Global Catholicism and the Politics of Civil Society

Abstract

A transformation of the politics of Catholicism worldwide has taken place. The final recognition of the modern principle of religious freedom at Vatican II, together with the assumption by the church of the modern doctrine of human rights, has altered the traditional dynamic of church state relations and the role of the church both nationally and transnationally.National churches no longer aspire to become state compulsory institutions. It is this voluntary “disestablishment” that has permitted the church to play a key role in recent transitions to democracy throughout the Catholic world. Simultaneously, the papacy has assumed the vacant role of spokesperson for humanity, for the sacred dignity of the human person, for world peace, and for a more fair division of labor and power in the world system.As the Catholic Church abandons the private sphere assigned to religion and enters the undifferentiated public sphere of civil society to take part in ongoing processes of normative contestation, a tension between catholic universality and Roman Catholic particularity becomes evident.