Word: secularized
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...surprise of some, however, this was also the year that Ratzinger began a long-running intellectual engagement with the atheist and secular forces he saw rising in the West. In his 1968 theological masterpiece, Introduction to Christianity, Ratzinger used a pithy exploration of the Christian creed to make a sincere effort to understand and even reach out to atheists. "No one can lay God and his Kingdom on the table before another man: even the believer cannot do it for himself. But however strongly unbelief may feel itself thereby justified, it cannot forget the eerie feeling induced by the words...
...Vatican's chief of orthodoxy, Ratzinger continued to engage the secular world. Inducted in 1992 into the prestigious French Academy, the epicenter of Enlightenment thought in Europe, Ratzinger gave a discourse about the challenges of democracy and relativism in the modern world. In 2004, he took part in a sort of Ali-Frazier showdown of European intellectual heavyweights when he publicly debated fellow German Jürgen Habermas, considered by some the preeminent leftist philosopher of his generation...
...Since becoming Pope, Benedict has stepped up his so-called "dialogue" with the secular-scientific world. Three months into his papacy he suggested a way to find moral common ground with non-believers, suggesting atheists behave "as if God existed." Benedict even praised Karl Marx in his last encyclical for his "incisive language and intellect ... precision and great analytic skill," before dissecting the errors of his ideology. Next year, the Vatican has slated special conferences to confront the ideas of Galileo and Darwin...
...During his time in jail, Mandela was an important symbol of opposition to apartheid. But "the closest thing the world has to a secular saint"? On most practical measures, South Africa has gone backward since Mandela's presidency. The African National Congress (ANC) has been in power since 1994 and is as unlikely to be replaced via the ballot box as President Robert Mugabe's government is in Zimbabwe. South Africa's real saint is Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu. Julius Bergh, Nerang, Queensland...
...group of several terrorist attacks previously attributed to Islamic militants, is the latest clash in the battle between Turkish secularists and the nation's religious-conservative leadership. The arrests coincide with deliberations by Turkey's top court about whether to disband the ruling AK Party for violating Turkey's secular constitution...