 󰀁󰀄  Olga Silfver, “Vääränlaiset huippuosaajat? Entisen Neuvostoliiton alueelta tulleiden asiantuntijoiden kiinnittyminen suomalaiseen työelämään [Wrong Kind of Top Expert? Integrating the Experts Coming from the Regions of the Former Soviet Union in the Finnish Labour Market],” in Vieraita työssä: Työelämän etnistyvä eriarvoisuus [The Guests at Work: Workplaces Becoming Ethnically Unequal], ed. Sirpa Wrede and Camilla Nordberg (Helsinki: Palmenia Helsinki University Press, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀀), 󰀁󰀃󰀇.

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what is generally considered to be Finnish and suitable according to the unspoken rules of Finnish workplaces. III. Example Cases In Europe there have been many discussions lately about wearing religious clothing at work or in public places in general. In workplaces, the articles of clothing that have been discussed the most are the hijab, turbans worn by Sikh men, and cross necklaces worn by Christians. Some of the cases have ended up in The European Court of Human Rights, and it has judged cases in different ways. In some cases (for example a flight attendant who wanted to wear a cross necklace at work in the United Kingdom), bans were judged to be discriminatory, but in other cases (for example a nurse who wanted to wear a cross necklace at work in the United Kingdom or a receptionist who wanted to wear a hijab at work in Belgium) the bans were said to be justified.󰀁󰀅 There have also been discussions about religious clothing in public places in general, and within Europe France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Austria, and Denmark have all banned wearing clothing that covers the face. Even though these bans are not explicitly targeting religious clothing, they are affecting mostly the Muslim women using niqab or burqa.󰀁󰀆 Finland does not have explicit laws or protocols about wearing religious clothing at work or in public places in general. Member of Parliament for the Blue Reform party, Vesa-Matti Saarakkala,󰀁󰀇 has presented two Government bills to the parliament in which he moved to forbid the use of face covering veils, but neither of them were passed by parliament. His arguments were not seen as good enough and they were also held to be against basic human rights.󰀁󰀈 󰀁󰀅  Case of Eweida and others vs. United Kingdom. Application number 󰀄󰀈󰀄󰀂󰀀/󰀁󰀀. 󰀁󰀅.󰀁.󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀃. European Court of Human Rights; Case C-󰀁󰀅󰀇/󰀁󰀅. 󰀁󰀄.󰀃.󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀇. European Court of Human Rights. 󰀁󰀆  BBC News, “The Islamic Veil across Europe (May 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈),” https://www.bbc.com/ news/world-europe-󰀁󰀃󰀀󰀃󰀈󰀀󰀉󰀅 [accessed August 󰀂󰀉, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈]. 󰀁󰀇  Former member of The True Finns (Perussuomalaiset). Blue Reform (Sininen tulevaisuus) separated from the True Finns in 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀇. Both are nationalist and populist parties. 󰀁󰀈  Helena Haavisto (Verkkouutiset), “Burkan käytön kieltämisestä Suomessa jätettiin lakialoite [A Government Bill to Forbid Using Burqa in Finland Was Presented] (June 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀆),” https://www.verkkouutiset.fi/burkan-kayton-kieltamisesta-suomessa-jatettiinlakialoite-󰀅󰀂󰀁󰀃󰀇/ [accessed August 󰀂󰀉, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈]; Ilta-Sanomat, “Huntukielto myös Suomeen? [Veil Ban also to Finland?] (July 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀄),” https://www.is.fi/kotimaa/art󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀀󰀀󰀀󰀀󰀇󰀈󰀆󰀃󰀆󰀄.html [accessed August 󰀂󰀉, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈]; Elina Väntönen (Helsingin Sanomat),

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In Finnish media there were some articles about work clothing at the end of 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀀s, but these discussions only truly came to the public’s attention after the beginning of 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀃. In February 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀃, bus company Veolia Transport Vantaa (nowadays Transdev Vantaa Oy) forbade one of their drivers from wearing a turban while working. The employer justified the ban by quoting its rules on uniform unity and on safety in cases where the worker must be easily identifiable. They said that workers should wear a uniform that is neutral and does not provoke customers.󰀁󰀉 Initially the driver contacted the Ombudsman for Minorities who directed the case to the Southern Finland Regional State Administrative Agency (AVI), who made a statement in June 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀃 that a ban on wearing a turban is discriminatory.󰀂󰀀 However, the Agency has no power to force employers to change their practices and the turban ban was not removed. In December 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀃, the case was transferred to the health and safety authority for further examination and in January 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀄 the driver contacted the police. After that the unions for the employers (AKT) and the employees (ALT) got together to discuss the matter and came to an agreement.󰀂󰀁 The agreement meant that Sikhs can now wear a turban at work, but unions did not take a stand on any other religious clothing.󰀂󰀂 The bus driver himself was active in the media and gave many interviews. Afterwards, there were also general discussions about the subject, and the case of a fired shop assistant which came before the District Court of Helsinki in the spring of 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀄 also came to public attention. “Perussuomalaisten Saarakkala teki lakialoitteen burkien kieltämiseksi [Saarakkala, Member of Perussuomalaiset, Made a Government Bill to Forbid Burqas] (May 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀃),” https://www.hs.fi/politiikka/art-󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀀󰀀󰀀󰀂󰀆󰀃󰀆󰀀󰀉󰀇.html [accessed August 󰀂󰀉, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈]. 󰀁󰀉  A-Studio 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀃; Egan Richardson (YLE News), “Sikh Bus Driver Fights for Right to Wear Turban (May 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀃),” https://yle.fi/uutiset/osasto/news/sikh_bus_driver_fights_ for_right_to_wear_turban/󰀆󰀆󰀅󰀀󰀉󰀉󰀅 [accessed August 󰀂󰀉, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈]. 󰀂󰀀  Southern Finland Regional State Administrative Agency. Report of inspection 󰀁󰀃/󰀆󰀁󰀀. Dnro ESAVI/󰀅󰀂󰀄/󰀀󰀅.󰀁󰀃.󰀀󰀅.󰀀󰀂/󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀃. Helsinki. 󰀂󰀁  Joonas Laitinen (Helsingin Sanomat), “Työsuojeluviranomainen tutkii bussikuljettajan turbaanikiellon [Health and Safety Authority Inspects the Turban Ban of the Bus Driver] (December 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀃),” https://www.hs.fi/kaupunki/art-󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀀󰀀󰀀󰀂󰀆󰀉󰀈󰀂󰀄󰀈.html [accessed August 󰀂󰀉, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈]; Kristian Olá (Helsingin Sanomat), “Turbaani päässä ei pääse bussin rattiin [A Bus Cannot Be Driven if Wearing a Turban] (May 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀃),” https://www. hs.fi/kaupunki/art-󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀀󰀀󰀀󰀂󰀆󰀃󰀅󰀉󰀅󰀇.html [accessed August 󰀂󰀉, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈]; Marja Salomaa, Kalle Silfverberg, and Heli Suominen (Helsingin Sanomat), “Päähinekiista ratkesi: Bussinkuljettaja saa käyttää turbaania työssään [Headgear Quarrel Is Solved: A Bus Driver Can Wear a Turban at Work] (February 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀄),” https://www.hs.fi/kaupunki/ art-󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀀󰀀󰀀󰀂󰀇󰀁󰀂󰀂󰀆󰀇.html [accessed August 󰀂󰀉, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈]. 󰀂󰀂  Salomaa, Silfverberg, and Suominen (Helsingin Sanomat), “Päähinekiista ratkesi.”

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In December 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀁, the shop assistant had been fired from a clothing store because she refused to work without a hijab. In court, the manager and supervisor claimed that they did not forbid the scarf itself, but they wanted the worker to use the store’s own scarf, which they did not have in the store at the time. The District Court did not accept this as a reasonable justification and in March 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀄 the court ordered the clothing store manager and his supervisor to pay fines because of discrimination based on religion.󰀂󰀃 These two cases are considered to have set precedents, but practices in the workplace still differ because there are no explicit laws and employers apply laws locally. Regulations about work clothing and uniforms are mainly based on safety and hygiene regulations like in the Occupational Safety and Health Act, the Employment Contracts Act, and the Employment Contracts Agreements. In the healthcare sector, practices are also based on the Health Care Act, and at a local level on the Act on Civil Servants in Local Government. There are also local regulations and practices which may affect the dress code that must be taken into account. Even though employers can make rules concerning clothing relatively freely, they still need to take Finnish laws into account, as well as international agreements on human rights which legislate for parity and freedom, and against discrimination based on religion. In this category are the Constitution of Finland, the Criminal Code, the NonDiscrimination Act, and also the United Nations Charter and the European Convention on Human Rights. Of course, all these laws can be interpreted in various ways. Both precedent cases were judged based on these laws. In the case of the bus driver the AVI’s decision was based on the sections about religious discrimination and work safety (the Employment Contracts Act 󰀅󰀅/󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀁, Chapter 󰀂 󰀂§ and the Non-Discrimination Act 󰀂󰀁/󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀄, 󰀆§, 󰀇§ and 󰀁󰀇§).󰀂󰀄 In the case of the shop assistant the court’s decision was based on similar grounds (the Constitution of Finland 󰀇󰀃󰀁/󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀉, 󰀆§, the Criminal Code 󰀃󰀉/󰀁󰀈󰀈󰀉, Chapter 󰀄󰀇 󰀃§, the Non-Discrimination Act 󰀂󰀁/󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀄, 󰀆§ and the Employment Contracts Act 󰀅󰀅/󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀁, Chapter 󰀂 󰀂§), but it was also based on the decision given by the European Court of Human Rights on January 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀃 concerning the case where a UK flight attendant was forbidden from wearing a cross necklace at

󰀂󰀃

 Judgement of the District Court 󰀁󰀄/󰀁󰀁󰀃󰀁󰀈󰀅.  AVI, Report of inspection 󰀁󰀃/󰀆󰀁󰀀.

󰀂󰀄

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work and the European Court of Human Rights decided that the airline company did not have the right to implement this kind of ban.󰀂󰀅 IV. The Police and the Healthcare Sector As mentioned before, practices in workplaces differ. One example of a workplace where religious clothing or symbols are not allowed at all, is the Finnish police. In August 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀄, the National Police Board published a report in which they prohibited all religious symbols and clothing for police officers. This report was published because a Muslim woman asked Police University College, if she could study there and become a police officer even though she wanted to wear a hijab.󰀂󰀆 The question is a valid one because in some other countries, for example in Sweden and the United Kingdom, police officers are allowed to wear a hijab or a turban with the uniform. In the National Police Board’s report, it says that veils, turbans, and necklaces could be a safety risk, they could provoke people and make them aggressive and negative towards police, and giving this kind of concession would lead to people wanting more rights based on religion. Also, it would affect the reputation of the police and they would no longer be seen as a reliable and neutral authority. The report is based on the sections of the constitution of Finland (󰀇󰀃󰀁/󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀉) about equality (󰀆 §) and freedom of religion and conscience (󰀁󰀁 §). Additionally, the police force follows the State Civil Service Law (󰀇󰀅󰀀/󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀄), which notes that civil servants should be treated equally (󰀁󰀁 §) and they should act in the manner their position demands (󰀁󰀄 §). The Police Act (󰀄󰀉󰀃/󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀅) prescribes that the police should act in such a way that trust in the police is not endangered (󰀉 c §) and it has rules for the uniform (󰀆a §). The uniform rules have also been defined more closely in the statute of the Ministry of the Interior (Statute of the Uniform of Police 󰀇󰀆󰀇/󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀂). In addition, the Police Board made an order “The Uniform of Police”

󰀂󰀅

 Judgement of the District Court 󰀁󰀄/󰀁󰀁󰀃󰀁󰀈󰀅; Case of Eweida and others vs. United Kingdom. Application number 󰀄󰀈󰀄󰀂󰀀/󰀁󰀀. 󰀁󰀅.󰀁.󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀃. European Court of Human Rights. 󰀂󰀆  Kati Leskinen (YLE News), “Voisiko suomalainen poliisi näyttää tältä? [Could a Finnish Police Officer Look Like This?] (April 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀄),” https://yle.fi/uutiset/󰀃-󰀇󰀁󰀄󰀅󰀄󰀄󰀉 [accessed August 󰀂󰀉, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈]; Silminnäkijä: Työsuhdehuivi [Silminnäkijä: Veil Provided by the Employer], YLE Ajankohtaistoimitus, toim. Kati Leskinen. Shown on 󰀃.󰀄.󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀄 YLE 󰀂, Finland.

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(󰀂󰀀󰀂󰀀/󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀂/󰀆󰀇󰀈, 󰀃󰀀.󰀄.󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀂) where it stated that wearing the uniform combined with civilian clothing is generally prohibited.󰀂󰀇 An interesting point of comparison for this is the healthcare sector, especially the communal health care sector in the Finnish metropolitan area. Using a hijab has been allowed for nearly 󰀂󰀀 years and in some places the employer even provides it with the rest of the uniform. Even though the healthcare sector seems to be a pioneer in this, individual practices may differ. For example, two of my interviewees told me they are aware that wearing the hijab has been forbidden by some private companies that provide social and healthcare services. The healthcare sector also has unique characteristics compared with other workplaces. For example, Suvi Nieminen and Lea Henriksson have noted this in their research. In Finland, there was a need for professional nurses at the end of the 󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀀s and the beginning of the 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀀s, and it was hoped immigration would provide a solution. And because of the growth in immigration, clients in the healthcare sector are also from different cultures. It is therefore seen as a positive for a worker to have skills such as knowledge of different languages and cultures.󰀂󰀈 Because of these unique characteristics, nurses with different backgrounds are seen more positively than immigrants in Finland generally are.󰀂󰀉 In my interviews, I noted similar answers when women talked about the good sides of wearing the hijab. Women thought that as Muslims they are perceived positively in the social and healthcare sector when caring for other Muslims or people from other cultures, and their ability to speak and understand, for example, Arabic was also seen as a positive thing. Perhaps another reason the veil is accepted more easily in the healthcare sector is because there have always been more female than male workers, and healthcare has its roots in the deaconesses’ institution.󰀃󰀀

󰀂󰀇  Report of National Police Board 󰀂󰀀󰀂󰀀/󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀃/󰀂󰀃󰀇󰀇. 󰀂󰀁.󰀅.󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀃. ID-󰀁󰀅󰀅󰀀󰀃󰀅󰀇󰀆󰀈󰀈. Helsinki. 󰀂󰀈  Suvi Nieminen and Lea Henriksson, “Immigrant Nurses in Finland: Political Negotiations on Occupational Membership,” in Care Work in Crisis: Reclaiming the Nordic Ethos of Care, ed. Sirpa Wrede (Lund: Studentlitteratur, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀈), 󰀂󰀀󰀀-󰀂󰀀󰀄, 󰀂󰀀󰀉-󰀂󰀁󰀁, 󰀂󰀁󰀄. 󰀂󰀉  Suvi Nieminen, “Neuvotteluja ammatillisesta jäsenyydestä: Maahanmuuttajasairaanhoitajat terveydenhuollon työyhteisöissä [Negotiations on Professional Membership: Immigrant Nurses in Work Communities in the Healthcare Sector],” in Vieraita työssä, 󰀁󰀆󰀅. 󰀃󰀀  Lea Henriksson, Naisten terveystyö ja ammatillistumisen politiikka [Women’s Work in the Healthcare Sector and Policy of Professionalism], Tutkimuksia / Sosiaali- ja terveysalan tutkimus- ja kehittämiskeskus 󰀈󰀈 (Helsinki: Stakes, 󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀈), 󰀇󰀄-󰀇󰀅.

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V. Muslim Women in Finland For my research I did twelve interviews (ten individual and two group interviews) and interviewed a total of fifteen Muslim women who are working in the social or healthcare sector in the Finnish metropolitan area. All but one of these women wear the hijab together with their work uniform. I am still in the process of analysing the interviews, but there are already certain themes arising from them. One of them concerns Finnishness. This theme arose, because ten of my interviewees were born in Finland and four of them moved there at a very early age.󰀃󰀁 Even though these women have the Finnish nationality and they all identify as a Finn or at least half-Finn, they feel that they still are not perceived as Finns. As mentioned before, in workplaces problems mainly arose with customers. Many of them said that customers would ask to be served by another worker, a Finnish worker. They were called unprofessional and many customers assumed they did not even speak Finnish. Sometimes the women were also told to go back to where they came from. The hijab seemed to be the main reason why they were treated as foreigners, because all the women heard the same kind of comments, although their skin colour and name also had an effect. The women who had white skin and/or a Finnish name, were recognised more often or more quickly as Finns and were more likely to be treated as well-trained and professional. The women also heard the same kind of comments outside the workplace, but there the white skin colour made the comments even worse. One of the women who had darker skin said that she thinks it is because people think she and other “foreign-looking women” are born to be subordinated, because it is part of their culture, but white women are thought to have chosen to betray their Finnish culture and to be subordinated. The women thought that to be accepted as a Finn you need to have white skin, and all the women who had darker skin colours said that every time they look into the mirror, they know they cannot be Finns. Still, religion was believed to be the main reason, because Islam is not seen as a Finnish religion. One of the women said that this can also be 󰀃󰀁  I did not choose Finnish interviewees on purpose, but one of the reasons for this might be that even though the healthcare sector could be seen as special, in Finland it is still required that people working in healthcare have a proper education, which often means Finnish education, and can speak Finnish quite fluently (Nieminen and Henriksson, “Immigrant Nurses in Finland,” 󰀂󰀁󰀁).

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noticed in everyday life, for example when going grocery shopping the sales staff often starts to speak English to her. Additionally, for example in the media, Islam is always referred to as a religion of immigrants. And it is not presented in a very flattering light. For example, Kimmo Ketola has researched the attitudes towards other religions in Finland and concluded that Islam was seen in a more negative light than other religions. Religious and older people had more negative attitudes, which may mean that a Christian background and patriotic and nationalistic values affect this attitude.󰀃󰀂 Negative attitudes can also be seen in the media, where Islam is mostly mentioned in cases of terror attacks or oppression of women. Religion is often seen as something that defines a person’s identity and this negative attitude towards Islam affects that. Especially in the case of Muslim women, religion is often seen as the most defining feature and other aspects of their identity are ignored.󰀃󰀃 This might be because the veil is a visible symbol which makes their religion visible. This can be seen also in my interviews where most of the women said they have been treated as “idiots” or unskilled workers just because they wear a veil. One of the women talks about an “invisibility veil,” because it seems she is invisible to the customers if she is standing next to a co-worker who is not wearing a veil. VI. Conclusion Christianity is seen as a part of Finnishness, but even though the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland has a position as the national church, religion is still considered a private matter. For some people wearing the hijab might seem unsuitable, because it makes religion visible and when people see a woman in a hijab, they connect it directly to Islam. This seems strange and different compared to their own values, 󰀃󰀂  Kimmo Ketola, “Suomalaisten uskonnollinen suvaitsevaisuus [Finn’s Religious Tolerance],” in Uskonto suomalaisten elämässä: Uskonnollinen kasvatus, moraali, onnellisuus ja suvaitsevaisuus kansainvälisessä vertailussa [Religion in the Lives of Finns: Religious Education, Morality, Happiness and Tolerance in International Comparison], ed. Kimmo Ketola, Kati Niemelä, Harri Palmu, and Hanna Salomäki (Tampere: Tampereen yliopistopaino Oy, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀁), 󰀇󰀁, 󰀇󰀃. 󰀃󰀃  Elina Vuola, “Unohdettu ero? Intersektionaalisuus, naiset ja uskonto [Forgotten Difference? Intersectionality, Women and Religion],” in Uskonnon ja sukupuolen risteyksiä [Crossing of Religion and Gender], ed. Johanna Ahonen and Elina Vuola (Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀅), 󰀄󰀂-󰀄󰀆.

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something that might be a threat to a modern, free, egalitarian Western culture. The women I interviewed felt that they are often seen only as members of their religion and everything else they are is forgotten: their independence, education, professionalism, and Finnishness. These women also felt that their voice is not heard and the public discussion about veils is full of Finnish non-Muslims. The veil is ascribed meanings from outside, and like Anne Aly puts it in her article from 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀉, women have a right to undress the veil but no right to use it.󰀃󰀄 So, can hijab be part of the work uniform in Finland? The answer seems to be yes and no. For example, in Sweden and England, a Muslim woman can choose a profession such as police officer and still wear the veil, but in Finland that is, at present, still impossible. On the other hand, in the healthcare sector it is starting to be a common part of the uniform. More research in the field is still needed. Also, how religions, and in particular Islam, are seen in Finland reflects this. As one of my interviewees said: “Finns should start to understand that there are also Finnish Muslims.”

󰀃󰀄  Anne Aly, “Media Hegemony, Activism and Identity: Muslim Women Representing Muslim Women,” Beyond the Hijab Debates: New Conversations on Gender, Race and Religion, ed. Tanha Dreher and Christina Ho (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Pub, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀉), 󰀂󰀀-󰀂󰀂.

We All Share the Same Values, Right? How Institutionalisation of Religions in Belgium Promotes Liberal Secular Values Jelle Creemers Western secular states typically aim to serve their citizens within an axial framework which emphasises values such as democracy, equality and liberty, written down and promoted in declarations of human rights. For many European states, one way to demonstrate their attachment to these values is an active support of freedom of religion and expression through direct or indirect support of religious (community) life. At the same time, however, these countries highly value and seek to uphold another principle crucial to their secular identities, namely a separation of ‘church’ (religion) and ‘state’. This article follows the assumption underlying the dual aspirations of these states, namely that both the support of religious community life and the separation of church and state have value in themselves and can be combined in legislation and policy. Focusing on recognised minority religions in Belgium, it seeks to demonstrate, however, that the obvious friction between these aspirations has a tendency to stimulate acts of instrumentalisation and discrimination of these minorities by the state. For states not only serve their citizens in the said axial framework, they also directly or indirectly aim to socialise their citizens to become individual bearers of these values. In concreto, this article aims to argue that the constitutionally provided Belgian public support policy in view of recognised religions actively promotes the insertion of liberal-secular values within the faith communities of the recognised minority religions, disallowing them a space for religious particularism which is given to the culturally dominant Roman Catholic Church. We limit ourselves to the religious communities of (Evangelical) Protestantism and Islam as clear examples. The argument thus opposes, first, the acclaimed non-interference of the Belgian state in affairs proper to the religious communities. Second, it serves as a critique of the unequal treatment of majority and minority recognised world views in Belgian religion-state affairs.

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After an introduction to the Belgian religion-state relations under scrutiny, the argument goes through four steps. First, it is argued that the management of religions in political and academic discourse in Belgium today is understood primarily from a liberal-secular perspective, in the defence of which human rights argumentation and citizenship discourse play key roles. Second, it is argued that this has implications for the public management of religion, involving an instrumentalisation of religious governance in view of the promotion of these liberal-secular values and principles. Third, drawing on the work of Saba Mahmood and giving attention to selected legislation and policy documents of the past two decades, mechanisms are pointed to which press Evangelical Protestant and Muslim communities to integrate liberal-secular values in (a) their institutional organisation, (b) their religious activities and (c) their public appearance, which do not in the same way affect Roman Catholic and non-confessional communities. In conclusion, the argument is brought to a close. I. Public Support for Recognised Religious Communities in Belgium The Belgian constitution provides fundamental directives in view of the relation between the state and recognised religions and world views. In addition to some provisions typical of all secular modern nation states, such as the freedom of religious conviction and expression (art. 󰀁󰀉, cf. art. 󰀁󰀁) and the indication of limits to interference of state and church in each other’s domains (art. 󰀂󰀁), the constitution also mandates public financing for religious activities and activities of recognised nonconfessional philosophical organisations. This pertains in the first place to salaries and pensions for those who conduct religious services or deliver moral assistance (art. 󰀁󰀈󰀁) and the right to subsidies for religiously motivated schools and for religious education in public schools (art. 󰀂󰀄). This article focuses on the former. In line with this constitutional right, local faith communities can receive a salary and pension for their priests, pastors, imams, and rabbis on two main conditions: (a) that they are member of a religion recognised by the state and (b) that the faith community has a second degree local recognition.󰀁 Hence, recognition by the state is a crucial  For more details, see Patrick De Pooter, De rechtspositie van erkende erediensten en levensbeschouwingen in Staat en maatschappij (Gent: Larcier, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀃); Adriaan Overbeeke, 󰀁

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determinant for access to socio-political benefit and influence. But, as Caroline Sägesser and others state, the Belgian support system for religion “remains one of a state which unilaterally approaches its policy in this area. Public financing is not organised on the basis of agreements with beneficiary organisations. It depends on an act of federal legislation, currently referred to as ‘recognition’.”󰀂 The particular policies for recognition, both for the recognition of a world view and for the subsidies of a local community, are not clearly defined, nor are they the same for all world views involved.󰀃 For example, Catholic churches receive subsidies for priests on the basis of population numbers and the Humanist Council receives a fixed number of paid positions per province, while all other religious communities only receive subsidies based on the number of individuals they serve (and they use very different criteria for their counting). The unilaterality of the legislator in deciding the conditions, content, and consequences of the status of being “recognised” obviously makes the system prone to particular discriminatory practices. II. Human Rights as a “Contemporary” Justification of Financing Religious Communities The institutional organisation of the recognised religions and the payment of said salaries costs the Belgian state over 󰀁󰀀󰀀 million euro per year.󰀄 According to legal scholar Stéphanie Wattier, who published an analysis of the constitutionality and conventionality of this public funding, at its introduction in 󰀁󰀈󰀃󰀁 it was justified by two main arguments.󰀅 Erkenning van plaatselijke geloofsgemeenschappen: Een vernieuwend hoofdstuk in de Vlaamse eredienstenwetgeving (Gent: Uitgeverij Larcier, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀁); Stéphanie Wattier, Le financement public des cultes et des organisations philosophiques non confessionnelles. Analyse de constitutionnalité et de conventionnalité (Brussels: Bruylant, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀆). 󰀂  Caroline Sägesser, Jean-Philippe Schreiber, and Cécile Vanderpelen-Diagre, “Les religions et la laïcité en Belgique: Rapport 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀅” (Université libre de Bruxelles: ORELA, Mai 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀆), 󰀅󰀃. 󰀃  It is particularly notable that legislation concerning the recognition of non-confessional moral communities (Federal Law of 󰀂󰀁 June 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀂) differs fundamentally from that concerning the recognised religious communities (notably Flemish Decree of 󰀇 May 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀄 and Walloon Decree of 󰀁󰀈 May 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀇). 󰀄  ORELA 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀆 only mentions the salaries and stipulates that the recognised religions together cost almost 󰀈󰀆.󰀅 million euro per year, while the laic counsellors cost almost 󰀁󰀈 million euro per year. Pensions are, according to Husson, about 󰀃󰀅 million per year. 󰀅  See Wattier, Le financement public des cultes et des organisations philosophiques non confessionnelles.

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First, a historical argument was offered for the financing of ministers of the Roman Catholic Church. At the time, the financing was considered a compensation for the confiscation of ecclesial properties under Napoleonic rule. Second, a justification based on social utility was given. Wattier argues that particularly the latter can be considered crucial and has been considered so, particularly in recent decades. For, it alone can explain why even as late as 󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀃, article 󰀁󰀈󰀁 of the constitution was changed to enable the payment of non-confessional moral counsellors as well. On the basis of this second justification, Wattier argues that a third, in her eyes “contemporary,” justification for the Belgian support policy can also be added. She finds a basis for this contemporary argument in the development of human rights in the past decades and the current emphasis that the exercise of these rights is not only to be respected and protected, but also to be guaranteed. Wattier purports that the Belgian public funding for religious communities can be considered such a guarantee for the human right to freedom to exercise one’s religion. This contemporary argument warrants the support of a plurality of confessions, which the first (historical) argument obviously does not and the second does not necessarily. Whereas the original openness of the constitutional assembly to supporting more than one confession was a pragmatic choice based on historical contingencies rather than one driven by ideology,󰀆 the “contemporary” argument requires a deliberate choice for a diversified support policy aiming to allow as many citizens as possible access to communal celebration of the religion of their choice. The argument of Stéphanie Wattier resonates with other Belgian authors and public figures who critically consider the Belgian management of religion today. Some of course strongly disapprove of the system, arguing that religion is simply outdated in an age of reason and thus requires no special liberties, protection, or support. This position is defended, for example, by moral philosopher Maarten Boudry and Flemish MP Jean-Jacques De Gucht.󰀇 Others, however, such as Patrick Loobuyck and Leni Franken, argue on the basis of political liberal philosophy à la Rawls that indeed religious freedom is an important human right that needs to be respected. But, so they emphasise, special protection and in particular financial and other support are only possible to 󰀆  See chapter one of Lionel Panafit, Quand le droit écrit l’Islam: L’intégration juridique de l’Islam en Belgique (Bruxelles: Bruylant, 󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀉). 󰀇  See, e.g., Maarten Boudry, “Schaf de godsdienstvrijheid af!,” De Tijd, 󰀁󰀂 August 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀆, https://www.tijd.be/opinie/column/schaf-de-godsdienstvrijheid-af/󰀉󰀇󰀉󰀇󰀅󰀀󰀃.html.

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the extent that this is fair and democratically warranted.󰀈 These and other authors explain and criticise in great detail the lack of neutrality which characterises the Belgian policies of recognition and support of world views. As moral and political philosophers in the liberal tradition, however, they give limited attention to the discursive dynamics at play and the specificities of the discriminations which follow from that. They also ground their evaluation in the ideal of a liberal moral philosophy rather than tracing how this starting point can in and of itself contribute to discriminatory practices. It could be argued that embedding public funding for religion in human rights discourse and political liberal theory may currently be considered the salvation of this support system in Belgium, at least in public and political discourse. Without seeking to confirm nor to deny that claim, this article seeks to argue that this (in Wattier’s words) “contemporary” defence discourse also has its own consequences. It implies that the primary justification for public funding for religion is no longer based in a tit-for-tat reasoning (the historical argument) nor in a generally accepted moral reasoning (it is good for society), but it is understood in a liberal secular context which involves competing human rights and builds fundamentally on related values and principles, such as democracy, separation of church and state, and good citizenship. This article does not aim to discuss the compatibility of religion and liberal secular ideals, including human rights.󰀉 It rather aims to start from the reality that is just described – namely that public support for religion is today, in the public domain, embedded in a liberal secular and human rights discourse. This reality is also the focus of Saba Mahmood and other postcolonial critics who analyse the complexity of secularism in its global 󰀈  Patrick Loobuyck, De seculiere samenleving: Over religie, atheïsme en democratie (Antwerpen: Houtekiet, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀃); Leni Franken and Patrick Loobuyck, “Is Active State Support for Religions and World Views Compatible with the Liberal Idea of State Neutrality? A Critical Analysis of the Belgian Case,” Journal of Church and State 󰀅󰀅, no. 󰀃 (󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀃): 󰀄󰀇󰀈-󰀄󰀉󰀇; Leni Franken, Liberal Neutrality and State Support for Religion, Boston Studies in Philosophy, Religion and Public Life 󰀅 (New York: Springer, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀆); Leni Franken, “State Support for Religion in Belgium: A Critical Evaluation,” Journal of Church and State 󰀅󰀉, no. 󰀁 (󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀇): 󰀅󰀉-󰀈󰀀. 󰀉  On the complex relation between religion and human rights, see, e.g., Nazila Ghanea-Hercock, Alan Stephens, and Ralph Walden, eds., Does God Believe in Human Rights? Essays on Religion and Human Rights, Studies in Religion, Secular Beliefs and Human Rights 󰀅 (Leiden: Brill, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀇); Jeroen Temperman, State-Religion Relationships and Human Rights Law: Towards a Right to Religiously Neutral Governance (Leiden: Brill, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀀); Natan Lerner, ed., Religion, Secular Beliefs and Human Rights, 󰀂nd ed., Studies in Religion, Secular Beliefs and Human Rights (Leiden: Brill, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀂).

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diversity and point out negative influences of projects of political secularism on minority religions.󰀁󰀀 Standing on the shoulders of authors critical of traditional claims and aims of (Rawlsian) liberal political philosophy, such as Charles Taylor and particularly Talal Asad,󰀁󰀁 the late Mahmood argues in her last, thought-provoking monograph that political secularism, including its human rights notion of religious freedom, constructs rather than regulates religious inequality by enshrining majoritarian values in social and legal norms of the state, while at the same time positioning the state as a neutral arbiter of religious differences.󰀁󰀂 III. Mechanisms of Instrumentalisation Visible in Three Domains Taking our cue from Mahmood’s argument, we contend, first, that in legislation and policy regarding recognised religions, actors in the name of the Belgian state actively promote within the religious communities the cultivation of liberal-secular values such as democracy, equality and citizenship. Second, bearing in mind that discourse (in Foucauldian sense), power, and policy are deeply intertwined realities, we contend that this particularly affects recognised minority religions in Belgium. The focus of the remainder of this article is on Islam and Evangelical Protestantism, two religious minorities which in the early 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀀’s gained full recognition and the subsequent support.󰀁󰀃 Critically stated, this 󰀁󰀀  See, e.g., Michael Warner, Jonathan VanAntwerpen, and Craig J. Calhoun, eds., Varieties of Secularism in a Secular Age (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀀); Winnifred Fallers Sullivan et al., eds., Politics of Religious Freedom (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀅); Saba Mahmood, Religious Difference in a Secular Age: A Minority Report (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀆). 󰀁󰀁  See, in particular, Charles Taylor, A Secular Age, First Edition edition (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀇); Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀃). 󰀁󰀂  Mahmood, Religious Difference in a Secular Age: A Minority Report, 󰀈󰀇. 󰀁󰀃  The Islamic religion (estimated to include about 󰀆 percent of the Belgian population) is recognised since 󰀁󰀉󰀇󰀄 but only gained its first subsidies for mosques in 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀆. For more details, see Panafit, Quand le droit écrit l’Islam; Adriaan Overbeeke, “Geduldig wachtend op de oogst? Dertig jaar islambeleid in België,” in Recht van de Islam, ed. P. Kruiniger, vol. 󰀂󰀃 (Den Haag: Boom juridische uitgevers, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀉), 󰀁󰀇-󰀃󰀉; Nadia Fadil, Farid El Asri, and Sarah Bracke, “Belgium,” in The Oxford Handbook of European Islam, ed. Jocelyne Cesari (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀄), 󰀂󰀂󰀂-󰀂󰀆󰀁. It is realised that Evangelical Protestantism as a separate (recognised) religious minority is a misnomer. On January 󰀁, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀃, a new representative organ for the recognised Protestant religion was established aiming to represent a much larger segment of the very diverse Protestant community in Belgium: the Administrative Council of the Protestant and Evangelical Religion. This new body came to include at the time of its establishment about 󰀂󰀂󰀅

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article claims that the public governance of recognised minority religions within the current liberal-secular discursive context, involves a variety of intrusions by the state in the proper domain of these religious communities, in ways that affect the Roman Catholic Church much less, as it has not only historical prerogatives, but also retains strong societal powers, even if secularisation has led to a drastic reconfiguration of our formerly pillarised society. The argument aims not to be conclusive, but telling illustrations from three policy domains will be offered as they pertain to the two largest minority religions in the country, Protestantism and Islam. The aim is to demonstrate the extent to which these organised religions are challenged by and even forced to integrate secular values in (a) their institutional organisation, (b) their religious activities, and (c) their official communications. 󰀁. Institutional Organisation As was said earlier, the first requirement for a local faith community to be eligible for subsidies is that it is part of a religion recognised by the Belgian state. While the conditions for the recognition of a world view are not legally defined, a number of minimal conditions have been suggested on the basis of jurisprudence.󰀁󰀄 One of these suggestions is that a recognised religion must be structured in such a way that it can relate to the government through a single-headed representative body. Constitutional specialist Adriaan Overbeeke has already argued on multiple occasions that this requirement for a single-headed representative body is not constitutionally fixed and it has only been considered a necessity for all additional communities through their membership of the Federal Synod of Evangelical and Protestant Churches in Belgium, over 󰀂󰀀󰀀 of which were characterised by an Evangelical/Pentecostal spirituality. For more details, see Jelle Creemers, “All Together in One Synod? The Genesis of the Federal Synod of Protestant and Evangelical Churches in Belgium (󰀁󰀉󰀈󰀅-󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀈),” Trajecta 󰀂󰀆, no. 󰀂 (󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀇) 󰀂󰀇󰀅-󰀃󰀀󰀂; id., “Protestanten verenigd voor of door de staat? Onderhandelingen over de afbakening van een erkende eredienst in België (󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀉-󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀂),” Tijdschrift voor religie, recht en beleid 󰀉, no. 󰀂 (󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈). 󰀁󰀄  See the answer of the Minister of Justice to the parliamentary question of Alfons Borginon of 󰀂󰀂 June 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀀: “Regarding the recognition of a religion in Belgium, the following principle applies. In order for a religion to be legally recognized, various conditions must be met in accordance with the case law of my department [italics mine]. In particular, a religion must: a) group a relatively large number of followers (several tens of thousands); b) be structured (which means, among other things, that there is a representative body that can represent the religion in its relations with civil authorities); c) have been established in the country for quite a long time (i.e., several decades already); d) represent a social interest; e) abstain from any activity that goes against the social order” [translation mine].

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recognised religions since 󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀉 – hence, in the formative years of a new institutionalisation of Protestantism and of a full recognition of Islam.󰀁󰀅 That the state should desire a single-headed representative body is well understandable, Overbeeke explains, but that it is demanded is seriously disputable. The demand for a single-headed representative body fits well with the pyramidal hierarchical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, and it is clear that this serves as a model for a religion in Belgian legislation. But this requirement cannot properly deal with religious communities that have much more freedom in view of organisation and whose religious communities are characterised by a rich diversity and plurality. Overbeeke offers legal and historical arguments for the non-necessity of single-headed representation of recognised religious communities, but as a result of this demand by the state, both Islam and Protestantism have already set up such representative structures. One could conclude that thus it is possible for members of a pluralistic religion to self-organise within the contours established by the state. A critical look at both histories demonstrates, however, that this could only be realised through far-reaching intrusion by the state. The variety of Protestant and Evangelical churches in Belgium is since 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀆 represented to the state by the Administrative Council for the Protestant and Evangelical Religion. Archival research has demonstrated that the current organisation of the ACPER, its composition, and its internal working, are not the results of negotiations among Protestants, but were conditions of the Ministry of Justice to start these very negotiations.󰀁󰀆 The structure involves a systematic over-representation of one branch of historic Protestant churches and an underrepresentation of so-called Evangelical and Pentecostal free churches, thus involving a democracy ‘à la Belge’. It is a public secret that the relations within the ACPER are at times very tense and the question arises how long this structure will survive. Even more problematic is the situation with the Islamic community – and it has been problematic for decades. Islam has been an officially recognised religion since 󰀁󰀉󰀇󰀄, but only received the first subsidies for 󰀁󰀅

 See Adriaan Overbeeke, “Het hoofd verliezen: Over de vertegenwoordiging van een erkende godsdienst die uit meerdere denominaties bestaat (noot onder R.v.St. nr. 󰀆󰀉󰀆󰀃󰀁, 󰀁󰀈 november 󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀇),” Publiekrechtelijke kronieken (󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀈): 󰀁󰀉󰀂-󰀂󰀀󰀅; id., “(Eenheids-)vertegenwoordiging van erkende religies in het Belgische eredienstenrecht: Pleidooi voor een gedifferentieerde benadering,” Recht, Religie en Samenleving 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀃, no. 󰀂 (󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀃): 󰀅-󰀄󰀃. 󰀁󰀆  Creemers, “Protestanten verenigd voor of door de staat?”

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mosques in 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀆, more than thirty years later. While a single-headed representative organ was originally not required in view of subsidies for mosques, this requirement found its way into political discourse in the 󰀁󰀉󰀈󰀀s and received legal backing in 󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀉, as explained earlier.󰀁󰀇 An Executive for Muslims in Belgium came to be established as the single-headed representation in the 󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀀s. But already in 󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀉, a critical analysis by Lionel Panafit uncovered that the state had a clear perspective on how this Executive should be organised and function: with democratically elected individuals in a predetermined composition and excluding individuals that were considered suspicious by the state.󰀁󰀈 This has continued to be the policy of the Belgian state since. A simple comparison with the majority religion in Belgium makes clear why this can be considered a discriminatory power play. Since the early 󰀁󰀉th century, the Roman Catholic Church has been represented to the Belgian state through its episcopal synod. The state or the Belgian faith community have no say whatsoever in the choice of the representatives. For it is the prerogative of the Pope, the bishop of Rome, to appoint bishops in all episcopacies worldwide. The Belgian bishops are thus in fact appointed by a foreign sovereign. It is hard to imagine that this would be accepted for the representatives of, let’s say, Islam in Belgium. 󰀂. Activities The first example has focused on the overarching, macro-level of the public management of religion in Belgium. We now move to a different policy domain on the level of the local faith community and argue that religious communities are instrumentalised in Flanders in the monitoring of their religious activities, particularly in view of citizenship under the heading of “integration.” As was said earlier, the public financing of a church, a synagogue, or a mosque requires its faith community to have a second degree, local recognition. This matter used to be a federal remit, but in 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀁 it has been moved to the regional authorities. In 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀅, the Flemish government was the first to adopt a new series of criteria for the recognition of local religious communities.󰀁󰀉 The regulations in 󰀁󰀇  Overbeeke, “(Eenheids-)vertegenwoordiging van erkende religies in het Belgische eredienstenrecht,” 󰀁󰀇. 󰀁󰀈  Panafit, Quand le droit écrit l’Islam. 󰀁󰀉  See the decree of the Flemish Government of 󰀃󰀀 September 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀅, available at http:// www.ejustice.just.fgov.be/cgi_loi/change_lg.pl?language=nl&la=N&cn=󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀅󰀀󰀉󰀃󰀀󰀅󰀁 &table_name=wet and circular letter BA-󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀆/󰀀󰀄 concerning the recognition of local

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Wallonia have been published by decree on May 󰀁󰀈, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀇.󰀂󰀀 The regulations differ in a number of ways. Particularly in Flanders, the regulations explicitly aim to instrumentalise the minority religions in question. In contrast to the previous arrangement, the new Flemish regulations have clear requirements for religious communities that aspire to local recognition and new communities can lose their recognition if they no longer meet the admission requirements. The requirements state, for example, that each religious community must attest to use only the Dutch language in its administrative affairs and in its relationships with third parties. It must also declare that “it will not cooperate with” and “ban” from its buildings “all organisations and individuals who act or call for action against the constitution and the Human Rights Convention.” And – on this we will focus – each community must annually “demonstrate its societal relevance.” It is expected to do that in two ways. First, by indicating by approximation the number of believers. And secondly, by indicating in detail how the community is involved in the broader society. This latter requirement, so the Minister explains in a Circular, is “very important,” as it is the “primary criterion” on the basis of which the request for recognition is judged. The Minister further redefines this primary criterion as “the willingness to have an open and constructive attitude in respect to the wide society to which they belong and to the democratically legitimised administrations.”󰀂󰀁 While the suggestion seems laughable that a “willingness to have an attitude” can be objectively measured, it is quite troubling that, according to the Ministerial letter, a religious community is not evaluated primarily on the basis of the religious service it provides to its members – as could be expected on the basis of the aforementioned focus on the right of religious freedom. The community is rather evaluated on the basis of its service to non-members, i.e., to the wider society. This is further defined as ecclesial and faith communities (decree of the Flemish Government of 󰀃󰀀 September 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀅), available at https://codex.vlaanderen.be/Portals/Codex/documenten/󰀁󰀀󰀁󰀆󰀈󰀉󰀈.html. Note that the Flemish regulations under discussion are currently evaluated by the responsible minister, Liesbeth Homans. In an early reaction, she has stated that she wants an immediate moratorium on the recognition policies, disallowing new recognitions of places of worship for five years. “Homans wil komende vijf jaar geen enkele moskee erkennen,” in Het Nieuwsblad, 󰀂󰀂 February 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀉. 󰀂󰀀  See the decree of the Walloon Government of 󰀁󰀈 May 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈 on the recognition and obligations of the establishments responsible for the management of the temporal matters of recognized religions, available at http://www.ejustice.just.fgov.be/cgi_loi/ change_lg.pl?language=fr&la=F&cn=󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀇󰀀󰀅󰀁󰀈󰀀󰀉&table_name=loi. 󰀂󰀁  Circular BA-󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀆/󰀀󰀄, 󰀃.󰀁.󰀂.

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particularly involving the use of the Dutch language in all contacts with believers and outsiders as a sign of integration. Hence, a mosque focusing on a Turkish-speaking community should not use Turkish and a Brazilian Pentecostal church should not speak Portuguese in its activities and outreach. The recognition policies thus clearly aim at integration of migrant religious communities in the Flemish society. In view of our second claim concerning discrimination, it should be added that the new decree explicitly states that this regulation, including the request for an annual demonstration of social relevance, only applies to faith communities in Flanders recognised since February 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀆. Over 󰀁󰀈󰀀󰀀 churches – including all Roman Catholic parishes – and a few synagogues that were recognised before 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀆 in the Flemish region need not demonstrate in any way their societal relevance and cannot lose their recognition on the basis of insufficient proof or numbers. The regulation pertains today to only about 󰀂% of religious communities in Flanders, which includes all Evangelical communities and Islamic communities (as the first mosques and the first Evangelical churches were only recognised after these new regulations were in force), as well as about a dozen Orthodox, Anglican, or other Protestant communities. Hence, the burden of “proving one’s societal value” is reserved exclusively to minority religious communities and with a strong migrant constituency. The fact that this expectation is completely absent for all religious communities recognised before 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀆 makes this regulation very prone to discriminatory practices. 󰀃. Official Communications A third policy domain in which recognised religious minorities are confronted with concrete demands from the state concerns the public role of their representative organs. In the past few years, representatives of the various religions are increasingly expected to speak out on societal matters and to support key liberal secular values in their communications. Sometimes joint communications are orchestrated, at other times particular representative religious bodies are expected to speak out on particular matters. A few examples of each will demonstrate this point. First, on a number of occasions the Belgian government has sought to present statements together with the representatives of the recognised religions and world views (totalling seven: the Anglican religion, the Catholic religion, the Islamic religion, the Jewish religion, the Orthodox religion, the Protestant-Evangelical religion, and non-confessional

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humanism) and sometimes also with representatives of other religious communities (notably Buddhism and Jainism). After the terrorist attacks in Paris of January 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀅, a joint press release of the representatives of the world views together with the federal government was issued.󰀂󰀂 The same happened after the attacks in Brussel of 󰀂󰀂 March 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀆.󰀂󰀃 Looking at these joint statements, the absence of any religious particularities is notable. They lack any expression of religious or philosophical specificity, but aim at a harmonious defence of the so-called “fundamental values,” which are said to be the values of the Enlightenment󰀂󰀄 and to include “the separation of church and state, the freedom of expression, the fight against discrimination, the freedom to believe and not to believe, and also the indispensable equality of men and women.”󰀂󰀅 More than a year later, the Belgian government indicated that it wanted to create a permanent commission for dialogue between the state and the recognised religions. According to Prime Minister Michel, “This dialogue is stimulated to safeguard and guarantee our fundamental values, the human rights.”󰀂󰀆 The permanent commission “needs to be an answer in view of the defence of our democratic values.”󰀂󰀇 The Prime Minister thus strategically positions the representatives of the recognised religions as partners in the defence of shared fundamental values. This resonates strongly with a Rawlsian “overlapping consensus,” without, however, any attention for how the different “comprehensive doctrines” of these world views affirm these values – let alone how they might be differently interpreted, nuanced, or disagreed with.󰀂󰀈

󰀂󰀂  The joint declaration of 󰀁󰀄 January 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀅 can be found at http://premier.fgov.be/ nl/gezamenlijke-oproep-van-de-erkende-erediensten-de-vrijzinnigen-en-de-federaleregering-om-samen-op, accessed 󰀁󰀃 March 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈. 󰀂󰀃  The joint declaration of 󰀂󰀀 April 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀆 can be found at http://premier.fgov.be/ fr/d%C󰀃%A󰀉claration-commune-du-gouvernement-f%C󰀃%A󰀉d%C󰀃%A󰀉ral-et-descultes-reconnus-et-de-la-la%C󰀃%AFcit%C󰀃%A󰀉, accessed 󰀁󰀃 March 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈. 󰀂󰀄  See http://premier.fgov.be/nl/gezamenlijke-oproep-van-de-erkende-erediensten-devrijzinnigen-en-de-federale-regering-om-samen-op, accessed 󰀁󰀃 March 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈. 󰀂󰀅  See http://premier.fgov.be/fr/d%C󰀃%A󰀉claration-commune-du-gouvernementf%C󰀃%A󰀉d%C󰀃%A󰀉ral-et-des-cultes-reconnus-et-de-la-la%C󰀃%AFcit%C󰀃%A󰀉, accessed 󰀁󰀃 March 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈. 󰀂󰀆  http://premier.fgov.be/nl/polarisatie-overstijgen-door-verschillende- religiesen-levensbeschouwingen- samen-te-brengen. 󰀂󰀇  https://nl.metrotime.be/󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀇/󰀀󰀅/󰀁󰀇/news/overlegorgaan-moet-dialoog-tussenoverheid-en-erediensten-stimuleren/. 󰀂󰀈  This struggle is not unique to the Belgian situation, of course. An insightful monograph focusing on underlying questions concerning the relations between so-called religious and secular values in Muslim countries is Arif A. Jamal, Islam, Law and the

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In addition to these joint statements, the representative bodies of the recognised religions also speak out separately on key societal issues. In a public speech just after the Brussels attacks, the chairman of the Executive for Muslims in Belgium defended and explained the executive’s efforts “in service of an Islam of peace and openness.”󰀂󰀉 Shortly after public indignation because of a Protestant-Evangelical church accused of forbidding its members to visit a doctor when ill, the Federal Synod of Protestant and Evangelical Churches issued a public statement on medical treatments. In this statement, it explains that its member churches believe in the power of healing by God, but would never discourage the consultation of a physician, nor the ending of a medical treatment.󰀃󰀀 In particular, the Federal Synod has been developing a series of documents in which they explain the dominant position in their member churches in view of some societal and sensitive matters, such as homosexuality, euthanasia, tithing, baptism, and the relationship between church and society. It is interesting to see that it consciously and publicly juggles with the sometimes difficult matters concerning religious discourse and the aforementioned “fundamental” or secular values. On the questions why they develop these texts, the website indicates that “on the basis of questions that come to us from the authorities or from conversation partners, the texts explain what is considered ‘normal’ in our Protestant Evangelical circles.”󰀃󰀁 The societal value of such public statements and texts is not in question here. What is in question, however, is whether these representative bodies can be expected to make such statements with theological and political content. In contrast to the Roman Catholic bishops, the members of the Muslim Executive and the ACPER are not religious authorities, but they are administrators. While the state first expected these representative bodies to be erected in the service of administrative Modern State : (Re)Imagining Liberal Theory in Muslim Contexts, ICLARS Series on Law and Religion (London: Routledge, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈). 󰀂󰀉  From the speech of Salah Echallaoui, chief of the Executive of Muslims in Belgium, on March 󰀂󰀂, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀇. See https://www.embnet.be/nl/herdenking-van-de-aanslagenbrussel-en-zaventem, accessed 󰀃 January 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀉. 󰀃󰀀  See http://fedsyn.be/󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀄/wp-content/uploads/󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀅/󰀀󰀅/medische.pdf, accessed 󰀃 January 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀉. 󰀃󰀁  See http://fedsyn.be/teksten/, accessed 󰀃 January 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀉. These texts are currently being researched in more detail. Some preliminary conclusions I have presented at the annual conference of the European Association for the Study of Religion in Bern, 󰀂󰀁 June 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈 in a paper: “Pockets of Resistance? Evangelical Self-Representation in the Belgian Public Sphere.”

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relations between religions and the state, they now expect them to speak out in an authoritative way for and to the churches and mosques they serve. IV. Conclusion How is it possible that these forms of intrusion by the state into the organisation and work of recognised minority religions in Belgium are so easily accepted by policy makers and by society? The examples above demonstrate that public management of religion is today understood primarily and maybe even purely within the context of protecting liberalsecular values and rights. It is considered self-evident that religions, when functioning in a public context, should organise themselves from bottom to top, make use of democratic principles, and make sure that their diverse constituency is “fairly” represented. It is considered self-evident that faith communities, certainly those of migrant origins, must take up civil responsibilities and aim for and demonstrate integration in society. And it is considered self-evident that those representing the faith communities to the state want to aid society in upholding and protecting liberal-secular values. Again, to what extent these values deserve upholding and protection is not the topic of this article. What this article does state and question is, first, that the current Belgian management of religion progressively tends to instrumentalise faith communities, and particularly those of minority religions, with the intent of promoting values dear to the state. Hereby, the proper distance between religion and state so dear to the secular assumption is disrespected, as are the particularities of the respective religions. Second, this article contends that in view of organisational requirements, recognition legislation, and matters of public representation, recognised minority religious communities in Belgium are factually disadvantaged compared to recognised Roman Catholic and humanist communities. The argument in this article is illustrative rather than conclusive, as it is limited to particular cases in three different domains. Yet it signals structural problems which require focused attention from researchers and lawmakers alike.

God, Government, and Religion as a Feature of the Economy and Civil Society Insights from a Fractious UK Debate Francis Davis Alongside the rise of diverse religious voices in the British and wider European public realm there has been an equally enthusiastic increase in the number of secularisms in play.󰀁 Famously the eminent sociologist of religion Grace Davie observed that Scandinavia ‘belongs’ (to religious communities) without ‘believing’, Britain ‘believes without belonging’, while Poland, Switzerland, and France add to those spiritual, ideological, legal, and spatial geographies and complexities still further. Even those clearly ‘within’, or demonstrably ‘outside’, religious communities in each nation or region do not have singular paths of attachment or disengagement. This is perhaps symbolised in the First Minister of the nation of Wales observing that he knew ‘exactly which Church he did not go to’ and the lapsed Catholic atheist intellectual Terry Eagleton condemning many of the ‘new atheists’ for not treating some theologies with the seriousness they deserve.󰀂 In such contested contexts even the English Catholic Caritas development agency, CAFOD, can find itself simultaneously accused of being ‘too Godly’ by some in the mainline development sector and ‘inadequately authentic’ by fervent networks of the younger generation from its own community. CAFOD is ‘faith based’ but only one of its staff, the CEO, is required to be religiously observant.󰀃 In Britain, Ireland, and parts of mainland Europe this interpretative context has been further complicated by debates surrounding ‘equalities’ and the emergence of arguments and laws to guarantee new ‘rights’ especially regarding sexuality, gender, civil recognition of varieties of relationship, child protection, and the significance of major life course 󰀁  Basia Spalek and Alia Imtoual, Religion, Spirituality and the Social Sciences (Bristol: Policy Press, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀈). See also T. Modood: https://discoversociety.org/󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈/󰀁󰀂/󰀀󰀄/majorities-minorities-and-multiculturalism/ [accessed January 󰀇, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀉]. 󰀂  Grace Davie, Sociology of Religion: A Critical Agenda (London: Sage, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀃) and Terry Eagleton, Culture and the Death of God (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀄). 󰀃  Interview with CEO.

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events. Strident religious voices and intense secular advocacy have extenuated disputes between ideas of ‘belief’ and ‘unbelief’, ‘choice’ and ‘autonomy’, ‘bad religion’ and ‘good humanism’ asserting powerful normative calls for recognition and exemption (or the reverse).󰀄 In this chapter, reflecting on the implications of lessons from the UK context, I want especially to suggest that for policy makers, secularists, and religious leaders alike, this new landscape presents distinctive challenges that need careful attention and pro-active management. Indeed I wish to propose that those strands of religiosity which have emphasised these matters of ‘faith’, and those secularisms that have begun to privilege a stronger call for ‘equality’ and ‘laïcité ’, share something in common: namely that while they pretend to normativity around ideas of ‘belief’, they both run from the particulars of concrete social practice. Normative appeals to ‘belief’, ‘equality’ or ‘faith’, I will suggest, seem to dematerialise the habits and consequences of religion causing the religious to overstate their significance to society but, crucially, policy makers, secularists, and legislators to then underestimate the variety and enduring public value of those religious bodies. Both habits, I will suggest, need to be addressed so as to support the proper conduct of religious voices on the one hand and to mitigate the risk to poor public governance and weak policy making on the other. First, I shall turn to the questions of ‘motivation’ and agency. Second, I shall describe aspects of the empirical work that enquiries I have led in the UK have uncovered regarding ‘religion’s reach’. Third, I shall elucidate some implications for the debate regarding ‘religion’ in Europe going forward before drawing to conclusions. I. Motivation, Behaviour, and ‘Evidence’ When, in 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀈, my Moral but No Compass: Church, Government and the Future of Welfare was published it caused a storm.󰀅 The Times and Sunday Times led with coverage of its findings and the BBC TV News as well.󰀆 Over the next days, the publication was the subject of leaders 󰀄  See for example the advocacy of https://www.eauk.org/ [accessed December 󰀁󰀀, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈] and, by contrast, https://humanism.org.uk/ [accessed December 󰀁󰀀, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈]. 󰀅  Francis Davis et al., Moral but No Compass: Church, Government and the Future of Welfare (Cambridge: Von Hugel Institute and Matthew James Publishing, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀈). 󰀆  https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀈/󰀂󰀆-december/news/uk/󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀈-the-yearin-review; http://www.thinkingfaith.org/articles/book_󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀈󰀀󰀆󰀀󰀉_󰀁.htm [accessed

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in every major UK daily newspaper, scrutiny via op-eds and lectures, and comment by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Archbishop of York, and parliamentary debate. It then began its gradual percolation into the cycles of academic citation and discussion. What was notable throughout this period was that while those in the policy making community reacted pragmatically to the ‘empirical evidence’ we had gathered on Anglican volunteering, philanthropic cash flows, capacity, capabilities, and institutional reach, a variety of strands within the Churches reacted instead against what they perceived to be an implicit assumption the publication had made, namely that ‘data’ trumped theology. We were also accused of falling foul of “government’s tendency to want to ‘make use’ of the Church whose role is actually not to ‘do’ anything but to ‘be’ prophetic.”󰀇 One current senior Anglican Bishop explains this as a reaction to a mirror being held up to the Church’s decision-making itself but, either way, what was also conceivably at stake was an older dispute between the relative veracity – and authority – of the ‘sacred’ and ‘social’ sciences as intense as the one that Christians and secularists may have explored in more depth elsewhere, namely that between ‘science’ and ‘faith’.󰀈 It is a repeated claim in modern English – especially evangelical and some Catholic – Christian discourse – that ‘faith motivates’ social action.󰀉 This elucidation of a continuum between religious conviction, an idea of responsibility, and consequent behaviours is a constant theme in many fora. To question this linkage can attract furious Christian protest and accusations of being ‘unbiblical’ and even ‘lacking poetry’.󰀁󰀀 Thus while Joachim Jeremias,󰀁󰀁 in his classic study, may have given us an ability to interpret Jerusalem at the time of Jesus through an economic and social lens, the challenge we face now is our ability to make sense of present Christian claims in the context of the exponentially increasing scope of December 󰀁󰀀, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈]; http://www.frankfield.co.uk/latest-news/news.aspx?p=󰀁󰀀󰀂󰀂󰀅󰀀 [accessed December 󰀁󰀀, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈]. 󰀇  For example, this was a criticism angrily put to the present author by the Head of Mission and Public Affairs at a Conference of the Church Urban Fund, October 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀀. 󰀈  The comment is made by the present Bishop of Durham in correspondence. See also www.theos.org.uk [accessed December 󰀁󰀀, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈] especially the work of Dr Nick Spencer. 󰀉  See for example the work of my colleague Dr Andrew Davies at Birmingham University but also www.faithaction.org.uk [accessed December 󰀁󰀀, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈] and the UK All Party parliamentary Group on Faith in Society. This is a repeated theme in several parliamentary speeches and contributors for example https://www.stephentimms.org.uk sometime Vice Chairman of the Labour party for faiths [accessed December 󰀁󰀀, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈]. 󰀁󰀀  T. Radcliffe, “A Theological Assessment of Sociological Explanation,” in Theology and Sociology: A Reader, ed. R. Gill (London: Continuum 󰀁󰀉󰀉󰀆). 󰀁󰀁  Joachim Jeremias, Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 󰀁󰀉󰀆󰀉).

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the social and political sciences. Disciplines such as geography, sociology which is rediscovering religion ‘after’ the secularisation thesis, epidemiology, and psychology offer insights today previously unavailable to the Churches and their scriptural scholars. Collectively they are as widely, if not more widely read, than academic theology and together they form a body of knowledge more likely to shape the perceived decisions of firms, governments, anti-poverty agencies, and even the accounting functions of the churches than ‘theology’ or ‘faith’ as such. This is not just a feature of secularity but a concrete question of confidence in interpretive power.󰀁󰀂 By avoiding the issue the Christian narrative gives the impression of attempting to over-reach itself for ‘facts’ can be given metaphorical values in theologies which are hard to ground in civic discourse. By way of example in this context the energetic turn in government, business and the academy to behavioural science in general, and behavioural economics in particular, seems to present evidence which begins to undermine much of the way British Christians talk on poverty and public life. Behavioural economists contend that in contrast to linear relationships between ideas and behaviour, and contra rational choice theory of private choice or class preference – or for that matter ‘faith’ provoking or motivating ‘action’ – human decision-making and behaviours are the product of the intense aggregation of information conditioned by default perspectives on sources of trust, time, institution, and (s)pace. Thus, notably, at Schiphol exhortation to the common good, inspiration to higher social norms, and incentivisation applied to the problem of the cleanliness around male urinals of Amsterdam’s busy airport, had no observable impact on outcomes or choices of the male users of the facilities. Ultimately the painting of an ergonomically placed fly upon the ceramics seemed strikingly to provoke just such a fundamental change in behaviour as male users were ‘nudged’ to direct fluid flows to points in the urinal which would maximise liquid capture and minimise cleaning costs round and about.󰀁󰀃 In policy terms this is the source of the current requirement, while applying for a UK driving licence, to declare an intention or otherwise to become an organ donor. Likewise, text-based nudging schemes have in some evaluations landed 󰀁󰀂  Francis Davis, ed., Public Money and Management (London and New York: Routledge, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀉). 󰀁󰀃  Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth and Happiness (London: Penguin, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀉) and also https://www.independent. co.uk/news/business/news/richard-thaler-nobel-prize-in-economics-winner-󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀇-behavioural-economics-nudge-theory-a󰀇󰀉󰀉󰀀󰀂󰀉󰀁.html plus http://www.behaviouralinsights. co.uk/ [accessed December 󰀁󰀀, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈] and www.wbs.ac.uk [accessed December 󰀁󰀀, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈].

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step change impacts on the self-management of young peoples’ sexual health. In theological terms the success of nudge in the face of the failure of so many other approaches is a kind of decimation of the claim that ‘faith motivates’ (and trumps other variables) alone while undermining a raft of enduring Christian strategies to inspire behaviour change. Indeed, modelling that which did not work at Schiphol, modern Churches trail-blaze exhortation as a biblical norm for idea change leading to behaviour change – they call it preaching. Meanwhile, much economic analysis emerging from Church headquarters regarding the ‘common good’ has a tendency to draw on classical economic frameworks even while claiming theological authority for new insights into human behaviour and flourishing.󰀁󰀄 It happens with ‘fresh expressions’󰀁󰀅 too when language about the need for intense spiritual conversion as an optimum ontological opportunity is often unreflectively combined with success criteria for evangelism uncritically adopted from the performance standards of trading institutions. What is at stake here is the very possibility and idea of ‘believing’ conversion leads to concrete action and thus the credibility of what Churches say about themselves. ‘Conversion’ might feel transformational but is it really as ‘world-changing’ as its proponents claim? Parishes may be, metaphorically, ‘addressing the structures of injustice’ but comprise forty elderly friends more likely to be subjects of economic patterns than dominating them. In short, what we have learnt in the social and political sciences is that our talk about the traction and agency of the Churches and other religions ought properly to be more measured. And yet in making that empirical recognition a similar consequence arises for certain accounts of secularism which, while religion has overclaimed, have been unable to acknowledge much that they themselves have insisted on under-reporting. 󰀁󰀄

 See most of the commentary issued by Church House and the Catholic Bishops Conference (󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀀) on David Cameron’s ‘Big Society’ and also ACUPA (󰀁󰀉󰀈󰀅) Faith In the City CHP. For an extended discussion of this conundrum see Davis, Moral but No Compass but also https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈-󰀀󰀁/gs󰀁󰀈󰀀󰀄a_ Nov󰀁󰀀.pdf [accessed December 󰀁󰀀, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈] and also https://www.thinkingfaith.org/articles/󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀁󰀀󰀃󰀃󰀀_󰀂.htm. 󰀁󰀅  This is a major initiative of the Church of England which seeks to ‘reimagine’ Church or ‘reinvent’ mission by holding worship in shops or bars, making liturgy more like night club culture or meeting without formal liturgy in tower block housing in poor neighbourhoods among many others. It can attract ‘investment’ unavailable to other forms of ‘mission’ http://freshexpressions.org.uk/about/our-story/ [accessed December 󰀁󰀀, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈]. For a critical description and assessment see Andrew Davison and Alison Milbank, For the Parish: A Critique of Fresh Expressions (London: SCM Press, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀃).

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For while, ‘faith’ may not always ‘motivate’ action it does seem to sustain civic habits which might be considered valuable. How does one explain a tendency noticed in some government surveys for those with religious habits to volunteer and vote at levels above the national average?󰀁󰀆 Or make sense of some surveys which suggest a correlation between regularity of Mass-going and greater tolerance of refugees and immigrants than the social norm or having a stronger sense of ‘nation’?󰀁󰀇 According to COMRES, the polling company, 󰀃󰀆% of young Asian Britons are more likely to be religious than their white British counterparts, to UK Business Secretary Greg Clark MP British Muslims statistically more generous per capita than their non-Muslim neighbours, and to the scholarly literature Pentecostal Christians more likely to be early adopters of entrepreneurialism and open market economics than those with similar social profiles.󰀁󰀈 What is at stake here is the manner in which some secular voices lament ‘faith’ views and reduce ‘faith’ to a number of very limited realms of human interaction. For while behavioural economics puts religion under pressure, the reach for social evidence also brings into view vast impacts on the part of religions, the religious, and the connected but unconnected which have been too easily unremarked by those reaching for singular narratives of ‘belief’ and ‘unbelief’. Belonging to religiously affiliated institutions seems to shape capital flows and behaviours, where ‘believing’ may not. 󰀁󰀆  See full report of summary Department of Communities and Local Government Citizenship Survey (󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀈); also Davis, Moral but No Compass and the series of Faith Action Audits from the UK Government Funded Cinnamon Network https://www. cinnamonnetwork.co.uk/cinnamon-faith-action-audit/ [accessed December 󰀁󰀀, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈]. Positive civic habits from those who ‘belong’ are also a recurrent theme of sociologists such as Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone (London: Simon and Schuster, 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀀). 󰀁󰀇  Formal Catholic teaching is resolutely pro-migrant (https://aplus.com/a/popefrancis-abortion-immigration-migration-american-catholics?no_monetization=true [accessed December 󰀁󰀀, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈]) and this plays out in the convictions of a rising part of religious observant US Catholics albeit that this remains highly contested within as well as between denominations. See http://catholicphilly.com/󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀆/󰀀󰀆/news/national-news/ survey-shows-views-on-immigration-differ-among-catholics/ [accessed December 󰀁󰀀, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈] and also D. Massey and M. Higgins, “The Effect of Immigration on Religious Belief and Practice: A Theologizing or Alienating Experience?,” Social Science Research September 󰀄󰀀 (󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀁): 󰀁󰀃󰀇󰀁-󰀁󰀃󰀈󰀉. 󰀁󰀈  A. Davies, “Reading Politics through Scripture: International Relations, the Bible and Conservative Christianity,” Journal of the European Pentecostal Theological Association 󰀃󰀈 (󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈): 󰀁, 󰀁󰀁 and Davies: https://unherd.com/󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈/󰀀󰀅/moved-spirit-phenomenal-risepentecostalism/ [accessed November 󰀁󰀃, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈] For wider critical assessment see the work of Paul Gifford, for example, Paul Gifford, Ghana’s New Christianity: Pentecostalism in a Globalising African Economy (London: C. Hirst & Co., 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀄).

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II. ‘God’ Has Legal Personality: Religion as a Realm of Institutions For example, in Britain the debate about the ‘idea’ of God has served to point debates towards issues regarding the direction of political representation of ‘religions’ – for example in parliament’s second chamber or as chaplains in public prisons and hospitals – and so distracted both religious voices and government away from adequately assessing the role, shape, form, and impact of institutions funded, managed, or owned by religious communities or governed with aspects of religious precepts in mind. Unlike almost any other ‘sector’ in national life, religion has been decommodified in an attempt to make it seem theologically ‘pure’ or ideologically ‘loaded’.󰀁󰀉 This is a striking matter at a time of economic scarcity: in the UK there are, according to one estimate, 󰀂󰀇,󰀅󰀃󰀅 Christian charities out of total of 󰀄󰀅,󰀃󰀅󰀂 faith-based charities. 󰀄󰀅% of all human rights bodies are faith-based while in the case of charities working on overseas aid and development this increases to 󰀄󰀉%.󰀂󰀀 Religious institutions, organisations and causes in England are treated in varying manners in civil law. Cathedrals have, for tax purposes, charitable status allowing them to attract in tax reliefs around 󰀂󰀅 pence in each pound donated and exempting most of their activities from local business taxes (but not necessarily VAT). They are not, though, governed by charity law. Diocesan institutions have separate charitable status again while all Roman Catholic Dioceses are registered charities which, in turn, have consolidated all their parish assets onto a single Diocesan balance sheet. Government backed church universities are what is known as ‘charities by exemption’ as are the non-governmental organisations and social enterprises launched from, sustained or governed by, people of faith. Indeed faith communities and backed action may then take several legal forms namely a Community Interest Company, a registered company, a registered charity, a social firm, or an industrial and provident friendly society, all of which are set apart either by their ability to trade commercially or their ability to do that with a legally binding asset lock on the distribution of their equity or other assets. In communities other than Christianity there is equivalent institutional diversity: the Nishkam Centre in central Birmingham, for example, is home to a  Davis, Moral but No Compass, 󰀄󰀉-󰀅󰀀.  See NCVO Almanac https://data.ncvo.org.uk/ [accessed November 󰀁󰀃, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈] and also Davis Moral but No Compass, 󰀅󰀀. 󰀁󰀉

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tradition within Sikhism with millions of followers globally as well as a thriving local community education, economic development, and social care centre. It sustains a civic voice, a government school in the English Midlands, a suite of adjacent social enterprises, further temples in London and a university in East Africa.󰀂󰀁 Because of the variety of legal forms available to UK organisations the numbers quoted thus far are without a doubt a conservative estimate both of the number of charitable bodies and of the wider ‘faith based institutional sector’: For example, 󰀂󰀀% of the nation’s state schools are provided in a formal partnership between local dioceses, religious orders, the Jewish community, and local and central government that dates back to the 󰀁󰀉󰀄󰀄 Education Act. Informally, new entrants have entered the same sector recently with Sikh Temples and Pentecostal Churches and networks creating ‘secular’ subsidiaries to successfully bid for government resources to establish ‘free schools’ which were made possible as a method to unlock ‘public-private’ partnerships on the Swedish model under the 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀀 Education Act. Within a single ‘legal personality’ there might in turn be great institutional diversity. Roman Catholic dioceses tend to consolidate their activities into single balance sheets incorporating parish, school, and other activity but in the process very often have the habit of understating the market value of their real estate holdings with at least one diocese showing an approximate estimated £󰀂󰀀󰀀 million mismatch between the market value of assets and their book value. Anglican parishes, by contrast, are legally autonomous and when their turnover is below £󰀁󰀀,󰀀󰀀󰀀 are not required to register with the regulator of charities. This in turn can mean that while there are total estimated free cash flows in the 󰀁󰀂,󰀆󰀀󰀀 Anglican parishes of £󰀀.󰀂 billion the value of their estate remains ‘off’ the national quantifiable balance sheet of relevant assets.󰀂󰀂 Some families and entrepreneurs, of course launch their own ventures where the founders’ culture forms part of the decision-making of the enterprise. In the past Quaker and Unitarian names such as Cadbury, 󰀂󰀁

 http://www.ncauk.org/ [accessed July 󰀁󰀄, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈].  This is based on interviews (󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈) with the Catholic Association of Diocesan Finance Directors but especially the Oeconimus of Portsmouth Diocese in the South. Diocesan and many parish accounts are publicly available on the website of the civil law charity regulator https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/charity-commission [accessed July 󰀁󰀄, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈]. See also specialist advice from the accounting profession https:// www.icaew.com/library/subject-gateways/accounting/accounting-by-industry/churchesand-other-places-of-worship [accessed July 󰀁󰀄, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈]. 󰀂󰀂

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Colman or Fry would define this strand but, more recently, it would be found in the rise of the fortunes of the Brenninkmeijer family in the UK as well as mainland Europe, the Noon Family, Cobra Beer and the innovation of many Jewish philanthropic foundations and innovators with names such as Rothschild, Pears, and Sieff.󰀂󰀃 The identification of this variety is significant for a number of reasons not least of which is the ability to begin to develop, from a policy based perspective, some kind of evidence base as to what ‘religion really is’, what its ‘impact’ is and what civic, social and economic benefits a nation’s (civic) economy might set aside were its legal treatment, exemptions, partial or core funding to be changed by law or government action in the future. How valuable to the nation are the variety of ventures and economic activities to which ‘God’ gives rise through the myriad manners in which (s)he/they gain legal personality? While many industrial strategies, local growth plans, and businesses would consider this to be a normal feature of planning by ‘sector’, identifying such ‘value’ has rarely been a feature of debates about religion partly because, for all their empirical impact, religions have wanted to talk ‘spiritually’ and partly, for all their empiricism, because some economists have been reluctant to treat religion as anything other than a ‘belief’. To be clear, this is not to suggest that religion should compete with, say, life sciences for investment attention but in the light of emerging evidence in the UK context there may be insights from which government bodies and parliamentarians in other contexts may helpfully gain insight lest they uncritically and riskily adopt what ‘believers’ and ‘unbelievers’ claim about themselves.󰀂󰀄 III. A ‘God’ Sector: Religion as an Economic Anchor In order to exemplify the material significance of ‘God’ in the UK context I will focus here on the empire of civil society represented by the English UK civic sector and those parts of religious institutions with legal personality in civil law. My aim is not to record the social welfare arms of religious bodies which are so numerous the regulator of such 󰀂󰀃  I am indebted here to conversations with Professor Paul Valelly who is currently writing a history of UK philanthropy. 󰀂󰀄  Interviews with civil servants but see also Francis Davis, “Catholicism and the Welfare Society,” in Catholic Social Conscience – Reflection and Action on Catholic Social Teaching, ed. Keith Chappell and Francis Davis (Leominster: Gracewing, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀀).

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charitable bodies cannot even provide a definitive figure as to their number. Nor will I assess the third of UK government schools in trusteeship of religious bodies. For example, aside from any theological significance attributed to them, cathedrals are, especially in poorer cities, agents of economic growth: two English cathedrals are among the two most visited tourist attractions in the UK with a combined visitor tally approaching 󰀃 million people. The estimated economic gross value added of English Anglican cathedrals has been estimated at £󰀀.󰀁󰀁 billion with their combined inhouse staff and supply chain impacts being responsible for close to 󰀆󰀀󰀀󰀀 jobs making their significance close to the impact, for example, of the well-known aviation company FlyBe.󰀂󰀅 These figures do not capture any wider cultural impacts: According to the economic consultancy ECOTEC at least 󰀃󰀆󰀄,󰀀󰀀󰀀 children visited cathedrals for educational purposes in the year of their survey with themed educational work focusing on English history, conflict resolution, and inter-religious harmony depending on the local social terrain and particular history of each place. Other activities backed by cathedrals include IT and literacy classes, unemployment worker training, business start-up hubs, and even hospitality for a Madrassa so that it does not meet in risky surroundings. Cathedrals act as economic anchors and civic hubs not likely to leave a local economy as ‘global market patterns move’. In addition, several cathedrals house major artefacts of literary, architectural, and historical significance. Notably, the data that is available does not include evidence from Roman Catholic cathedrals nor abbeys. The Benedictine house of Ampleforth, for example, is a major rural employer sustaining an elite private school, a cider company, and an Oxford university college, as well as wide-ranging retreats, conferences, and hospitality business. Worth Abbey has a successful organic farm and 󰀂󰀅

 This data come from studies by trade associations representing visitor attractions, for example, http://www.alva.org.uk/visitor_statistics [accessed July 󰀁󰀄, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈]; ECOTEC, “The Economic and Social Impacts of Cathedrals in England,” London: Ecotec Research and Consulting, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀄 (Report commissioned by English Heritage and the Association of English Cathedrals and ECORYS, http://www.englishcathedrals.co.uk/documents/󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈/󰀀󰀂/economic-social-impacts-englands-cathedrals-󰀂.pdf. See also https:// www.gov.uk/government/news/government-report-highlights-english-cathedrals-community-spirit [accessed July 󰀁󰀄, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈] and the economic impact study of Leicester Cathedral funded by the Mayor and the Local Economic Partnership https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/news/leicester-news/revealed-how-much-leicester-cathedral-󰀆󰀀󰀇󰀁󰀁󰀉 [accessed July 󰀁󰀄, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈]. See also https://www.flybe.com/application/files/󰀈󰀉󰀁󰀅/󰀃󰀂󰀅󰀃/󰀃󰀁󰀂󰀅/ Flybe_Annual_Report_󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀇-󰀁󰀈.pdf.

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Buckfast Abbey exports its ‘Tonic’ worldwide from one of the poorest regions of the UK, namely the English South West.󰀂󰀆 In the UK around £󰀅.󰀂 billion of investments are managed by the Church Commissioners which is the investment arm of the Church of England. Most of that – £󰀃.󰀂󰀅 billion – is invested in securities – bonds and shares – both in the UK and abroad. About £󰀄󰀆󰀀 million is invested in UK Treasury bonds and bills. The remaining £󰀂.󰀈 billion is invested in stock markets, in major companies like Shell, HSBC and GlaxoSmithKline. Some £󰀁.󰀇󰀁 billion is invested in property – both directly and indirectly through third party vehicles. A further £󰀉󰀆 million is tied up in woodland around the UK, in turn used to produce saleable timber. The church also has fixed assets at seeming book value worth £󰀉󰀄 million, and cash deposits and debts worth a further £󰀃󰀇󰀉 million. An entirely separate investment fund is run by the Church of England Pension Board, which is responsible for stewarding more than £󰀁 billion on behalf of the church’s numerous pension schemes. According to the latest figures available from 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀁, £󰀇󰀃󰀀 million of that is invested in equities, both in the UK and abroad.󰀂󰀇 Meanwhile, the national Church Investors Group has sixty-seven members drawn not only from the Church of England but also from other religious denominations (dioceses, circuits, religious orders, congregations) with a total investment portfolio of £󰀂󰀁 billion. The Methodist Board of Finance, for example, manages £󰀀.󰀅 billion while a special ‘Catholic Fund’ established by financial experts Blackrock/Merrill Lynch has £󰀀.󰀀󰀁󰀈 billion under management. Increasingly these bodies are playing a role as ‘activist’ investors attending both government briefings and the AGM and other accountability fora associated with corporate accountability to shareholders. In these formal religious institutions alone then are to be found resources five to six times the size of the fishing industry, representing 󰀁󰀀% of aviation’s significance and dwarfing printing and other manufacturing sectors. They are then complemented by the ability of diaspora 󰀂󰀆  For Buckfast and its ventures see both https://www.buckfast.org.uk/ https://www. buckfast.com/ and for Worth https://worth.co.uk/farm-shop/the-farm. 󰀂󰀇  From annual reports of The Church Commissioners https://www.churchofengland.org/about/leadership-and-governance/church-commissioners [accessed July 󰀁󰀄, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈] and the Church of England Pensions Board https://www.churchofengland.org/about/ leadership-and-governance/church-england-pensions-board [accessed July 󰀁󰀄, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈] and https://www.methodist.org.uk/for-ministers-and-office-holders/finance/financialaccounts-trustees-report/ [accessed July 󰀁󰀄, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈] and https://www.epworthinvestment. co.uk/ [accessed July 󰀁󰀄, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈].

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communities to mobilise resources with remittances from the UK to the global South recorded as being more valuable than the entire aid budget. Moreover, while I have focused here on exemplar assets which will have their mirrors in other European countries, to which then ought properly to be added the wider realm of health, civic and educational services facilitated, governed and/or funded by religious networks (think of Diakonia Werke in Germany, private schools in Ireland and Secours Catholique in France) I have not, for now, set out data that is also now central to UK debates namely the in-kind volunteering contribution of those ‘giving’ time and skills through religious institutions, religious charities, and associated activities. As accounting standards move to try and capture social, civic and environmental value added in addition to financial returns, these ‘gift relationships’ are attracting increasing attention not least because the UK evidence suggests that religious institutions are particularly successful at supporting or retaining both capital formulation and in-kind contributions in those regions and neighbourhoods which face the biggest social and economic challenges.󰀂󰀈 Some have gone further still in claiming that religious groups add a kind of additional ‘spiritual value’ or ‘spiritual capital’.󰀂󰀉 IV. Race, ‘Faith’, Community, ‘Security’ and Institutions At this point I want to turn from the economy to an example of a field of policy where the ‘beliefs’ versus ‘secularity’ debate has had very distinctive impacts from which other countries might in turn learn. Britain’s colonial history, for all its harms and benefits, is distinct from those of Belgium or China, Japan or the French. In the majority 󰀂󰀈  In this section I have drawn on Francis Davis, “The English Bishops, Caritas and Civic Prophecy,” in Catholic Social Conscience; id., Between Today and Yesterday: Evidence, Complexity and the Body of Christ (London: T&T Clark, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀉); id., Moral but No Compass; but see also https://churchinvestorsgroup.org.uk [accessed July 󰀁󰀄, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈] and https:// www.epworthinvestment.co.uk/ [accessed July 󰀁󰀄, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈] and http://www.morningstar. co.uk/uk/funds/snapshot/snapshot.aspx?id=F󰀀󰀀󰀀󰀀󰀀󰀃TMM [accessed July 󰀁󰀄, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈]. 󰀂󰀉  For example see Christopher Baker, “Spiritual Capital and Economies of Grace: Redefining the Relationship between Religion and the Welfare State,” Social Policy and Society 󰀁󰀁 (󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀂): 󰀅󰀆󰀅-󰀅󰀇󰀆. From a theological point of view such an articulation is often welcome, chasing as it does an ‘alchemy’ unavailable to policy makers. In sociology though it has been contested by writers such as the University of Kent’s Gordon Lynch who reflect that in such conceptions of ‘spirituality’ there is an inadequate approach to intangibles such as modern ‘brand values’ and the commodification of cultural artefacts as encountered in some religious settings.

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of those countries in the world where Britain once ruled, there have been particular consequences for subsequent state formation, relative health of civil society, and the (dis)continuance of elites from a colonial past to a post-colonial present. The colonial pathways to the world have also had profound and distinctive shaping consequences for (im)migrant, refugee, diaspora pathways into the UK: Irish arrivals in Britain, for example, were and have been shaped by enduring colonial occupation in the home country and a sometimes not so subtle racism – combined with a securitised discourse of ‘Irish threat’ – upon arrival. Caribbean arrivals came almost wholly invited by the UK state to fill jobs that ‘English’ workers would not, but themselves encountered racial prejudice and tough policing. What is more is that as they arrived, they were reimagined as ‘West Indians’ and then as ‘Afro-Caribbean’ where before they had been Trinidadians, Barbadians (or not from the Caribbean at all but Ghana or Nigeria). In the 󰀁󰀉󰀅󰀀s they and the Irish would have something in common for it would be easy to find boarding houses with signs on the doors declaring ‘no blacks, no dogs, no Irishmen’.󰀃󰀀 Meanwhile Islam in the UK is incomprehensible without an appreciation of the role and position of Pakistan and Bangladesh and the partition of India, diaspora, and then subsequent waves of refugees and asylum seekers following military conflicts in Bosnia, Somalia, Afghanistan, and Syria. That and a strong strand of indigenous conversions from among the white community. Long before all this, a Jewish community had been established, invited centuries before for its commercial skills and habits of embracing what we might today term globalisation. Since 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀄 and the accession of eight Eastern European countries to the EU this diversity has become more variegated still. And yet amidst this variety between, within, and across immigrant, refugee, migrant, and very long-standing ethnic communities there has been a tendency to sustain singular policy approaches of ‘multi-culturalism’ and monolithic discourses for assessing the rise of ‘religious violence’ and ‘extremism’. Before 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀉, for example, the Labour government’s policy to respond to perceived Islamist threat was predicated upon Muslim headcount among Britons and even included a government ‘theology team’ tasked specifically with ‘modernising Islam’.󰀃󰀁  Stuart Hall, Familiar Stranger – A Life Between Two islands (London: Penguin, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈).  Daniel DeHanas, Brixton to Brick Lane (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀆). Daniel DeHanas, “Governing through Prevent? Regulation and Contested Practice in State-Muslim Engagement,” Sociology 󰀅󰀀 (󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀆): 󰀁󰀆󰀀-󰀁󰀇󰀇. 󰀃󰀀 󰀃󰀁

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Indeed the policy was so focused on ‘theological motivation’ and ‘counter motivation’ that management lessons from the wider anti-terrorist community were discounted and policy after 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀀 removed government specialisms in race and neighbourhood to invest maximum energy in reaching out to minority groups through their religious networks notwithstanding any evidence of varieties of religious observance within such groups. In reality, debates surrounding ethnicity became so securitised that Prime Minister Cameron took to suggesting the – now very wealthy – Jewish community’s behaviour and integration as the optimum example and preferred social norm for all groups no matter how stretched their ethnic or social profiles. This also means that some religious groups not typically associated with such debates were missed from conversations regarding the future of social integration.󰀃󰀂 In the case of Catholic schools, for example, this was a notable omission for they are more than twice as likely as the UK national norm to have attracted pupils from black and minority (BME) backgrounds. For example, in the 󰀁󰀇󰀀 schools overseen by the Catholic Archdiocese of Southwark in South London alone, a full 󰀆󰀆% of all pupils are from BME backgrounds. Nearly 󰀁󰀀,󰀀󰀀󰀀 of those students receive the pupil premium which is a subsidy that indicates heavy family poverty. In the Westminster Archdiocese next door the social make up is not much different. What is notable is that both networks of schools bridge dimensions of race and ethnicity with a geographical reach into suburban and rural areas as well. This means pupils in the two Archdioceses schools are linked across neighbourhoods and social networks in ways that other inner city schools may not be, so possibly creating the potential to add value to the close to a billion pounds the government provides for their running costs.󰀃󰀃 Beyond London, Church schools train and sustain outside the classroom over 󰀃󰀀,󰀀󰀀󰀀 volunteers of all ages and backgrounds and they increasingly model collaboration beyond silos to do so: in the large girls’ Catholic School in Southampton on the coast, Muslim cohorts of students are as large and lively as any active Christian or other group; in the primary school next door co-teaching for Polish pupils complements 󰀃󰀂  https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/community-security-trust-cst-primeministers-speech [accessed July 󰀁󰀄, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈]. 󰀃󰀃  http://www.catholiceducation.org.uk/ces-census [accessed July 󰀁󰀄, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈] for recent annual reports of the Catholic Education Service which represents state-backed church schools in England and Wales.

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classroom provision. Students at the Catholic Loreto College in Hulme are impacted by and debate knife crime, young white male disaffection, societal racism, community policing, boring religion, and blocked social mobility.󰀃󰀄 Overall then, from an evidenced based perspective, they are perhaps currently and potentially the most striking vehicles for successful ‘one nation’ social and spiritual outcomes and inter-racial collaboration, and yet while government has pushed the Muslim community hard on such habits it has been significantly quieter in making similar demands of the Catholic education sector. Normative ‘faith’, the singular choice of a specific ethnic group as a ‘good example’, and the dematerialisation of concrete migrant journeys, capital flows, and diasporic experience, it would seem, has deracinated evidence-based policy-making to rely on ‘ideas’. V. Implications and Conclusions Drawing on debates over the last decade in the British context, I have suggested that there are, as multiple secularisms emerge, increasing risks to public discourse and the ability of societies and governments to properly order and shape their futures. This is because while the ideological intensity of some of those secularisms can dominate especially in elite networks, in reality they contribute to both sustaining and provoking an equally ideological and excessively dematerialised theological account of religion. The two urges combined obfuscate a social reality which is less strident, more variegated and regionally, socially, and ethnically diverse than ‘structured dialogues’ or traditional concerns with ‘belief’ can cope with. Religiosity and secularisms which over-emphasise ‘beliefs’ at the expense of behaviour, institutions, resources, and demonstrable civic contributions both distract religions from the society in which they are located while increasing the risk that policy makers respond with policy choices unrelated to the actual realities of the societies in which they find themselves because policy makers accept theological accounts uncritically or ‘secular’ accounts as though they are normative. In the UK context, insights from behavioural economics have begun to suggest that religious bodies often claim too much for their ideas and 󰀃󰀄

 Based on present author’s visits and facilitation of discussion groups in each of the places named.

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their consequences. Empirical studies, however, of the social and economic institutions owned, run, and governed by religious communities have begun to note that they, secularist advocates, and government under-appreciate other aspects of economic and social value that they bring to society as a whole. In turn the miss-combination of social research with singular ideas of religion and secularity when applied to particular policy cases – the one I used here was migration, extremism, social integration – can actually accelerate policy failure because of their theological/ideological prism of interpretation on the one hand and by driving policy makers away from historical learning and previous failures and successes on the other. The challenge here is to ensure that the data are robust, are meaningfully captured for policy use and to inform pastoral insight, and are not manipulated as a branch of ‘apologetics’ or as part of what could be perceived as an attempt to advance a neo-American articulation of ‘democratic capitalism’. The elucidation of ‘religious freedom’ as the defining driver of market wealth, for example, by the US Religious Freedom and Business Project has been well funded but attracted both academic and policy maker caution.󰀃󰀅 A consistent and rooted public debate would, on this basis, be refashioned at the interface of belonging, institutions, economy, and social impact – of social practices – rather than concepts, beliefs, and the idea of what intense religiosities or secularisms might constitute. The flight from such an analytical struggle seems to be a unique tendency to policy that touches on religious bodies rather than the policy task as a whole, and as such both people of faith and those without demean each other’s causes in times where good governance is seemingly increasingly essential.

󰀃󰀅  Brian Grim is the leading voice in this regard, https://religiousfreedomandbusiness. org/brian-j-grim [accessed July 󰀁󰀄, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈], but has attracted much criticism from Monica Duffy Toft https://sites.tufts.edu/css/about/monica-duffy-toft/ [accessed July 󰀁󰀄, 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀈], and caution from UK Foreign Office ministers.

List of Contributors

Antonio Maria Baggio is Full Professor of Political Philosophy and Director of the Center for Research on Politics and Human Rights at the Sophia University Institute in Loppiano (Incisa in Val d’Arno, Florence, Italy). He investigates the relationship between relational political concept and their religious roots. Erik Borgman is a lay Dominican and a Professor for Public Theology at Tilburg University. He is the academic director of the Tilburg Cobbenhagen Center and the editor in chief for Tijdschrift voor Theologie. His research focusses on the Christian tradition as a way to understand and live in the world and the tension this implies with a society that considers itself to be secular. Jelle Creemers is Associate Professor of Religious Studies & Missiology at the Evangelische Theologische Faculteit in Leuven (Belgium) and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow of the Fund for Scientific Research – Flanders (FWO-Vlaanderen). He investigates the dynamics between secular states and religious minorities with a focus on Evangelical Christianity in Belgium. Francis Davis is Professor of Religion, Communities and Public Policy at the University of Birmingham and Visiting Professor in the Theological Institute at St Mary’s University, Twickenham, London. Previously a cabinet level advisor in UK government he specialises in religion-policy-politics and the social and economic impact of religions as social institutions. He is a Visiting Fellow at the Helen Suzman Foundation, Johannesburg. Hans Geybels is Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies at the KU Leuven (Belgium). As director of the Christian think tank Logia, he is particularly interested in the relationship between Church and State and in the laity debates going on in France and Belgium. Maria Chiara Giorda is Associate Professor in History of Religions (Università di RomaTre, Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici). She is working on religious pluralism in public spaces, religious places in urban spaces, and religious diversity at school. Since 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀂 she is also professor and coordinator of the section Sociology and Media of the Master in Religions and Cultural Mediation, Sapienza University of Rome and coordinator of the Scientific Committee of Benvenuti in Italia Foundation.

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Katri Karhunen is Doctoral Researcher at the University of Helsinki (Finland). She studies the visibility of religion at the workplaces focusing on the veil used by Muslim women. Rafael Ruiz Andrés is a PhD Candidate in the Religious Sciences Institute of the Complutense University (Madrid) where he is an Intern of the University Teacher Training Program (FPU) of the Spanish Education Ministry. He also takes part in the Europaeum Scholarship Programme. His work focuses on a sociohistorical approach to the process of secularization, and more specifically on the transformations of Catholicism in Spain (󰀁󰀉󰀆󰀀-󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀀). Roberta Sala is Full Professor of Philosophy of Politics at Vita-Salute San Raffaele University in Milan, Italy. Her research and teaching topics are: political liberalism, toleration, multiculturalism. She teaches also Bioethics to undergraduate students of Nursing, Biotechnology and Medicine. She is Director of CeSEP, Centre for Studies in Ethics and Politics at Vita-Salute San Raffaele, Milan. Guido Vanheeswijck is Full Professor at the Department of Philosophy at the University of Antwerp and part-time professor at the Institute of Philosophy of the KU Leuven. His research focuses on philosophy of culture, philosophy of religion, metaphysics and the relation between literature and philosophy. From 󰀂󰀀󰀀󰀆 till 󰀂󰀀󰀁󰀂, he was chairman of the Centre Pieter Gillis, the center for active pluralism of the University of Antwerp. He is currently Brueghel Chair Visiting Professor at the University of Pennsylvania.