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Benedict. Read some of the speeches and interviews he gave during his visit here in April of 2008:

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Fr Lombardi: Thank you, Your Holiness. Now a question that refers to American society and, to be precise, to the place of religious values in American society. Let us give the floor to our colleague Andrea Tornielli, who is on the Vatican desk of an Italian newspaper.

Holy Father, in receiving the new Ambassador of the United States of America, you noted that the public “values the role of religious belief in ensuring a sound democratic order” in the United States. I wanted to ask you if you consider this a plausible model for a secularized Europe too, or whether you think there can also be the risk that religion and God’s Name could be used as a vehicle for certain policies, even war.

The Holy Father: Of course, in Europe we cannot simply copy the United States: we have our own history. But we must all learn from one another. What I find fascinating in the United States is that they began with a positive concept of secularity, because this new people was composed of communities and individuals who had fled from the State Church and wanted to have a lay, a secular State that would give access and opportunities to all denominations, to all forms of religious practice. Thus, an intentionally secular new State was born; they were opposed to a State Church. But the State itself had to be secular precisely out of love for religion in its authenticity, which can only be lived freely. And thus, we find this situation of a State deliberately and decidedly secular but precisely through a religious will in order to give authenticity to religion. And we know that in studying America, Alexis de Toqueville noticed that secular institutions live with a de facto moral consensus that exists among the citizens. This seems to me to be a fundamental and positive model. It should be taken into account that in Europe in the meantime, over 200 years have passed with many developments. Today, there is also in the United States the attack of a new secularism, quite a different kind. Whereas, at first the problems concerned immigration, but later in the course of history the situation became complicated and therefore differentiated. But the foundation, the fundamental model also seems to me today to be worthy of being borne in mind in Europe.