About thirty years ago, a determined group of Christian parents demanded that creationism be taught in public schools along with Darwinian evolution as an alternative theory. The demand made quite a stir at the University of New Orleans where I was at the time. Some of the faculty were so aghast that they felt compelled to speak out publicly in opposition. A debate ensued between two “experts,” during which a prominent Protestant pastor called his opponent, a science faculty member, a “humanist.” The science professor was nonplussed. Of course he was a humanist, he responded, confused to be called a “name” which he assumed to be universally complimentary. (It wasn’t.)

“What we have here is a failure to communicate,” says Cool Hand Luke’s boss-man. Actually, what we have here is a failure to educate, both the doctorate-wielding pastor and the science professor. “Humanism” is an obscure term precisely because of the respective historical prejudices of the two “experts”; i.e., the anti-Catholic history of Protestantism and the anti-religious history of academic science. Both experts were ignorant.

The term is entirely Catholic in origin, a philosophical reaction to perceived narrowness of medieval scholasticism. It began sometime in the fourteenth century and reached full flower in the Renaissance, especially in the writings of Erasmus and St. Thomas More, among others. Thereafter, however, it was hi-jacked, like so much else, by the Deformation and the subsequent darkening of intellectual history commonly referred to as the Enlightenment. Today, it has become almost synonymous with secularism as a moral and legal codex for government and public discourse. It has also—though not necessarily by its proper name—become iconic in popular culture. (John Lennon’s anthem “Imagine,” for example, is humanist.) But many self-identified humanists, the science professor among them, might be surprised to learn that the term is entirely Christian, specifically Catholic Christian.

Some better-educated writers distinguish between secular humanism and Christian humanism, as Archbishop Chaput does here in Joseph’s recent link: http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2012/12/7440/ but most [less educated] writers do not, unfortunately. Hence, confusion reigns. In fact, Christ was a humanist by the term’s actual definition. But because of the hi-jack, we must now append “Christian” to the term in order to avoid the confusion caused by the historical hi-jacking. Some modern examples of “Christian humanism” include Dorothy Day, Mother Teresa, and John Paul II. But, ironically, we cannot call them by that name.