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The Church-State relationships in EU Member States are in a process of a radical transformation. This is the result of a rapid political integration and also of the major transformations of the modernity. Religion is still part of the European public space even if, according to modernity premises, it should be only a private matter. According to Max Weber and other authors, secularization diminishes the role of the religion in society. However, these theories are being contested in recent years, due to the interpretation of statistical data and to the emergence of fundamentalist religious movements spreading around the world. Consequently, secularization is a tendency and not an "iron law". As regards the current role of the religion, Silvio Ferrari developed the theory according to which there is a common European model. This model does not exist yet, but certainly we live in an era defined by the continuous searching of such a model. There is no European identity without common values. Some of these values, like toleration, do have a profound religious foundation. European integration is based on the action of different actors, including interest groups located in Brussels. The Churches and the religious organizations are also part of this category of actors and they try to be part of a process by which a common space for consultation will emerge.

In this article we intend undertake a reading of ancient judaism, or veterotestamentary, in some of its main aspects, in contrast to the Machiavellian view of the role of religion in the organization and expansion of the State. The first step of this enterprise will be given by exposing the founding and delineanting features of the ancient Jewish tradition, especially in the books that make up the so-called Old Testament, demonstranting the using of religion in the ordination and expansion of the State, as well as in the formation of the individual. In a second moment we will demonstrate how to create a new Jewish tradition, influenced and influential on the ancient Greek world, early in the Christian era which will be assimilated and explored in its mystical bias in Renaissance humanism. This Hellenistic Judaism tradition will be best known and assimilated in the European erudite circles of the Renaissance. Finally, we will try to demonstrate how the constitutive features of ancient Judaism, to the detriment of Hellenistic Judaism, can be read in the light of Machiavellian description of the role of religion in the organization and expansion of the State and the formation of the individual.

A sociedade israelense constitui um exemplo interessante de religião da política, ou seja, um exemplo de como a dimensão política de uma sociedade pode adquirir um aspecto religioso próprio, assumindo um caráter de sacralidade. No início da experiência sionista acentua-se em Israel a religião do trabalho, a construção de um calendário cívico, a formação de uma nova identidade nacional. A partir da metade dos anos 1970, outros fatores prevalecem: a memória da Shoah, a construção de lugares do martírio nacional, o mito da resistência até o último homem. Chama-se a atenção, neste ensaio, para os percursos de uma sociedade civil que sente a necessidade de reescrever os contornos de sua identidade e remodelar a memória pública, pensando em si mesma como comunidade nacional. ; Israeli society constitutes an interesting example of the religion of politics, that is, an example of how the political dimension of a society may acquire a religious aspect of its own and assume a sacred character. In the beginning of the Zionist experience, the religion of labor, the construction of a civic calendar and of a new national identity gained importance. From the mid 1970's on, other factors have prevailed. They are: memories from the Ha-Shoah, the construction of national martyrdom sites, and the myth of resistance until the last man. In this essay, the tracks taken by a civil society that feels the necessity of redefining the contours of its identity and remodeling its public memory, considering itself a national community, are emphasized.

The original forms of social organisation show the close interdependence between political and religious systems. The religious pregnancy attributed to the phenomenon of nationality is part of that scenery of genealogical proximity between the political and the religious. The founding myths through which nationalities legitimize and consecrate themselves are just one of the various ways of conferring religious dimension to the national reality. Being a creation of modern times, the national spirit follows and spreads at the same time that the process of secularization of the already been designated. ; As formas originárias de organização social mostram a estreita interdependência entre sistemas políticos e sistemas religiosos. A pregnância religiosa atribuída ao fenómeno da nacionalidade insere-se nesse cenário de proximidade genealógica do político e do teológico. Os mitos fundadores com que as nacionalidades se legitimam e sacralizam são apenas uma das várias maneiras de conferir dimensão religiosa à realidade nacional. Sendo uma criação dos tempos modernos, o espírito nacional acompanha e difunde-se ao mesmo tempo que se intensifica o processo de secularização da sociedade ocidental. Assume, de modo paradoxal, o estatuto de "Deus da Modernidade" como já foi designado.

The original forms of social organisation show the close interdependence between political and religious systems. The religious pregnancy attributed to the phenomenon of nationality is part of that scenery of genealogical proximity between the political and the religious. The founding myths through which nationalities legitimize and consecrate themselves are just one of the various ways of conferring religious dimension to the national reality. Being a creation of modern times, the national spirit follows and spreads at the same time that the process of secularization of the already been designated. ; As formas originárias de organização social mostram a estreita interdependência entre sistemas políticos e sistemas religiosos. A pregnância religiosa atribuída ao fenómeno da nacionalidade insere-se nesse cenário de proximidade genealógica do político e do teológico. Os mitos fundadores com que as nacionalidades se legitimam e sacralizam são apenas uma das várias maneiras de conferir dimensão religiosa à realidade nacional. Sendo uma criação dos tempos modernos, o espírito nacional acompanha e difunde-se ao mesmo tempo que se intensifica o processo de secularização da sociedade ocidental. Assume, de modo paradoxal, o estatuto de "Deus da Modernidade" como já foi designado.

Any reflection on the relationship between religion and politics in the Catholic thought cannot do without reminding the Augustinian distinction between the civitas Dei and civitas terrena. The goal and foundation of any just political community should be the orientation to wards the common good. In the contemporary catholic thought, Johann Baptist Metz proposes a political theology revolving around the concepts of the value of the human person, the necessary refusal, on the part of the Church, of any mundane ideology and the necessary use of the socially critical potential of theological thought. Hans Küng criticizes any politicization of theology. He insists on the development of an internal pluralism within the Church and advocates a self-limitation of the magisterial intervention in the world in the name of a necessary "eschato logical reserve". Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict the XVIth , invested with the magisterial authority, relies heavily on official documents of the Catholic social doctrine. He emphasizes the necessity of founding the state on the central value of justice and its acting according to the principle of subsidiarity. In this context, the Christian faith and the Church in particular may have a pedagogical role, as it may guide reason to follow the right priorities. All three thinkers agree on the public significance of the Christian vision of society and on the fact that it may help society both by its critical and by its constructive dimension.

Pierre Manent is viewed as a French thinker that develops in modern times the liberal tradition of political thinking. One of the most important issues of Manent's thinking that was not enough underlined it is the relationship between religion an politics and how this evolved from the beginning of Christianity until the main consequences of modernity. Manent view on religion and politics is the core of this paper analysis. The main contributions of Manent, such as Naissances de la politique moderne. Machiavel, Hobbes, Rousseau (1977), Histoire intellectuelle du lib.ralisme (1987) La cit. de l'homme (1994), Cours familier de philosophie politique (2001), La raison des nations. R.flections sur la d.mocratie en Europe (2006) are analyzed from this perspective. Our conclusion is that in the way Manent deals with the relationship between politics and religion there are some constants that may be found in all his work. These are: the relationship between the Church and the different forms of political organization in Europe (Civitas, Imperium, monarchy); the fact that Christianity is one of the few current relevant concepts for political, due to the failure of totalitarian ideologies; the idea that secularization in Europe is not irreversible; we live in "an age of separations", and Church-State is one of these separations; we witness the religion transformation process and the .tat la.que cannot survive to .tat-nation; the role of Islam in modern societies and his perpetual finding of a political form; the relationship between Judaism, state and nation; the issue of the Christian identity of Europe.

This article intends to analyze the role of religion in the public sphere in Habermas's theory. Despite the fact that the concept has been launched in a book published in 1961, only in 2005 the well-known German thinker has dealt explicitly with this issue. Even the critics of his public sphere model do not mention the lack of religion from the whole paradigm. Some of Habermas writings related to religion prior to 2005 are discussed. The role of religion in the public sphere is, according to Habermas, related with the issue of religious freedom and the State- Church separation, a model opposed to French laicïté. For Habermas, the state must not only be neutral to the religious discourse, but it must also encourage the participation of political organizations to public life. Another issue that is discussed by Habermas is the relationship between religious majorities and minorities. Habermas does assume a middle position between laicïté and the refuse of the modernity-imposed borders between religion and politics. The article takes an insight into the way Charles Taylor deals with the role of religion in the public sphere, a helpful argument for showing that the debate on this issue is only at the beginning.

At the margins of modern medical practice, pushing the very limits of science, and indefatigably rendering the precincts of public discourse, still functional remnants of Christian civilization continue to provide care for the hopeless, perform healing sacraments for the incurable, and curate objects of votive devotion for the suffering and needy. These public services go largely unaccounted for, though they secure an ordered world, structure perception, and serve as ontological anchors. Lost in the vague, scientifically unrarified notions of spirituality that brace a general, undifferentiated worldwide metaphysical experience and disregard immense cultural, functional, geographic and performative distinctness, Catholic sacramental practices aimed at alleviating suffering and promoting healthy lifestyles are receiving only marginal mention in scientific literature(1), despite the fact that they make up daily reality in large parts of contemporary Europe and Latin America. Writing this editorial from the Northeast of Brazil, where traditional religious practice has sustained generations through the calamities of severe droughts, slavery, extreme poverty, high child mortality, failed political orders, and a harsh global economic reality, it is difficult to underestimate the power of sacramental experience to sustain a cultural identity. It was defined the concept of care of the sick in the context of the religious experience of the Northeast of Brazil which is historically relevant to health promotion. Until the emergence of national health care in the late nineteenth century, it was largely the order of the Franciscan friars that was charged with promoting healthy lives in the region. The Catholic concept of care that guided their efforts structures three procedural reality principles: the psychological reality of the transference to the person in one's charge (care/caritas), the performative practice of religious sacrament such as the anointment of the sick or ex-voto devotionals, and the physical object ...