Secularisation, secularism and Catholic education: understanding the challenges

Abstract

This article is designed to make a contribution to a more theorised and historically located understanding of the secular, of secularisation and of secularism and of the relation of these concepts to analysis of Catholic education and the challenges which it faces.

Keywords:

• secularisation
• secularism
• secular
• education

Notes

1. St. Augustine coined the word ‘saeculum’ to mean ‘the present age’ and an excellent analysis of the theology of his use of the word in the City of God and in his other publications can be found in Markus (1988).

2. For a full contemporary discussion of theories of secularisation see the following: Berger (1999), Casanova (1994) and Martin (2005).

3. See Benedict XVI in Habermas and Ratzinger (2005) for a discussion of the influence of relativism in relation to secular society.

4. For a discussion of la laicite and the many contradictions in this political separation of Church and State see Safran (2002) and Bowden (2006).

5. Readers should consult Dawkins (2007) to see how secularists view religion and people who hold religious beliefs more generally.

6. In my own work, Arthur (1995), I give details of how Catholic school policy in England has been progressively secularised in statements issued by the Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales.