ABSTRACT
In his homily during Holy Mass on the solemnity of Pentecost 2016, Pope Francis spoke of an ‘all-too-common spiritual illiteracy’ that leads to an inability to pray and to recognize in every human being a brother or a sister. He diagnoses that Americans are deeply religious and at the same time more and more ignorant about religious traditions. Clericalism upheld improving the quality of Religious Education of the clergy by promoting the pious devotion of students rather than their intellectual capacity for theological reflection and critical comparison. The European religious landscape has become pluralistic to such an extent that one can find all kinds of religions and faiths, and people from those who are explicitly agnostics or atheists, to those who do not confess or profess any religious belonging. The development demonstrated creates challenges, one of which entails recognizing religion as a part of modernity. The process of secularization offers religions new possibilities.
