Word: secularize
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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HARVARD: NOT SO SECULAR AFTER...
After I moved to a secular school, the contradictions continued. I eagerly took to heart an essay my eighth grade history teacher made us read that said “all religions are paths up the same mountain.” I pondered becoming a Jew-dhist when I learned the philosophy of Buddhism later in the year. But I grew uncomfortable when the same class spent just a bit too long discussing the story of “how the Jews killed Jesus.” Religious coexistence, I realized, was never that simple...
Certainly, it is the place of the Vatican to make its views known on important moral issues like same-sex marriage. It is not, however, the Vatican’s role to try to exercise religious influence on the affairs of secular states...
Marriage, historically, straddles the boundary between politics and religion. It is by nature a religious institution sanctioned and administered by a secular political framework. With the passage of time, however, marriage has evolved to live a double life. On the one hand, it is a religious affair, with different churches conducting marriage ceremonies in places of worship conducted by ordained clergy. On the other hand, however, it is a civic institution, with states registering marriages in secular ceremonies held in courthouses presided over by civic officials. The Vatican has always exercised spiritual sovereignty over the religious institution of marriage within...
...church alone. The parallel debate on civil same-sex marriage is, however, an issue for everyone. The Vatican is clearly perturbed by Spain’s tentative steps towards legalizing same-sex marriage. While it is its right to disagree with the Spanish government, when it comes to secular issues like this one, it is the Vatican’s responsibility to keep that disagreement to itself...