Unexamined Biases Among Elites Against Christianity Are a Profound Paradox of Our Age

Prof. Mary Ann Glendon (Harvard) at the 17th plenary session of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences in Rome:

"In countries that impose “low to moderate” restrictions on religious freedom, influential figures in the media, the academy and public life often portray religion as a source of social division, and treat religious freedom as a second-class right to be trumped by a range of other claims and interests. Those largely un-examined biases among elites are spreading to the population at large in many Western societies. It is “a profound paradox of our age,” according to Professor Hertzke, that, just when evidence of the value of religious freedom is mounting, “the international consensus behind it is weakening, attacked by theocratic movements, violated by aggressive secular policies, and undermined by growing elite hostility or ignorance.” Commenting on trends toward confining religion to the private sphere, Archbishop Minnerath pointed out that the banishment of religion from the public square leaves “an immense vacuum” open to all sorts of ideologies. Where that situation prevails, Cartabia and Benson warned, it could lead to establishing secularism as a de facto official “religion.” In Senator Pera’s view, the liberal democracies are “immersed in what we might call the paradox of secularism: the more our secular, post-metaphysical, post-religious reason aims to be inclusive, the more it becomes intolerant.” See also: http://www.zenit.org/article-32489?l=english