In a series of articles which have appeared in The Angelus, Front Porch Republic, and The Josias, I have attempted to sketch a general outline of what John Zmirak broadly decries as “illiberal Catholicism” and what I now prefer to differentiate into two camps: “radical” and “integralist Catholics.” (Those interested in these and other “off-blog” pieces can find them linked in the “Writings” section.) After scanning through various remarks on these articles in comboxes, blogs, and social media sites, it appears that there is still some confusion about integralism generally and the project of The Josias specifically. Without wishing to drape myself in the mantle of being a spokesman for a movement to which I only contribute modestly, allow me to offer a few general clarifying remarks which may prove useful to those who have only recently come upon what I hope will be a sustained integralist turn in Catholic thought. None of these comments are intended to criticize those who may harbor some misunderstandings about what Catholic integralism is for or how it relates to other socio-political paradigms both within and beyond the Catholic tradition. I take full responsibility for any ambiguities, misstatements, or unwarranted generalizations which may have crept into my previous writings on integralism, just as I recognize that this blog entry will hardly amount to my final word on the subject.
First, the only form of integralism I am concerned with is Catholic integralism which takes its bearings from the magisterium of the Catholic Church and her deep intellectual patrimony. Other manifestations of integralism, past or present, are not my concern; and I acknowledge that at least some of them are directly hostile toward the Catholic Church. While one of the geniuses of the Catholic mind is a capacity for openness to ideas which manifest themselves outside of its usual boundaries, only a rigorous adherence to orthodoxy ensures that this openness does not turn into a pathway to corruption.
Second, integralism is not anti-liberal for the sake of being anti-liberal. It is anti-liberal because liberalism has, for centuries, waged wars of varying intensity against the tenets of the Catholic Church, right social order, and the proper understanding of the common good. As such, integralism is not necessarily aligned with the aims and intents of other anti-liberal movements, and in fact integralism must oppose any such movement which also pits itself against the Church. The so-called Islamic State, for instance, is a highly visible anti-liberal movement, but its erroneous and evil principles, coupled with its heinous persecution of Christian and other innocent populations, makes it worthy of contempt and condemnation, not pathetic praise from those afflicted with a broken moral compass. Similarly, anti-liberal movements which embrace positions proscribed by the Church, such as socialism, racism, nationalism, and neo-paganism, do not truly share a common cause with Catholic integralists.
Third, reactionarianism and integralism are not one and the same. Due to the fact that the term “reactionary” is often overplayed in both academia and popular culture, it has come to mean little more than someone who opposes the status quo. Historically speaking, however, a reactionary was someone who opposed the outbreak of revolutionary liberalism in Europe beginning in 1789 and reaching its peak during the middle portion of the 19th Century. Although contemporary integralism maintains a genetic link to that particular brand of reactionarianism, it is not a direct descendent. For instance, two of the most prominent Catholic reactionaries, Joseph de Maistre and Juan Donoso Cortes, held philosophical and theological views which, at points, are difficult to square with Catholic orthodoxy. Moreover, today’s integralism is impossible to understand independent of Thomism and Scholasticism; neither of these venerable intellectual heritages were at the heart of earlier attempts to counteract the violent imposition of liberal ideology on the West.
Fourth, integralism is not exclusivist. It recognizes close affinities with other Catholic thinkers and organizations which may not choose to identify themselves as integralists or which may even disagree with integralists on a number of salient points. At the same time, integralists know that there are Catholics who continue to remain under the horizon of liberalism who continue to make important contributions toward the preservation and restoration of an authentically Christian culture. The “point” of the new integralism is not to draw fresh battle lines against fellow Catholics but to set forth a more robust response to the dominance of liberal ideology and its control over almost all spheres of late-modern life: social, political, economic, and religious. As already noted, there is a measured openness in the Catholic mind which integralism embraces.
And last, integralism is not anti-intellectual or intentionally blind to modern realities. The return of Catholic integralism is not an automatic turning away from the intellectual, cultural, and technological developments of the past century or so of human history. While individual integralists may not agree with all of the theological, liturgical, and pastoral shifts that have occurred within the Catholic Church since the Second Vatican Council, neither do they reject them tout court. The Catholic Church is a living, breathing institution; it did not fossilize at some arbitrary “absolute moment” in time. Integralism realizes, however, that there are 1,900 years of ecclesiastical history which have to be taken into full account as well.
Your example using the “so-called Islamic State” makes it sound like your primary point of contention is simply that they aren’t Catholic. Your definition of Catholic would include, presumably, a critique of their various actions that so horrify the world (not least the Muslim and Arab worlds). However, by not enunciating what you mean by its “erroneous and evil principles” puts more stress on “its heinous persecution of Christian and other innocent populations” as its primary sin. This plays directly into the hands of those who see integralism as little more than a Catholic form of strict to light theocracy, and a throwback to violent, heavy handed, autocratic, ‘reactionary’ Catholic governments of the past, especially vis a vis their treatment of dissenters within the Catholic church, Christians not in communion with Rome, and non-Christians.
I’m sure you go into discussions of the place of non-Catholics in your other writings, but its lack of even passing mention here tends to make your thoughts on the subject rather pie in the sky. Maybe you didn’t leave ‘LARPing’ behind after all when you left the Orthodox church. :)
I don’t think that’s true. I mention IS simply because of their current visibility on the world stage; any number of small, but more obscure, movements could have been slotted in there (and, in fact, were briefly noted when I referred to other movements which embrace any number of evil ideas, such as racism).
To be honest, I don’t think, writing on a web-log aimed primarily at Catholics and read mostly by Catholics, I need to lay out what principles of IS are evil and erroneous. Had I spoken of “certain positive elements” of IS or “points of convergence” with IS, then I think there would be a pretty substantial burden shift to where I might want to lay out, in detail, what I mean by such statements. First, I think most would read them as being counter-intuitive and, second, such claims would engender more confusion than anything else given the radical gulf which exists between IS-style Islam and orthodox Catholicism.
Additionally, I took pains to include “other innocent populations” to ensure that my point which not interpreted in a tribalistic manner. IS has attacked other Muslims and at least one other religious minority in the areas where they operate; such acts cannot be justified on any level, and they deserve equal condemnation from Catholics. However, the IS persecution of Christians, as best as I can tell, remains their most visible legacy thus far, hence why it warrants particular mention.
There are enough Catholics uncomfortable with Catholicism’s own history with integralism and its various less savory incarnations, not to mention what such integralism would do today to Catholics on the wrong side of the camp that takes power, that it’s probably worth noting.
Hasn’t the SSPX and its fellow travellers provided a more gracious welcome to Catholic Integralism than anyone else these past 50 years? If so, care to speculate on the rationale of the connection?
Stephen,
The SSPX has, though so, too, have other traditional Catholic outlets. I am not quite sure what you’re driving at here.
Yes, most traditional Catholic outlets did (I lumped them all as SSPX fellow travellers), but nobody else, it seems. And it seemed so dominant, like the appreciation for St. Thomas Aquinas. One more thing very quickly jettisoned by that generation. As much as folks talk about what happened these past 50 years, there’s much more light to be shed to understand why that generation dispensed with so much so quickly – the speed and totality were just amazing. And if one judges the shedding as net-net a bad thing (which not everybody does of course), then figuring out the why is the best path to make sure it doesn’t happen again elsewhere. (by the same token, if you judge it a good thing, you’re less inclined to worry about the why and remain just glad that it happened).
“The speed and totality were just amazing.”
I rather think it had been a long time coming. As Maurice Blondel wrote in 1907, “With every day that passes, the conflict between tendencies that set Catholic against Catholic in every order–social, political, philosophical–is revealed as sharper and more general. One could almost say that there are now two quite in-compatible “Catholic mentalities,” particularly in France. And that is manifestly abnormal, since there cannot be two Catholicisms.”
In answer to a survey, he wrote, of the “present crisis” as “[U]nprecedented perhaps in depth and extent–for it is at the same time scientific, metaphysical, moral, social and political–[the crisis] is not a “dissolution” [for the spirit of faith does not die], nor even an “evolution” [for the spirit of faith does not change], it is a purification of the religious sense, and an integration of Catholic truth”
One senses that most 20th century tehologians, Bouyer, Chenu, Congar, Lubac and Daniélou shared his assessment and that the Council and its aftermath were the result of it.
Much-needed historical perspective. Thank you!
Yes, very good insight into the history, thank you. Care to share a value judgement?
Value Judgement? Not really, but I can offer a glance at the wider causes within Catholicism.
Contemporaries pointed to the malaise. Jacques Maritain observed of the middle class (bourgeoisie) that it “had among its most solid members a number of practical atheists, more or less brought up on Voltaire and Béranger. They called themselves Catholic, though in all their principles of conduct they denied God, Christ and the Gospel, and upheld religion for merely temporal and political reasons – preserving social order and prosperity in business, consolidating their economic power, and keeping the lower classes in obedience by means of a virtuous rigor sanctioned from on high.”
Blondel, too, spoke of “A Catholicism without Christianity, submissiveness without thought, an authority without love, a Church that would rejoice at the insulting tributes paid to the virtuosity of her interpretative and repressive system… To accept all from God except God, all from Christ except His Spirit, to preserve in Catholicism only a residue that is aristocratic and soothing for the privileged and beguiling or threatening for the lower classes—is not all this, under the pretext perhaps of thinking only about religion, really a matter of pursuing only politics?”
What is interesting to watch is how Protestants, for all the bluster about being “true conservatives” will almost always side modernity against Catholicism. If anything we need more Catholic tribalism. Ecumenical “Holy Alliances” against liberalism always get subsumed into the liberal project anyway (see First Things and now the Orthosphere).
Hmm, what’s happening with the Orthosphere? I guess I hadn’t noticed.
First Things was subsumed in the liberal project from the beginning, which makes it a different case. Incidentially, I’ve been pleasantly surprised to see several integralist articles being linked from their blog.
My great hope for the Orthosphere was that we would someday start being attacked by First Things. Once they recognized an school of thought to the right of them, even if the attention was purely negative, then we could really start influencing conversations. Despite what I thought were some good articles by various contributors, we never acheived that, and mainstream religious conservative discourse remained trapped in liberal categories.
Now that FT writers are reading the integralists, they’re going to realize what a threat you are to Neuhausian Catholic liberalism. If they’re going to maintain any sort of coherent vision, they must either attack you or make themselves your students. Either way, illiberal Catholicism becomes a live proposition again.
I am increasingly skeptical that FT even has a unified vision in the way it did under Neuahus’s custodianship. I think they have diversified their talent pool enough to where you are now seeing a lot of positions represented over there (either in print or online) which wouldn’t have been aired a decade ago in that forum.
Also, things have changed. The (in my estimation foolish) optimism of the 90s-00s neoconservative consensus has crumbled. What we are seeing now are Catholics — many of them young — trying to find another way forward. But there are a lot of different voices out there, some more aligned with the truth than others. I think the difficulty facing most of us today is how to get your views out there and, in a sense, “out-compete” some of the other voices which want to see Catholicism once again subsumed into the liberal project.
Amen. Seeing this play out right now in my own parish, which is being torn apart by a rather shattering recent event. At an extremely acrimonious church meeting the other night, I realized for the first time how deeply polarized we are. It really is a battle between two competing visions.