Catholic Integralism

En este artículo se analizan dos adaptaciones modernas de la novela histórica Amaya o los vascos en el siglo VIII (1877-1879) del escritor católico Francisco Navarro Villoslada, donde la pérdida de España en el año 711 es el resultado de un complot judaico. La película de Luis Marquina (1952) simplifica las implicaciones teológicas del complejo argumento de la novela, a favor de una brutal estigmatización del pueblo hebreo, favorecida probablemente por las tensas relaciones entre España e Israel a comienzos de los años 50. Al contrario, el cómic de Rafael Ramos, publicado en 1981, elimina casi por completo las referencias estructurales al tema de la conjura, del que quedan pocas alusiones descontextualizadas. Por último, se pone de relieve cómo dos libelos antisemitas, Los judíos a través de los siglos (1939) y Complot contra la Iglesia (1962), incorporan algunos elementos ficcionales de Amaya elevándolos a verdades históricas.

This paper analyses two modern adaptations of the historical novel Amaya o los vascos en el siglo VIII, published by the Catholic writer Francisco Navarro Villoslada between 1877 and 1879, in which the 711 loss of Spain is the result of a Jewish conspiracy. Luis Marquina’s movie (1952) simplifies the theological implications of the original plot in favour of a brutal stigmatization of the Israelites, possibly facilitated by the tense relationship between Spain and Israel in the early ’50′s. On the contrary, Rafael Ramos’ 1981 graphic novel almost completely discards the structural references to the conspiracy theme, leaving only a few decontextualized allusions. Finally, the paper highlights how two anti-Semitic libels, Los judíos a través de los siglos (1939) and The Plot against the Church (1962), subsume some of Amaya fictional elements promoting them to historical truths.

This is an expanded version of an online paper on The Josias. It defends my Leonine interpretation of Dignitatis Humanae, the declaration of the Second Vatican Council that teaches a moral right of the individual, based on their human dignity, to religious liberty. The declaration, I have claimed, was an application for modern times of the magisterial teaching on church and state of Leo XIII. This leaves the declaration’s right to religious liberty strictly consistent with previous church teaching.

In another paper on The Josias Thomas Storck objects that I employ what was at best a political theology of the counter-reformation, the theology of Suarez and Bellarmine. According to Storck this theology was not shared by Leo XIII, was never magisterially taught, and had nothing to do with the drafting of Dignitatis Humanae.

Storck’s claims are false. From 1964 the drafting commission explained Dignitatis Humanae by appeal to Leo XIII's teaching that the church alone was the sovereign legal authority over religion on this earth. This view of church authority came to Leo XIII from Suarez, and dominated official theology within the Catholic church up to Vatican II. It was common property to a Vatican II conservative such as Cardinal Ottaviani, to the progressives who were preparing and explaining the declaration in its final draft, to Paul VI under whose authority this final draft was being prepared, and to Jacques Maritain, to whose theology Paul VI adhered.

Le catholicisme intégriste / traditionaliste est une tendance, une forme, ou encore une modalité du catholicisme, interprétable historiquement comme une branche du catholicisme intransigeant ou de l'intransigeantisme catholique, lequel, dans une pensée apocalyptique (lutte de Dieu et son Église contre Satan et ses suppôts, précisément identifiés : francs-maçons, socialistes, libéraux, juifs, protestants…), rejette la modernité philosophique, politique, économique et sociale au profit d'une société reconstruite sur des bases catholiques par des militants organisés sous la conduite de la hiérarchie. Il est le résidu de cet intransigeantisme désormais minoritaire.

Le sédévacantisme s'est développé dans le catholicisme français depuis le milieu des années 1960. Expression particulière d'un mouvement international, lié à la contestation de Vatican II, son histoire, cléricale mais aussi laïque, peut être globalement retracée, en distinguant plusieurs périodes de construction et cristallisation. Le sédévacantisme permet de comprendre que la relation des catholiques au pouvoir du pape est devenue complexe, ce qui remet en cause en partie la romanisation développée depuis le XIXe siècle.

I give an account of Catholic integralism, and argue that it gives the most satisfactory reading of Pope St. Gelasius’s teaching on the relation of the auctoritas sacrata of pontiffs and the potestas of emperors.  I also consider the postmodern, Augustinian radicalism of the likes of John Milbank and William Cavanaugh, and argue that while they make some important points, their theory ultimately suffers from an inadequate theology of grace. Finally, I take another look at the Whig Thomism of John Courtney Murray, and locate one of the the roots of its failings in a “personalist” theory of political community. https://thejosias.com/2016/03/03/integralism-and-gelasian-dyarchy/

Les hommes de la "Pensée catholique" font parties des têtes pensantes du « catholicisme intégral » français des années cinquante, avec leurs capacités et faiblesses. Ces personnalités peu connues sont cependant intéressantes à considérer et comprendre : lorsque le pouvoir de la Curie de Pie XII sera balayé par les événements de la première session de Vatican II, ce sont ces hommes, ou d’autres de leur entourage, un milieu marginalisé activement et passivement, avec toute la dépréciation qui résulte de fait de cette situation, qui vont prendre en charge l’opposition au mouvement conciliaire.

Neste artigo pretende-se trazer ao debate as perspectivas dos ideais e práticas de dois partidos políticos, a Ação Integralista Brasileira e o Aliança pelo Brasil, que, em dois momentos diversos da história do Brasil, evocam um apelo à uma "ordem" cristã, cujo suporte é a família nuclear clássica, a "sociedade conjugal que une os esposos", assim concebida pela Doutrina Social Católica e pela tradição cristã reformada. E, como apelo à ordem, limitam-se concepções de mundo possíveis, em contextos diversos e com perspectivas diferentes. Recuperando a crítica de Marx à ideia hegeliana de que fatos e personagens ocorrem duas vezes na História, e concluindo que, se a história se repete, primeiro, é como tragédia e, depois, como farsa, considera-se, neste texto, a necessidade de se recorrer à análise dos dois partidos brasileiros que, apelando às míticas atuações de seus líderes, tratados como heróis: Plínio Salgado (Chefe integralista morto em 1975) e o atual presidente do Brasil, Jair Bolsonaro, estes emergem, na atualidade, como condutores de uma "nova" sociedade brasileira, fundada nos "valores cristãos". Estes líderes, mesmo o falecido, como novos Teseus, reúnem seguidores que os consideram capazes de enfrentar os labirintos de uma "desordem moral nacional" e de libertarem, definitivamente, o Brasil do "Minotauro comunista". Neste sentido, os heróis vestem, simbolicamente, roupagens diferentes: o mais antigo é o apóstolo; o atual, o soldado. Nas construções ideológicas dos dois partidos, o apelo à moral cristã que suporta uma cultura mística popular brasileira. Este artigo sustenta sua análise por meio da concepção dialética da História, na Filosofia da Praxis.

Wisdom, in the full sense, is a matter of knowing something that is not subject to political deliberation, that is, the First Principle and Last End of all things. It includes understanding the order of all things from that Principle and to that End—an order that we, as human beings, ought to reflect and embody in our own actions and in our common life in society. The political implications of this truth have been obscured in the modern era by the errors of liberalism, which, granting human reason a false supremacy, makes of man’s own deliberation the only measure of the good, even its originator. The result is that every society comes to be seen and treated as a conventional, contractual, artificial, collective egoism.

The authors whose writings appear in this volume—most of them first published at The Josias—share the conviction that there is urgent need to combat the errors of liberalism, both in the world and in the Catholic Church itself—for men cannot be truly happy unless their lives are integrated into the greater order that emanates from God. To overcome modern errors, a “broadening of reason” is necessary: we must draw upon the deepest sources of philosophical and theological wisdom, upon the deepest insights of human reason reflecting on the whole breadth of human experience, and upon the supernatural light of Divine Revelation.

This first volume of essays treats the main questions of practical philosophy: the principles of human action and the common goods of natural human communities, ranging from the smallest and most fundamental (the household) to the greatest and most encompassing (the political community). The second volume will be devoted to the relations of those natural communities to the supernatural Kingdom established by Christ.

In the final years of the pontificate of Pius X, that is during the Modernist crisis, the Catholic Integralist circles linked to Umberto Benigni's Sodalitium Pianum were characterized by a marked anti-Jesuitism. Suspected of "liberalism" and "modernizzantismo", "semi-modernism", the Society of Jesus became the object of frequent attacks. This contribution aims to shed light on the attitude taken by the Society itself, and in particular by its General Franz Xaver Wernz, in the face of Integralist anti-Jesuitism, thus initiating exploration of the problem of the relationship between religious Orders and modernism/anti-modernism. To this end, some particularly indicative cases are analysed: that of the Jesuit journals "Stimmen aus Maria Laach" (Germany), "Études" (France) and "La Civiltà Cattolica" (Italy), as well as that of the Austrian Jesuits grappling with the accusations of the Integralist newspaper "Österreichs katholisches Sonntagsblatt".

Modern interpretations of Augustine both liberal and postliberal have tended to see medieval “political Augustinianism” as misunderstanding Augustine’s own subtle account of the relation of temporal and spiritual power. I criticize R.A. Markus’s liberal reading of Augustine as opening up a new understanding of the political as a space of overlapping consensus. But I also criticize William Cavanaugh’s postliberal reading of Augustine as supporting a kind of Christian anarchism, in which coercive government is seen as always opposed to the City of God. Instead, I argue that medieval political Augustinianism was authentically Augustinian in holding that political rule can be just when it is brought into an ordered relationship with the spiritual hierarchy.

The specific consequences and the lasting effects of the modernist crisis (1893-1914) were also visible during the Great War. Even if the war
destroyed what was left of the international “modernist” networks, antimodernism continued and gained a new importance in the context of the “intellectual mobilization”. The most important example of this is the debate on the French propaganda volume "La Guerre Allemande et le Catholicisme" (1915). French Catholic war propaganda wielded anti-modernist stereotypes against German Catholicism, efforts which in turn were hotly contested by German counter-propaganda. On the whole, the conflict about La Guerre Allemande had a unifying effect on German mainstream Catholicism, in which a certain anti-integralism became common sense.

The notion of 'Christian Europe' has returned with a vengeance in recent times. It figures prominently in the political rhetoric of conservative nationalists, who link appeals to Europe's Christian heritage and identity to avowedly illiberal political projects. This paper examines this revived idea of Christian Europe by contrasting it with the meanings that prominent Christian Democratic leaders ascribed to the term in the postwar era. This contrast is insightful because it reveals what is distinctive about present understandings of Christian Europe, and it is politically relevant because some of the most committed contemporary proponents of Christian Europe claim to be 'true' Christian Democrats. Using Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde's work on the emergence of the modern state as a broad analytical frame, I show that today's visions of Christian Europe are more modern, statist and secular than their postwar counterparts.

Christians are often frustrated by the secularism of the modern world, a world which has relegated the transcendent dimensions of human life to the realm of private opinion, while at the same time establishing the State and the Market as the absolutes which rule our lives, and which permit no rivals. The "separation of Church and State" has led to the absolutizing of the State and marginalizing of the Church. Some have responded to this situation by calling for its reversal, by making the state subordinate to the Church. They look back fondly at an age where princes would tremble at the frown of a pope, and even an emperor would dress in sackcloth and wait barefoot in the snow outside the pope's palace, pleading for his forgiveness. This is the vision of the so-called "integralists," and while it might be a somewhat idealized view of the past, it is not without some real basis in our history. What the integralists want is summarized by Father Edmund Waldstein, a leader of this movement, in three sentences: Catholic Integralism is a tradition of thought that, rejecting the liberal separation of politics from concern with the end of human life, holds that political rule must order man to his final goal. Since, however, man has both a temporal and an eternal end, integralism holds that there are two powers that rule him: a temporal power and a spiritual power. And since man's temporal end is subordinated to his eternal end, the temporal power must be subordinated to the spiritual power.1 This is clear enough, but exactly how it should be implemented in a constitutional republic is not so clear, and Fr. Waldstein is reluctant to get down to cases, contenting himself with general principles. So, should there be a "Supreme Council" of bishops holding veto power in the manner of the Islamic Republic of Iran, where a Council of Ayatollahs can intervene wherever it wills? Most integralists are reluctant to say. But not all. Adrian Vermeule, for example is very specific about what integralism means in the American circumstance: it means a strong executive, able to rule by decree.2 In Vermeule's view,

Este ensayo estudia las condiciones de posibilidad y el significado histórico de una teoría de conspiración anticomunista publicada en 1950, por un jesuita mexicano llamado Joaquín Cardoso, S,J., titulada El Comunismo y la Conspiración contra el Orden Cristiano. Esta investigación demuestra que esa teoría de conspiración es representativa de la transformación histórica por la que pasaba la Iglesia católica en México entre las Guerras Cristeras y el Concilio Vaticano II. Esta teoría de conspiración fue posible porque el modelo europeo de la intransigencia católica se adaptó a la circunstancia mexicana. El discurso de la intransigencia europea se redefinió a la luz de la beligerancia católica. El posterior modus vivendi no eliminó esta beligerancia. La teoría de conspiración prueba que el catolicismo mexicano siguió politizándose.



This article examines the conditions of possibility and the historical significance of an anticommunist conspiracy theory, titled El comunismo y la conspiración contra el orden cristiano, published in 1950 by an intransigent Mexican Jesuit, Joaquín Cardoso. This research shows that this conspiracy theory reflects the historical transformation the Mexican Catholic Church went through between the Cristero Wars and the Second Vatican Council. This conspiracy theory was possible due to the adaptation of the European intransigence discourse to the Mexican circumstance. Such discourse was redefined by the Mexican Catholic belligerency. The modus vivendi established afterwards did not put an end to the belligerency. The conspiracy theory reflects that Mexican Catholicism kept being politicized.

Free full-text article in: https://perspectivia.net/servlets/MCRFileNodeServlet/pnet_derivate_00004129/tacchi_contributo.pdf

During the early years of the 20th century, attempts at dialogue with modern culture and practical collaboration with the Protestant majority in the Kaiserreich emerged in German Catholicism in order to overcome the condition of 'inferiority' that characterized the Catholic population. In the context of the anti-modernist repression enacted by the Roman Curia of Pope Pius X, however, the proponents of forms of interdenominational organization, the autonomy of the laity from the ecclesiastical hierarchy, and openness towards secularized modernity more generally attracted the criticism of the so-called integralist Catholics. The latter saw a danger to the Catholic faith and to the prerogatives of the Roman Church in these developments and, ultimately, a manifestation of modernist 'heresy'. Among the targets of the integralist accusations were the Volksverein and the Centre Party, as well as the interdenominational Christian trade unions. The paper aims to shed light on the contents and characteristics of German Catholic integralism in the years following the encyclical Pascendi (1907): to this end, the specific case of the Cologne priest Andreas Müller (1862–1938) is examined; through dozens of letters addressed to the Nuncio of Munich and the Holy See itself, he denounced the (alleged) infiltration of Modernism in Germany.

Swiss journalist, writer, and politician James Schwarzenbach (1911-1994) is a controversial figure of Swiss 20th Century history. A fervid anti-Communist and Catholic, he fought in the 1960s and 70s for a massive reduction of immigrants living in Switzerland. Schwarzenbach was also a deep admirer of General Franco and built friendships with several important people of the Spanish regime. The present article aims to point out his Spanish passion and his contradiction between his admiration of a regime, which economically depended from the emigration of manpower, and Schwarzenbach’s policy against immigration in Switzerland.

Despite its own claims, integralism is no true alternative to liberalism. It is reactionary—wedded to the liberalism it rejects—and as blind to Christendom’s errors as to the Christian truths liberalism distorts. Moreover, at the very moment when it promises a truly theological politics, integralism turns out not to be theological enough, smuggling in worldly notions of power under the cover of ostensibly theological formulas.

The alternative is a more radical theological politics which is neither liberal nor integralist, a politics which takes the Christological shape of Christian power, the spiritual character of salvation, and the nature of the Church more seriously. This politics must ground its dedication to freedom, its rejection of violence, and its commitment to the marginalized in the logic of the Christian faith rather than formal procedure.

First, this book chapter revolves around the relationship between the Fascist movement and the Catholic Church in Brazil. Working with the approach of the ‘Critical Religion’, I investigated four different formulations of the ‘Apostles' Creed’ and the ‘Hail Holy Mary’ performed by fascist factions in the 1930’s, trying to present the different links between politics and religion made by them. Thinking that ‘collusion’ is a key concept to understand these links, I also tried to show how open were the interpretations of the religious and of the politics made by Fascists and Catholics, and that they could interact well enough, despite their fundamental incompatibilities. Second, this book chapter addresses to the problem of verisimilitude and its discussion in the fields of the history. In this regard, I made a digression that tries to escape from the great divide between poetic and rhetoric, working around some ideas from Baltasar Gracián.

Since the Catholic Church’s enthusiastic embrace of liberal-democratic models at Vatican II, there has been a growing awareness that liberalism is not as congenial to Christianity as once hoped. Many have struggled to reformulate the Church’s role in society, some even calling for a retreat or an unabashed return to a confessional state. The problem, however, is that each of these approaches, to a certain degree, relies on the perdurance of Christendom in the Catholic imaginary. In contrast to this, the main thesis is that the Church needs to reimagine itself and its social role in order to meet the challenges of spreading the Gospel in a liberal society.
After setting up this challenge in the first part, the paper will proceed to analyze the bold approach of Catholic integralism in order to examine the underlying ecclesiology and anthropology. The goal here is to bring the imaginary of Christendom into strong relief. However, in the third part, this imaginary will be placed in stark contrast to the ecclesiology and anthropology promoted by Vatican II; any proposal moving forward would need to incorporate these insights more adequately.
Thus, the final part will work toward an alternative solution. I will draw on resources from the contributions of Emmanuel Katongole and his ability to reimagine the role of Christianity in Africa. Parallel to the faith-based initiatives that Katongole highlights, there has been a flourishing of ecclesial movements throughout the Church. These movements, I argue, achieve the goal of reimagining the Church’s relation to society while both surpassing the limitations found in Katongole’s communities and also integrating core components of Vatican II developments.