The great Pontiff has come and he's here for his flock. In a world of voluntary association, that's just fine. But when he starts messing with good old fashioned secular humanism, I start talking about imaginary friends too. When they start equating it with ideology you know he's either a carzy old man or there is a serious agenda emanating from his palace in Rome. 
So let's get this straight, the Catholic Church loots all level of society with its play on the fear of death, suffers an organization whose leaders frequently bugger little children, has all manner of wealth employed in keeping the Pope like an ancient emperor and then derides it own for not casting off the Robe into material nakedness like St. Francis ? Next thing you know they might start taking Jesus seriously and wondering if ideology in general is the cause of war, famine and horrible things to many people.
Seriously, who decided that the arbitrator's of morality are from a powerful religion ? Why are rational, diligent actors vilified for the failings of that same religion ? While this isn't a fight I usually take up at the mixed dinner table, when pressed by the same dinner companion who is a zealot of sorts, frees one from the polite manners of said society. The retort of course not being the nasty, ill tempered attempt to demean, but rather the cool reflection about what is being suggested.
Certainly it is probably the case the old Benedict is just rallying the troops in the face of the horrible incidents of abuse and in the interest of the flock. Secular has also come to mean godless miscreants in far too many circles however. The most dangerous aspect of it is the idea that religious temperament should somehow influence ideology which someone has some ultimate dominion over us in a hostile polity.
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