I think you are misreading Rawls. Rawls had zero problem with people living their faith in public.
However, he thought that comprehensive doctrines like religion should not form the basis of public reason when utilized to determine anything that involves the coercive apparatus of the state.
It's obvious why--because this would be arbitrary exercise of power of some private doctrines over people who don't share them and therefore impede their liberty. The same goes for moral views. A vegan judge should not be able to enforce his private moral doctrine to outlaw meat eating on people who don't share that private moral doctrine.
It's not opposed to religion per se but instead holds that in a society there's a shared pool of values, an overlapping consensus of values that we draw from in a liberal society whereby we can shape the society. So of course they involve lots of things religious people care about, but only the ones that are part of public morality can legitimately be enforced on people.
Any religious person can try to convince people of their views publicly but obviously if they don't share the religion, they have to orient the argument to values people outside the religion care about.
This makes sense for liberal society I think because we don't force people to believe or follow specific comprehensive doctrines. We don't have a state religion.
Religious people can do anything in public life except force people to abide by rules that only make sense within their private value system, and hold no meaning for those outside their value system. They can use any type of persuasion they want, tie their religious views to ideas in the overlapping consensus, convert people, etc.
"This makes sense for liberal society I think because we don't force people to believe or follow specific comprehensive doctrines. We don't have a state religion."
Much to like in your comment. However, I would be curious how you would respond to the criticism that our society is perilously close to having a "secular" state religion...via installation of the "woke" agenda (e.g., DEI) across many of our key institutions. Is the administrative state (e.g., through the Department of Education) forcing people to abide by rules that represent some "public" value system upon which there is a shared consensus by the governed?
Intellectually everything you say here is true but I fear there is a different reality on the ground. Post-Vatican II Catholicism and Liberalism SHOULD find common ground based on universal human dignity.
BUT Liberalism remains just as hostile to Catholicism as it ever has been since the Enlightenment.
And Catholicism for its part is orbiting closer and closer to illiberal authoritarianism around the world--- except in the Vatican of course where a single man is laboring, probably to the point of exhaustion and ill health, to retrieve the Post-Vatican II vision of the Church and the world. (Make "Gaudium et Spes" Great Again!)
In America there is a goodly number of the laity, some clergy and even a few hierarchs who are aligning themselves with the MAGA movement, Donald Trump and are about as equally hateful (and untruthful) of Pope Francis as they are of Joe Biden. They are using the pulpit and opinion pages to align themselves with Christian Nationalism.
I think you are misreading Rawls. Rawls had zero problem with people living their faith in public.
However, he thought that comprehensive doctrines like religion should not form the basis of public reason when utilized to determine anything that involves the coercive apparatus of the state.
It's obvious why--because this would be arbitrary exercise of power of some private doctrines over people who don't share them and therefore impede their liberty. The same goes for moral views. A vegan judge should not be able to enforce his private moral doctrine to outlaw meat eating on people who don't share that private moral doctrine.
It's not opposed to religion per se but instead holds that in a society there's a shared pool of values, an overlapping consensus of values that we draw from in a liberal society whereby we can shape the society. So of course they involve lots of things religious people care about, but only the ones that are part of public morality can legitimately be enforced on people.
Any religious person can try to convince people of their views publicly but obviously if they don't share the religion, they have to orient the argument to values people outside the religion care about.
This makes sense for liberal society I think because we don't force people to believe or follow specific comprehensive doctrines. We don't have a state religion.
Religious people can do anything in public life except force people to abide by rules that only make sense within their private value system, and hold no meaning for those outside their value system. They can use any type of persuasion they want, tie their religious views to ideas in the overlapping consensus, convert people, etc.
"This makes sense for liberal society I think because we don't force people to believe or follow specific comprehensive doctrines. We don't have a state religion."
Much to like in your comment. However, I would be curious how you would respond to the criticism that our society is perilously close to having a "secular" state religion...via installation of the "woke" agenda (e.g., DEI) across many of our key institutions. Is the administrative state (e.g., through the Department of Education) forcing people to abide by rules that represent some "public" value system upon which there is a shared consensus by the governed?
Love this series!
Intellectually everything you say here is true but I fear there is a different reality on the ground. Post-Vatican II Catholicism and Liberalism SHOULD find common ground based on universal human dignity.
BUT Liberalism remains just as hostile to Catholicism as it ever has been since the Enlightenment.
And Catholicism for its part is orbiting closer and closer to illiberal authoritarianism around the world--- except in the Vatican of course where a single man is laboring, probably to the point of exhaustion and ill health, to retrieve the Post-Vatican II vision of the Church and the world. (Make "Gaudium et Spes" Great Again!)
In America there is a goodly number of the laity, some clergy and even a few hierarchs who are aligning themselves with the MAGA movement, Donald Trump and are about as equally hateful (and untruthful) of Pope Francis as they are of Joe Biden. They are using the pulpit and opinion pages to align themselves with Christian Nationalism.