For the past several years, a lively debate has emerged among Catholics and other political thinkers over what has come to be known as “postliberalism.” The heart of the debate concerns a basic question: What principles should guide public life and political institutions in an age when many people have lost confidence in the moral and social assumptions that have shaped the modern West?
By “liberalism,” debate participants tend to refer to the political philosophy that has largely shaped Western democracies over the past two centuries. It is one that raises individual liberty to the level of the supreme social good, even at the expense of the communal bonds with their corresponding social norms that have traditionally held societies together.
Towering figures in the field, such as John Rawls and Ronald Dworkin in the English-speaking world and Jürgen Habermas in Europe, personally rejected religious belief, and though tolerant of the right of others to believe in God and practice religion, aimed to provide the theoretical architecture for the strict separation not only of church and state but of religion and public affairs, all in the name of ensuring individuals operate in a “neutral” public square, free from outside religious influence.
