38. Spanish bishops talk about laicism

In November 2006, the Spanish Episcopal Conference adopted a document entitled “Moral Orientations on the current situation of Spain.” Among other things, the document addresses the serious problem of the growth of secularism in our country, which is evident, for example, in the difficulties to the kind of religion in public education, the valuation of that subject at all levels, and in the implementation of a new, compulsory subject, “Education for Citizenship,” who seek to become a secularist instrument for the indoctrination of children and young people. For your interest, we published the full text of the first chapter of the bishops’ document on secularism.

“It is already a cliché to refer to the rapid and profound changes that have taken place in the Spanish society in the last decades. What is certain is that our recent history is more agitated and convulsive than would be desirable. It is not possible to understand well what we are living in the present, if you don’t see it in the perspective of what has happened over the past century, respecting calmly the entire truth of the complexity of the facts. We are not going to go into detailed analysis in this regard. It is sufficient to take into account the history, sometimes dramatic, as master of wisdom and sanity.
We just want to refer to two facts from recent history that have special importance for us. The first is the advent of democracy in Spain. The final one of the previous political regime, after 40 years duration, it was a historic delicate moment, full of possibilities and risks. At that juncture, the pilgrim Church in Spain, illuminated by the recent Vatican II and in close communion with the Holy See, overcoming any nostalgia of the past, contributed decisively to make democracy possible, with the full recognition of the fundamental rights of all, without any discrimination for religious reasons. This determined attitude of the Church and Catholics facilitated a transition based on the consensus and reconciliation among the Spaniards. As well, it seemed definitely to overcome the tragic division of the society that had brought us to the horror of the civil war, with their attendant atrocities.

Forgiveness, reconciliation, peace and coexistence, were the great moral values that the Church proclaimed and that the majority of catholics and the Spaniards in general lived intensely in those times. With the spiritual background of reconciliation, the Constitution of 1978 was made possible, based on the consensus of all political forces, which has led to thirty years of stability and prosperity, with the exceptions of the normal stresses in a modern democracy, little experienced, and the obstinate attacks of terrorism against the lives and security of the citizens and against the free functioning of democratic institutions. When Now it is said that the Catholic Church is “a danger to democracy,” it should not be forgotten that the Catholic Church and the Spanish Catholics contributed to the establishment of democracy and have respected their rules and institutions loyally at all times.
Apparently, there are suspicions and claims pending. But we must all ensure that the assets achieved do not deteriorate or become depleted. A society that appeared to have found the path of reconciliation and détente, must not return to be divided and confronted. A use of the “historical memory,” guided by a selective mentality, opens old wounds of the civil war and revives feelings found that appeared to be overcome. These measures cannot be considered a true social progress, but rather a historical and civic reversal, with obvious risk of tension, discrimination and alteration of a peaceful coexistence.

The other factor that we want to highlight, because it is crucial to interpret and evaluate the new circumstances from faith, is the alarming development of secularism in our society. It is not a question of the recognition of the just autonomy of the temporal order, in its institutions and processes, something that is entirely compatible with the Christian faith and to be directly encouraged and required by it. Rather, it is the willingness to do without God in the vision and appreciation of the world, in the image that man has of himself, of the origin and end of its existence, the standards and the objectives of his personal and social activities.

Within a very broad cultural change, Spain is invaded by a way of life in which the reference to God is regarded as a deficiency in the intellectual maturity and in the full exercise of freedom. We live in a world in which you are deploying the atheistic understanding of one’s own existence: “If God exists, I am not free; if I am free I can’t recognize the existence of God.” This -although not always perceived with such intellectual explicitness is the radical problem of our culture: the denial of God and of a life “as if God did not exist.” The extension of atheism causes profound alterations in the lives of the people, because the knowledge of God is the living and deep root of the culture of the peoples, and it is the most influential factor in the shaping of their personal, family and community project of life.

The radical evil of time consists, then, in something as old as the illusory desire and blasphemous absolute ownership of all, to direct our life and the life of the society to our taste, without God, as if we were true creators of the world and ourselves. Hence, the exaltation of freedom itself as the supreme norm of good and evil and the forgetfulness of God, with the consequent contempt of religion and the idolatrous consideration of the world’s goods as if they were the supreme good.

Benedict XVI, with his usual simplicity and depth, analyzed recently this same situation in his speech to the 4th National Congress of the Church in Italy. We summarize here some of their statements more enlightening for us:
The western world is producing a new wave of Enlightenment and secularism that draws many to think that the only rationally valid would be the least perceptible and measurable, or be capable of being built by the human being, and that induces them to make individual freedom an absolute value, to which all others would have to submit. Faith in God is thus more difficult, among other things, because we live in a world that seems to be all human work and it does not help us to discover the presence and goodness of God, the Creator and Father. A certain modern culture, which intended to exalt man, placing it at the center of it all, he ends up paradoxically by reducing it to a mere result of chance, impersonal, ephemeral and, ultimately, irrational: a new expression of nihilism. Without references to the true Absolute, ethics is reduced to something relative and changeable, without sufficient grounds, or personal consequences and social determinants. All this implies a rupture with the religious traditions and does not respond to the major issues that move the human being.

In our case, this project involves the bankruptcy of a spiritual and cultural heritage, rooted in the memory and the worship of Jesus Christ and, therefore, the abandonment of valuable institutions and traditions that were born and nurtured in that culture. It would seem that this artificially seeks to build a society without religious references, exclusively on earth, without worship of God nor any aspiration to eternal life, based solely on our own resources and oriented almost exclusively toward the mere enjoyment of the goods of the earth.

The process of de-Christianization and moral deterioration of personal, family and social life, is favored by certain objective features of our life, such as the rapid enrichment, the multiplicity of offers for leisure, the excess of occupations or numbness of the conscience in the face of the rapid development of the resources of science and technology. More profoundly, the expansion of this process has been facilitated by the lack of religious formation of many people, believers and non-believers, by certain disfigured ideas about God and of the true religion, by a lack of consistency in the life and actions of many Christians, and the influence of mistaken ideas about the origin, nature, and destiny of man; and, last but not least, by the moral weakness of all of us and the seduction of the goods of this world: by “greed, which is a real idolatry” (Col 3, 5).

Many had hoped that the democratic order of our coexistence, governed by the Constitution of 1978, and supported in the reconciliation and consensus among the Spaniards, which would enable us to overcome the old confrontations that have divided us and the impoverishment of our homeland, one of which was without a doubt the confrontation between Catholicism and secularism, understood as ways of life mutually exclusive and incompatible. And it is possible that this was the case. Now we see with regret that in recent years returns to manifest among us a mistrust and a rejection of the Church and of the Catholic religion that presents itself as something more radical and profound that the return to the old anti-clericalism.

So, secularism is setting up a society that, in their social and public elements, is faced with the most fundamental values of our culture, leave the roots to institutions such as marriage and the family, dilutes the very pillars of the moral life, of justice and solidarity, and places Christians in a culturally strange and hostile world. It was not a question of imposing their own moral criteria on society as a whole. We know perfectly well that faith in Jesus Christ is a gift of God and a free decision of each person, favored by reason and aided by divine assistance. But it is clear to us that everything that is introduced as ideas and customs contrary to the natural law, founded in right reason and in the spiritual and moral heritage historically accumulated by societies, weakens the foundations of justice and damages the lives of individuals and of the whole of society.

In many environments, it is difficult to speak as a Christian: it seems that the only right and correct thing is to do it as an agnostic and partisan of a radical and exclusive sect. Some sectors are aimed at excluding Catholics from public life and speed up the implementation of the secularism and that moral relativism as the only mentality compatible with democracy. This seems to be the correct interpretation of the growing difficulties in incorporating the free study of the Catholic religion in the curriculum of the public school. In this sense the laws and declarations contrary to the natural law, which deteriorate the moral good of society, formed in good part by Catholics, as is the case of the unusual legal definition of marriage to the exclusion of any reference to the difference between the man and the woman, the support to the so-called “gender ideology,” the law of the “divorce Express,” the growing tolerance with abortion, the production of human beings as research material, and the announced program of the new mandatory subject, called “Education for Citizenship,” with the risk of an unacceptable intrusion of the state in the moral education of students, whose first responsibility is to the family and to the school.

Solidarity with the society of which we are a part, the love of our fellow citizens and the responsibility we have before God, encourage us to warn of the great evils that can follow – and which are already appearing among us – of the darkening and weakening of the moral conscience that carry provisions such as those mentioned above. In doing so, we do not pursue any particular interest. Our purpose is only to stimulate the responsibility of all and cause a social reflection that allows us to correct in time a course that seems wrong and dangerous. When we have reached so many good things that had never been achieved, we do not have to leave other values of spiritual and moral order that form part of our heritage and that we have received from our ancestors as goods of inestimable value.

We declare our desire to live and coexist in this society while respecting its democratic institutions, recognizing the legitimate authorities, obeying just laws and to work specifically for the common good. Nobody has to fear aggression or disloyalty to the democratic life on the part of Catholics. Our desire is to find little by little the just order so that we can all live in accordance with our convictions, no one intends to impose on anyone their points of view by unfair and unjust procedures. Catholics are simply asking for respect for our identity and freedom to proclaim the message of Christ as universal Savior.”