Philippine E-Journals

PURIFIER OF REASON OR PUBLIC RELIGION? A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF RATZINGER’S POLITICAL THOUGHT VIS-À-VIS CASANOVA’S NOTION OF PUBLIC RELIGION

Rhoderick John S. Abellanosa

 

Abstract:

A number of literature that discuss the role of religion in a secular world have been written in recent years. From Harvey Cox, The Secular City to Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age – social scientists and philosopher have been rethinking the Enlightenment prophecy of, to use Per Berger’s words, the “supernatural’s departure from the modern world.” What role does religion have in a secular (or secularizing) society? Engaged in the religion-secularization debate is no less than Joseph Ratzinger (a.k.a. Benedict XVI) whose political thought, taken as a whole, provides a conceptual framework of a particular model of State and Church relations. The Church (and as may be applied to religion), according to him, is a purifier of reason yet it must not take into its hands the political battle in order to achieve the most just society possible. Not without critics, the German pope’s political thought has been considered by some as a retrogressive view of religion in a modern age. 2In contrast, Jose Casanova, a sociologist from Georgetown University, contends that the secular world has been a witness to the de-privatization of religions and their continual engagement with the public sphere. Why this choice of key thinkers and why such a subject matter? Perhaps, the brief situationer below would help.