Secularity is a historical product of modern ages that signaled a diminishing role of transcendence in public as well as individual life, changing effectively the common understanding of key social institutions: economy, state, knowledge, the family, religion. It may take on the form of a neutral lack of transcendence in public life and personal orientation (secularization); it can also appear as an active ideological presence – an ambitious project to remove any reference to transcendence from public life in view of creating “a religion free zone” (secularism). In the first case secularity comes about as a result of a civilization process of subtraction, in which religion melts under the pressure of modern technology, science, economy, a new philosophical orientation, and political frameworks. In the second one, it assumes the form of a bellicose ideology which implies a specific agenda of actions against religion. Secularity came into being as an outcome of philosophical, cultural and political shifts that strived to free individuals from being subjects of the old moral order, and make them inde-pendent autonomous agents that live in the unprecedented conditions of novus ordo seculorum and secular, ordinary time.

The author tries to explain what consequences for social morality ensue from the assumption that moral attitudes are expressed not only in words but also in reactive attitudes. P.F. Strawson assumes that acts of resentment can alter attitudes of those who have triggered them by their behavior. On the other hand, we are ready to control our outbursts of short temper and anger to a certain degree if we take into account agents’ motives and their limited ability to exercise self-control. Moreover, it seems that reactive attitudes – though less precise than verbal rebuke – are more frank and straightforward. Nevertheless, why must I, when I hear a mediocre academic researcher brag over and over again about his apparently essential contribution to philosophy, curb my moral assessment of his self-importance to the level of my irritation? Why should I feel constrained to keep my moral disgust in tune with my impatience mixed with amusement? Why shouldn’t I continue to believe that I can be an amiable character and a rigorous moral person at the same time?

After having clarified the concept of secularization and outlined its problems, the author gives an overview of the different causes of secularization and points out that the forces driving the process of secularization have Christian origins. On this basis, in the third part of the article, the author describes and lays the foundation for a new attitude for the Church towards secularization, necessary both for being able to convert herself to the gospel and to evangelize people in the world today. One of the most important parts of this attitude is respect for the autonomy of every human person, intrinsically related to respect for the dignity of every person. The end of the article, looking to the future, points out the consequences of such an attitude towards the discussion of some burning questions in the Church.

In many countries, rapid secularisation exerts an ever growing control over nearly every aspect of social life, driving Christianity away from public life and substitu-ting it with an increasingly militant ideology. Christianity today faces many questions and challenges, from profound shifts in traditional values and new anthropologies to questions on the meaning of life and the place of the Church in pluralistic society. Do the Christians of today have anything to offer in the modern Areopagus of thought? Though in minority during the first few centuries of their history, Christians not only were able to claim their due place in society, but point to their contribution to its well-being and functioning. After the so-called Edict of Milan they tried to influence legislation and imbue it with the values and spirit of the Gospel. Not always was it possible, though. At times the border between the state and the Church were crossed either way. Nevertheless, in order to safeguard the autonomy of the Church in her re-lationship with the state, the former tried to adhere to the wise principle she received from her Founder to give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.

The presented paper describes the phenomenon of secularisation and secularism in the culture of Western Europe, and attempts to identify its sources. The first point of the paper, The meaning of secularization and secularism, explains secularisation as a social process in which religion or, more strictly, religious institutes, religious behaviour, and religiously inspired conscience, are gradually losing their control over many fields of social activity such like education, arts or politics. Secularisation can be labelled as a philosophy of life “as if there were no God”, or a kind of ideology that tries to justify not only the very fact of secularisation but declares it a source and norm for human progress and demands the proclamation of man’s absolute autonomy in shaping his own destination. Among many philosophers who have influenced development of secularisation and secularism two stand out: R. Descartes (second point) and F. Nietzsche (third point). In the philosophy of Descartes one can identify at least four sources of modern secularism. These are: his concept of philosophy, theory of cognition with the resulting departure from classical concepts of truth and rationality and development of alternative ones, Cartesian metaphysics and the arguments for the existence of God and his concept of the nature of God evolving from those arguments. The last part of the article presents Nietzsche’s move away from the faith in Christian God and his turn to atheism. At least three fundamental causes for Nietzsche’s radical autosecularisation can be discerned: the emotional religion of his home, his disbelief in the authenticity of the Bible and his growing familiarity with the philosophy of Schopenhauer.

This paper not only clarifies the concepts of secularism and secularization, but also analyzes them, and in its final part it evaluates them. The phenomenon of secu-larism is defined as an ideological and active attitude of hostility toward everything that is Christian. In turn, secularism, quite strongly associated with the current form of culture of societies and their development, is seeking autonomy and freedom. Rad-ical (sometimes irresponsible) secularization thesis of the Protestant (R. Bultmann, K. Barth, D. Bonhoeffer, E. Fuchs, F. Gogarten, G. Vahanian, P. van Buren, W. Ham-ilton, Th . J. Alitzer, J.A.T. Robinson, D. Sölle, W. Pannenberg) mind has been adopted by most Catholic theologians with a reasonable reserve. Catholic doctrine accepts the autonomy of temporal realities and a specifically understood process of profanation of the world (constructio mundi and consecratio mundi). However, the fact that different sectors of earthly life are governed by their own relevant laws, does not mean that the created things are totally independent of God, or that man can dispose of them freely and without any relation to the Creator (K. Rahner, J. B. Metz, P. Teilhard de Chardin, M. D. Chenu, J. Danielou, G. Thils, Ch. Duquoc, J. Maritain, H. de Lubac, Y. Congar, Cz. Bartnik, A. Skowronek, A. Nossol, J. Mariański). The position of the Catholic Church on this matter is contained in the conciliar Constitution Gaudium et Spes.