Mariano Barbato

Towards a post-secular political order?

The ‘return of religion’ as a social phenomenon has aroused at least three different debates, with the first being the ‘clash of civilizations’, the second criticizing ‘modernity’, and the third focusing on the public/private distinction. This article uses Habermas’ idea of a post-secular society as a prism through which we examine the return of religion and impact on secularization. In doing so, we attempt to understand the new role of religion as a challenger of the liberal projects following the decline of communism. Against this background, section four focuses on Habermas’s central arguments in his proposal for a post-secular society. We claim that the problematique in Habermas’s analysis must be placed within the wider framework of an emerging global public sphere. In this context we examine the problem of religion’s place in political process and the two readings of Habermas as suggested by Simone Chambers.

Postsecular revolution: religion after the end of history

This article claims that the revolutions in the Arab world foster insight into more than the spread of liberalism. Fukuyamas end of history has not just reached the Muslim world faster than expected. These revolutions show that strong religion and liberal democracy are compatible: they are postsecular revolutions. As already the revolutions of 1989 proved in some respect, in contrast to the secular ideals of the French Revolution, revolution and religion can go hand in hand in a postsecular way. Praying and making revolution does not need to end in a religious autocracy as 1979 in Iran. Religious citizens stood up praying for democracy and the rule of law against secular regimes which legitimised themselves as a bulwark against sinister forces of religion. Analysing the revolutions of 1989, Jurgen Habermas speaks of ‘catching-up revolutions’ which brought nothing new to the course of history. Yet after 9/11 he started to develop his idea of a postsecular society in which secular and religious citizens are equally entitled to make their arguments in a public sphere. Criticising the early Habermas with the later, the article argues that the postsecular revolutions of 1989 and 2011 are preparing the ground for a postsecular democracy.

Keep the Faith: Progress, Social Justice and the Papacy

Abstract The idea of progress lost appeal because it became associated with the concept of linear process towards maximalist ends that in practice caused much harm. Nevertheless, social justice as an aim of political and social agency on a global scale cannot be approached without any idea of progress in the sense of bringing diversities together towards joint action. The concepts of social justice and progress are intertwined. In order to find a common ground for religious and secular motivated projects of social justice, the paper discusses the concepts of progress in the perspective of a traditional adversary of linear progress modernism: the papacy. Focusing on social teaching contributions by the last two popes’—Benedict XVI (Spe Salvi) and Francis (Laudato Si’)—the finding is that despite variations both popes argue that a transcendent perspective on progress can empower improvements towards more social justice by encouraging and simultaneously limiting human agency.

Introduction: Popes on the Rise

A mong the accounts of the Kings of Israel in the Catholic Bible, a prophet named Elisha prays for the eyes of a blinded servant (2 Kings, Chapter 6). There is nothing wrong with that servant’s eyes. But what he cannot see are mountains “full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.” Here, maybe, are the Pope’s divisions Joseph Stalin infamously derided. Here too, are what foreign policy scholars have called the spiritual power of religious movements that can topple states and empires, mediate peace, and propel to war. This, certainly, is the heritage and promise of Vatican foreign policy in the world today: a force that is real, but also one that is necessarily limited, case studies of which are afresh and aplenty in our world today. Just in the last several years, there has been a renaissance not only in study but in practice of Vatican diplomacy. We have found the Holy See intervening in Cuba, mediating conversations between then-President Obama and the Cuban President Raúl Castro. Vatican diplomats have been on the ground in Venezuela, attempting to mediate peace between the government of Nicolás Maduro and the opposition. The Holy See has been at the forefront of a big push at the United Nations on a new global treaty banning nuclear weapons. And this is the just the front-page news. Dig into the inglorious grunt work in dusty committee rooms, and you’ll find Vatican diplomats at the 2013 Geneva peace talks to end the Syrian war, at the Truth and Reconciliation process in post-Apartheid South Africa, in the Solidarity movement in Poland, and the list goes on. But even with all these interventions, of course, the Holy See can still seem like an oldworld relic in a hyper-modern world of hard power and economic globalization. What does a small quasi-sovereign mini-state really bring to the table on the “real” issues of international relations? Where, after all, are Elisha’s angel legions in the failed states of Somalia, the civil war in Yemen, the desolate destruction of Mosul, and more? The Vatican might specialize in a kind of boutique moral-diplomacy, but the heavy lifting of the international order will always be left to states with carrier groups and IMF voting blocks. Part of the argument of this issue is that this is not true. What counts as “real” and, indeed, what counts as “heavy lifting” in a globe oftenconsumed by growth rates and security dilemmas needs to be reconsidered. Just as the Vatican by its very existence challenges our common understanding of things like sovereignty and

Identität und kulturelles Gedächtnis. Erinnerungsorte am Mittelmeer als Bausteine einer europäischen Nachbarschaftspolitik im Arabischen Frühling

Eine der Grundentscheidungen, die fiir das Fundament der europaischen Mittelmeerpolitik seit 1995 getroffen wurden, stellt die weitgehende sakulare Versiegelung der Erinnerung an die jahrhundertelangen Konflikte der Christenheit und des Islams dar.