The most interesting answer of the Holy Father in the impromptu press conference which took place during his Rome-Washington flight was in response to a question by Andrea Tornielli:
[Tornielli:] Your Holiness, when welcoming the new Ambassador of the United States to the Holy See, you remembered positively the public role of religion in the United States. Do you think that, from this perspective, the US is a model for secularized Europe? Do you not believe that there is the risk of using religion and the name of God to justify a policy or a war? [sic]
[Pope Benedict:] "We certainly cannot simply copy the USA in Europe. We have our history. But we must all learn from one another. What I find fascinating in the USA is that it began with a positive concept of secularism. Because this new people was made up of communities and persons who had escaped the State religions and wished to have a lay, secular State, which opens the doors to all confessions, to all forms of religious exercise. It was thus a willingly secular State, it was really contrary to a State Church, but secular truly for love of religion, of its authenticity, which can be lived only freely. And thus we find this fusion of a willingly and honestly secular State, but really for a religious will, to grant authenticity to religion. And we know that A.[lexis] de Tocqueville, studying America, saw that the secular institutions depend on a de facto moral consensus which exists among the citizens. This seems to me a fundamental and positive model to be considered also in Europe; in the meantime, 200 years have passed, with so many developments. Now, there is even in the US an attack of a new Secularism, a new completely different Secularism, and, therefore, new problems. [As] Immigration and the ideal of the WASP. Therefore, the situation has become complex, differentiated with history. But the fundamental model seems to me, even today, worthy of being acknowledged."
The Pope is not incorrect in his historical view of the matter. It is perhaps enough to remember that, in the most Catholic of the Colonies, Maryland, Catholic subjects, who for nearly a century had been persecuted by the clergy and members of the Established Church (the"Church of England"), enthusiastically supported Independence from the British Crown for good reason.
