Rev. John Neuhaus, while still a Lutheran minister, wrote a famous, time-honored book in 1984, entitled The Naked Public Square, in which he mounted an elegant and spirited critique of the then growing movement to suppress and “cleanse” religious references and symbols from our public marketplace of ideas and, indeed, from our entire national “public square,” leaving it “naked,” that is, denuded of all religious references or inputs.

This movement threatened a wholesale secularization of our culture, as indeed, Reverend Neuhaus quoted Clifford Geertz, the eminent sociologist, to the effect that: “Culture is an historically transmitted pattern of meanings, embodied in symbols, a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms by means of which men communicate, perpetuate and develop their knowledge about and attitudes toward life.”

On the other hand, Geertz defined religion as a “system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, pervasive and long-lasting moods and motivations by…formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic.” Thus, Geertz pointed out that there is a very broad degree of overlap between religion and culture.

It seems to me, therefore, that when we propose to “change the culture” or “recapture the culture,” an important element of that effort is the promotion and display of our Christian symbols in the public square – in other words, we have to push back, and hard, against the false gods of secularism and their zealots such as the Freedom from Religion Foundation and the ACLU.

Thomas More Society has helped secure permits for private citizens to display Nativity Scenes in many State Capitols, and similarly we won the right to put up two religious displays in Chicago’s Daley Plaza during Holy Week and Easter.

By displaying these symbols of the Cross and Divine Mercy icon in the public square, we highlight the Christian meaning of Easter. We’re adding our two cents to the marketplace of ideas. Anyone who agrees – or disagrees – is welcome to join us.