On Secularism

IN THE GOSPELS, our Blessed Savior, Jesus Christ, explicitly recognizes the secular that makes cohesive the universal peace (Pax Romana) that during His time, served to foster the discipline and the well-being of the communities of the empire, albeit imperfectly and vincibly: "Give unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God."
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This is the secularism that the one Majority believes in and stands for:

"E PLURIBUS UNUM" - this is the quintessential equation that, I personally believe, most succinctly defines the true essence of secularism - egalitarian pluralism.

The Founding Fathers of the American Republic must have understood in this well-known American motto that in order to unify the physical geography of the American Colonies, they would first have to unify the geography of the Republic as it exists in the hearts of the people.

And so this motto, "from the many, one", must have had that twofold dimension in it's meaning and this meaning can only be rendered meaningful if the secular equation of which this motto represents is understood to be this, an egalitarian kind of pluralism and not a militant form of atheism, fundamentalism or religious extremism.

Secularism is not the denial but the admission of our shared humanity and the common needs that define our being human.

Secularism therefore, as a recognition of our hope, is a turning towards ourselves and not a moving away from ourselves.

It is the pragmatic expression of the ideal of political inclusivity that embraces dimensions common to our shared humanity and fosters social harmony through universality of the civic values that underpin the unity of the national community.

It works to completely exclude within the body politic the natural animus that is organic to lesser lines of departures, whether racial, tribal, familial or religious, that it explicitly recognizes as hostile to the ideal social fabric that fosters the peace of secular communities.

Let me emphasize once again that it is the animus or the spirit of conflict that the secular peace recognizes as hostile to the human endeavor of Country and not it's victims - honorable religion and suffering humanity.

Let us meditate more deeply in the quiet of our souls about the essence of the separation of Church (honorable religion) and State.

It is this separation that is the founding juridical principle that establishes both the political vector and legislative scope of the necessary laws that define for secular cultures the abiding guidance from which they uniquely shape each of their own particular endeavor of Country according, of course, to the common experience of their own particular nations as it unfolds in exile time.

It means that the truth of the State and the truth of the Church are two distinct and separate truths, whole within themselves; each of them independent in it's being itself; each of them complete and utterly unable to increase or decrease through either praise or condemnation of human judgments cast within the context of other self-aware and self-realizing truths, as Church and State, and their vital relation to each other.

Again, it must be emphasized that the secularism that recognizes the inherent plurality of our shared humanity and is founded to make the many into one does not recognize that Church and State are hostile to each other, only that they are distinct and separate.

A true secularist recognizes in all honorable religions, without publicly and explicitly subscribing to any, a universal purpose that serves to ennoble the spirit of humankind and therefore, a utilitarian means that serve to refine the shared mores that define in exile time the evolving civic culture of our nations. He or she understand that it is the conflicts that both religion and human civilization has fought in the name of war and war's ambition and not the revealed truths that allows religion and it's particular wisdom tradition to endure nor the peace that allow human civilization to flourish in exile time that is and must be excluded from the body politic of all secular democracies.

Let us once again emphasize that secularism is a political ideal and is therefore an ethos expressed in community with other people. It is not in any way, shape or form a way of religion professed individually with other people of the same community.

I say this because I absolutely believe that secularism was never intended to foster a militant form of atheism nor must militant atheism ever be confused with secularism for secularism operates in an absolutely different dimension than atheism. Secularism shapes the civic life of the citizen whereas atheism is a religion professed in the private of an individual's personal choice to believe freely what universe may be found within the self.

The secular peace is founded on the vision of life lived in abundance and happiness pursued through justice, freedom, fraternity and understanding not on the desolation of war, the rule of war's ambition and the tyranny of fear, chaos and ignorance.

A secularist can be an atheist just the same as a secularist can be a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim, a Hindu, or a Buddhist, etc. But secularism itself as a whole can not be atheistic nor can it's nature be considered as completely Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Hindu, or Buddhist, etc. and remain true to it's own founding principle nor can true secularism be a vehicle of the tyranny against which it's principal ideals were meant to absolutely withstand. Indeed, my precious friend and companion, all Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus or Buddhists, etc. can be secularists but all secularists can never be Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, or Buddhists, etc.

A secularist believes in the Providence of God (in the gifts though not necessarily in the Giver), in the absoluteness of the good (secularism is rational, driven by reason and therefore, can not be relativistic just as much as law can not be chaos), and in the unity of all good things (harmony and the synergy of a unified diversity - egalitarian pluralism) that serve the life of our shared humanity (the endeavor of Country). A secularist believes in Country and the equality of human dignity, the defense of the common good, authentic human freedom, the maintenance of the civic peace, in interdependence more than co-existence, in rising above adversity within a diversity and the harmony of forces, in the generations of shared humanity lived abundantly and fostered by tolerance and understanding of the same and therefore, opposes war and war's ambition. In this sense, the secular holds to the same line with all honorable religions (i.e. those that recognize and uphold the common good and serves the cause of sacred life) - including moderate atheism - without hypocrisy and syncretism.

I hold in my heart that my most loving Jesus would never have recognized a secularism in Caesar that is utterly and completely atheistic, much less one that is hostile to all the honorable religions of humankind. Christ would have soundly condemned atheistic secularism as being absolutely inimical to His saving work if it had emerged during the time when our Lord walked this world with us.

The Church and the State are not inimical to each other, in fact, they are interdependent truths that must align to serve the life of our shared humanity so that our generations may be fostered by the filial discipline and maternal peace of the nations of the one family of the nations of mankind.

Secular democracies must realize again in themselves where the lie begins and where the truth ends and avoid crossing the threshold that turn the universality and outward benignity of it's ideal inward into confusion; imploding it's sense of social harmony; igniting those wars within itself.
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Prosper the Peace. Prosper the People.

Sancta Sanctis!

Glory to God in the highest
Adoration to Jesus Christ
Peace to men of good will.