This chapter will try to reconstruct the formation of such an inclusive idea
of Christian humanism and Christian secularism in the Catholic Church,
especially where social ethics are concerned.
OVERCOMING HISTORICAL OBSTACLESThe formation of a typically Catholic concept of secularity began with two
rejections of deviating models of secularity. The first model was that of
Protestantism, which the Council of Trent opposed. The second one was the
version of the Enlightenment that emerged during the French Revolution.
This version was implicitly rejected through the anti-liberalism of the Catholic
Church during the nineteenth century. Had it not been for the French
Revolution, it is unlikely that the church would have turned against the
whole of the Enlightenment. However, the atheist, iconoclastic, sacrilegious,
schismatic, and persecutory policies against the church, which followed in the
wake of the French Revolution in France and in other Christian states during
the nineteenth century, were decisive for the church’s initially negative reac-
tion to liberalism and to modernity.
Anti-ProtestantismThe Council of Trent did not make any declaration on Christian humanism
or secularity as such. It defended Catholic teaching on the sacraments and
the hierarchical structure of the church, reacting against the Protestant abo-
lition of all specific religious vocations beyond that of the baptized layperson.
The Council of Trent did not say that baptized laypeople were not called to
holiness, but it did say that there were special vocations to holiness, and most
of all, that there exists a sacrament of order that confers ministerial sacra-
mental powers to some chosen men. Therefore, common priesthood was not
to be confused with or equated to ministerial priesthood.^2 In the following
centuries up to the twentieth century, the idea of the hierarchical structure of
the church was so heavily accentuated that ministers primarily saw lay people
as objects of pastoral care. They were not considered active subjects of the
church’s mission but rather passive receivers of the sacraments, which priests
(^2) See Council of Trent, Session XXIII, DS nr 1763–nr 1778, especially nr 1767, in Heinrich
Denzinger (ed.),Compendium of Creeds, Definitions, and Declarations on Matters of Faith and
Morals, Latin–English, edited by Peter Hünermann, 43rd edn (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius
Press, 2012), 423 (henceforth quoted as DH).
198 Martin Schlag