Leave me be!

What the hell is "aggressive secularism"? How can secularism be aggressive when it is essentially a negative concept? Secularism is like the floor, and religion - or indeed any other system of beliefs - is a rug placed on it. What you can see is the rug, but the floor is still there, and if the rug is taken away, or begins to get threadbare and develop holes, the floor comes into view again. To suggest that this is "aggressive" behaviour by the floor is laughable. I assume what the Pope really had in mind was atheism, which is a positive philosophy, and certainly has found a rather strident voice recently. Secularism is simply an acceptance of things as they are, without the need to adopt any particular philosophical stance - religious or otherwise. The aggression comes from those who demand that everybody sees things their way - whether it be the Pope or Richard Dawkins.