Introduction: Secularism, Democracy, and Catholicism

The introduction provides current social and intellectual context for the themes of the book, noting that both the understanding of secularism and the Catholic tradition have developed markedly in the past decades. The era of assumed secularization and the era of easy connection between the Catholic Church and the political sphere are both over. The chapter describes the recent explosion in research about the cultural and political structures of secularism, which opens new possibilities to understand the interaction of religion, culture, politics, and governance. It notes that the book analyzes secularism as well as the Catholic Church's intellectual resources and activities for engaging a secular public. Each of the chapters is introduced and described.