One can say the degree to which a scoiety is secularised based on the following criteria. Someone has put forwarded six charecterestics of a secularised society.

1. in a secularised society, the Church’s role in the areas like education and healthcare will be minimal.
2. in a secularised society, religious institutions like churches and religious persons like priests and nuns will not be respected very much.
3. in a secularised society, people do not like to speak about their religion in public. It is called Privatization of religion.
4. in a religious society, the values of science and technology are preferred to concepts like sacredness and mystery.
5. in a secularized society, religious entities tend to make their presence in the worldly matters more than in the spiritual matters.
6. in a secularized society, the religious memory of the individual is fading.

If we look at our society in Kerala through the specs of these criteria of secularized society, one can easily suggest that Kerala society, at least in the cities, are quickly getting secularized.

Nowadays it is not at all easy to run educational and healthcare institutions in Kerala as the Government here uses all their machinery to limit the Church interventions. The efforts of the Government recently to experiment with the school curriculum are best examples.

A decline in respect the nuns and priests had in the past is caused by many factors. We cannot sideline the fact that the irresponsible lifestyle by a few of them has created a general impression on the priesthood and religious life as a whole. It is a challenge in front of the priests and nuns to live in the world but without of this world.

Privatization of the religion is a phenomenon mostly noted in the cities. Almost all the people believe in God and engaged in religious practices of their own. The number of people who associate themselves with a parish is on a decrease. Though this privatization is on an increase among Christians and Hindus, in Muslim communities, publicization of their religion is on an increase.

As the science and technology began to step in to many of the unknown territories of human knowledge, the reverence to mystery is on a decrease. One must acknowledge that it is the mystery aspect that is one of the most important cornerstones of religion. Mystery and embracing the mystery with faith have been the style of Christian formation all throughout.

Unfortunately, the Church on her part has fallen in the trap set up by the secularized world. The Church in an effort not to get alienated from this world got into worldly affairs in an unprecedented way and slowly loosing its ground in the process.

I have asked many Christians who are just back from a Holy Mass which was the gospel reading of the day. Not many have given me an answer. That is a symptom of religious Alzheimer. Alzheimer patients loose their way even in doing daily activities due to the lack of memory. Christians loose their way in their daily lives due to the lack of religious memory. That is why in their workplace or in their study places, their activities are not influenced by the religious values.

In the course of explaining the criteria of a secularized society, I have pointed out many reasons of societies getting secularized quite quickly. It is our thrownness that we have to live in a secularized society. We cannot do much about it. The question is that cannot we live as a religious person even in a secularized society. I would love to have responses to that “existential” question, “cannot we live as a religious person even in a secularized society?” Or, “are all the efforts for the same just a lost battle?”