[LiteKeeper]

anti-clerical

What does that have to do with fighting secularism? That is a strange response to my comment.

[annalex]

What does [clericalism] have to do with fighting secularism?

Why, a lot. The Catholic Church believes that there are lines of authority that go from Christ and through His Church and they completely bypass the civil magistrate. If the state passes laws that accord with the Natural Law, we support the state; if it passes laws that don't, we ignore these laws. Specifically, these are the things that are together uniquely Catholic, that are each a bastion against the forces of secularism (from my earlier post on another thread):

• insistence on biblical inerrancy free from fundamentalist literalism;
• hierarchical structure with immutable 2 thousand year-old agenda;
• absence of independent local leadership;
• moral absolutes that derive from natural law and therefore apply to Catholics and non-Catholics alike;
• monastic tradition;
• independent from the government education by celibate clergy;
• conditional obedience to civil laws: a law that the Church sees as unjust does not have to be obeyed no matter how many people voted for it.