"A just laicism allows religious freedom. The state does not impose religion but rather gives space to religions with a responsibility toward civil society, and therefore it allows these religions to be factors in building up society"
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Ratzinger’s “just laicism” is a careful rebrand of secularism: not the French-style quarantine of religion from public life, but a managed neutrality that keeps the state from becoming a church while still treating churches as legitimate civic actors. The word doing the heavy lifting is “just.” It implies that other versions of laicism are unfair by design - cramped, suspicious, punitive - and it positions his proposal as the reasonable middle where everyone can breathe.
The intent is both conciliatory and strategic. He concedes a modern baseline (“religious freedom,” “the state does not impose religion”) to meet liberal democracies where they are. Then he quietly raises the price of admission: religions get “space” on the condition of “responsibility toward civil society.” That sounds modest until you notice how it flips the usual secular logic. Instead of religion being a private right tolerated by the state, religion becomes a partner expected to contribute to public order, moral formation, and social cohesion.
Context matters: Ratzinger spent decades watching Europe’s postwar settlement drift toward procedural liberalism and, in his view, moral exhaustion. This line fits his larger argument that a democracy without thick ethical sources becomes technocratic and brittle. The subtext is a warning to secular elites: if you push religion fully into the private sphere, you don’t get neutrality, you get an unofficial civil religion of consumerism, relativism, or state ideology.
He’s also disciplining religion from within. “Responsibility” reads like a preemptive rebuttal to fundamentalism: participate, don’t dominate; serve the common good, don’t demand theocracy. It’s a bid to keep faith audible in public life without letting it turn into a power grab - and to make that arrangement feel not like privilege, but like social necessity.
The intent is both conciliatory and strategic. He concedes a modern baseline (“religious freedom,” “the state does not impose religion”) to meet liberal democracies where they are. Then he quietly raises the price of admission: religions get “space” on the condition of “responsibility toward civil society.” That sounds modest until you notice how it flips the usual secular logic. Instead of religion being a private right tolerated by the state, religion becomes a partner expected to contribute to public order, moral formation, and social cohesion.
Context matters: Ratzinger spent decades watching Europe’s postwar settlement drift toward procedural liberalism and, in his view, moral exhaustion. This line fits his larger argument that a democracy without thick ethical sources becomes technocratic and brittle. The subtext is a warning to secular elites: if you push religion fully into the private sphere, you don’t get neutrality, you get an unofficial civil religion of consumerism, relativism, or state ideology.
He’s also disciplining religion from within. “Responsibility” reads like a preemptive rebuttal to fundamentalism: participate, don’t dominate; serve the common good, don’t demand theocracy. It’s a bid to keep faith audible in public life without letting it turn into a power grab - and to make that arrangement feel not like privilege, but like social necessity.
Quote Details
| Topic | Freedom |
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