By Daniel B. Gallagher
Pope Leo XIV recently reaffirmed a conviction that Christians have held for centuries: “institutions need people who know how to live a healthy secularity, that is, a way of thinking and acting that affirms the value of religion, while at the same time preserving the distinction—not separation or confusion—with the political sphere.”
Leo gets to the heart of St. Augustine‘s understanding of the term saeculum, which can be roughly translated as “time,” “age,” or “era.” According to Augustine, we live in an era in which all human institutions are encompassed by a definitive sacred history that will be fulfilled at the second coming of Christ.
Christians, therefore, illuminated by the Gospel, are obliged to act within those institutions and exert influence on them in such a way that they bear witness, sustain, and promote not only the dignity of the human person created in the image of God and redeemed by Christ, but also—as argued by Russell Hittinger—the dignity of society itself.
In summary, for Christians, “secular” is not a bad word. Far from it. It is, in fact, the correct way to describe reality as something already redeemed, but still awaiting the full revelation of what that redemption has wrought. Since the current saeculum is not man’s ultimate horizon, secular institutions enjoy legitimate autonomy, but only in the sense of a “distinction,” not a “separation.”
Pope Leo’s recent remarks are best understood if we return to the concise recapitulation of the same concept made by Benedict XVI in 2006. Speaking before a group of Italian jurists, the late Pontiff said that it is the task of believers:
“to formulate a concept of secularity that, on the one hand, recognizes the place due to God and his moral law, to Christ and his Church in human life, both individual and social; and on the other, affirms and respects the ‘just autonomy of earthly realities,’ if by this expression, as Vatican Council II reaffirms, one means the ‘progressive discovery, exploitation, and organization of the laws and values of matter and society’” (Gaudium et Spes, 36).
Benedict uses the medieval conception of saeculum as a contrast to the postmodern conception. In the Middle Ages, “secular” simply designated a distinction between civil and ecclesiastical powers. Man’s ultimate destiny lies outside of time, so his salvation was the Church’s affair. But man lives in time, and therefore secular institutions are necessary to attend to temporal needs.
The purpose of politics must focus on the goods of this temporal order, primarily earthly peace, which Augustine calls tranquillitas ordinis, the “tranquility of order.” The Church’s purpose must be to safeguard the content of divine revelation and the dispensation of the sacraments that lead souls to Heaven.
There is need for both princes and bishops, though often in the Middle Ages one usurped the function of the other. Attempts to resolve such conflicts always relied on a correct understanding of the secular, as defined by Augustine and explained by Benedict. In this sense, as Larry Siedentop writes, “secularism is Christianity’s gift to the world.”
Robert Reilly explains: “Christianity itself supported and defended the secularization necessary for the development of constitutionalism. The distinction between God and Caesar, so essential for the separate sovereignties of Church and State, has only one source (i.e., Christianity).”
Clearly, Pope Leo XIV, in one way or another, seeks to continue the crucial project undertaken by Benedict XVI: to remind the world of this gift.
Benedict took pains to warn that the postmodern notion of the secular has completely inverted the medieval conception. “It has come to mean the exclusion of religion and its symbols from public life, confining them to the private sphere and individual conscience,” he said.
It is this attitude that turned “secular” into a bad word, at least for Christians.
It is a mistaken understanding that seeks to justify total separation between Church and State, leaving no room for the former to intervene in social life or in the conduct of citizens. It implies that the political realm is an areligious domain that must be protected from contamination by faith.
Revaluing what Augustine, Benedict, and Leo propose is crucial at a time when many have lost hope in current political institutions and are calling for a serious turn toward some kind of “postliberal” order.
If, as Patrick Deneen argues, “liberalism” implies a fundamental shift from the classical definition of “freedom” to a modern one, according to which I am free to dispose of my property as I wish, then we clearly have a problem.
But if the freedom implied by liberalism is meant to be moderated by the words and actions of Christians acting in the public sphere according to an adequate understanding of the “secular,” then there is no reason to restrict that freedom through external political structures.
In other words, if Christians not only can but are obliged to act and speak in the “secular” realm as Christians, and if the State is obliged to allow them to act and speak in this way, then there would be a firm voice in the public sphere in favor of the responsible use of freedom, exercised for the common good, precisely by imposing on themselves the necessary restrictions.
In summary, recovering an adequate understanding of the “secular”—a thoroughly positive understanding in the Augustinian sense—will inspire Christians to promote the common good much more effectively than any attempt to design a postliberal State that restricts human freedom with the purpose of directing citizens’ wills toward the supreme good.
The “healthy secularity” that Pope Leo XIV has in mind—the same one that Benedict XVI strove to remind Europe and the West of—offers greater promise for human flourishing than the false secularity that seeks to limit human freedom by external means.
About the author
Daniel B. Gallagher teaches philosophy and literature at Ralston College. He was previously the Latin secretary to Popes Benedict XVI and Francis.