Oct. 21 issue pre-election commentary

Religious Freedom vs. Aggressive Secularism

BY GEORGE WEIGEL

Some years ago, the Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor coined the term "exclusivist secularism" to describe a disturbing phenomenon in Western societies: the determination of some intellectuals, activists and politicians to scour public life of transcendent religious and moral reference points in the name of "tolerance" and "inclusion."

Taylor’s "exclusivist secularism" is not the benign "secularity" — the separation of religious and political institutions in a modern society — that Pope Benedict XVI has praised for helping Catholicism develop its understanding of the right relationship between church and state.

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