"Ultimately, Benedict's long exposition was not about Islam but about the dangers of secularism in the Christian West and the need to better know God, his favored themes. But the remarks on Islam, however couched, were likely to draw the most attention."
Herald.net
http://www.heraldnet.com/...
As with his Islamic counterparts, the Pope is being left in the dust of history; he cannot comprehend where secular humanism is going.
The simple fact of the matter is that the majority of educated individuals are quite capable of reaching their own interpretation of the great mystery without the dogma of organized religion to show them the way.
It is not that secular humanists are banished from an ability to have religious experience, it is simply that they feel no compunction to enforce their personal communion upon others.
That is a powerful weapon, because it sits upon a foundation of reason, and it is the ability to reason that has brought us the cornucopia that we in the West enjoy today.
Religion in the West is not dead. It is stronger than ever. It consists of countless individual searches for the great questions of existence. It is quiet, unspectacular and apparently goes completely unnoticed by Pope Benedict XVI.