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In politics, integralism, integrationism or integrism (French : intégrisme) is an interpretation of Catholic social teaching that argues the principle that the Catholic faith should be the basis of public law and public policy within civil society, wherever the preponderance of Catholics within that society makes this possible. Integralism is anti-pluralist, [1] seeking the Catholic faith to be dominant in civil and religious matters. Integralists uphold the 1864 definition of Pope Pius IX in Quanta cura that the religious neutrality of the civil power cannot be embraced as an ideal situation and the doctrine of Leo XIII in Immortale Dei on the religious obligations of states. [2] In December 1965, the Second Vatican Council approved and Pope Paul VI promulgated the document Dignitatis humanae –the Council's "Declaration on Religious Freedom"–which states that it "leaves untouched traditional Catholic doctrine on the moral duty of men and societies toward the true religion and toward the one Church of Christ". However, they have simultaneously declared "that the human person has a right to religious freedom," a move that some traditionalist Catholics such as Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, the founder of the Society of St. Pius X, have argued is at odds with previous doctrinal pronouncements. [3] [4]
The term is sometimes used more loosely and in non-Catholic contexts to refer to a set of theoretical concepts and practical policies that advocate a fully integrated social and political order based on a comprehensive doctrine of human nature. In this generic sense some forms of integralism are focused purely on achieving political and social integration, others national or ethnic unity, while others were more focused on achieving religious and cultural uniformity. Integralism has, thus, also been used [5] to describe non-Catholic religious movements, such as Protestant fundamentalism or Islamism. In the political and social history of the 19th and 20th centuries, the term integralism was often applied to traditionalist conservatism and similar political movements on the right wing of a political spectrum, but it was also adopted by various centrist movements as a tool of political, national and cultural integration. [6]
As a distinct intellectual and political movement, integralism emerged during the 19th and early 20th century polemics within the Catholic Church, especially in France. The term was used as an epithet to describe those who opposed the modernists, who had sought to create a synthesis between Christian theology and the liberal philosophy of secular modernity. Proponents of Catholic political integralism taught that all social and political action ought to be based on the Catholic Faith. They rejected the separation of Church and State, arguing that Catholicism should be the proclaimed religion of the State. [7]
Contemporary discussions of integralism were renewed in 2014, focusing on criticism of liberalism and capitalism. [8] [9]
The first polity that formally embraced Christianity was Armenia under Tiridates III. However, the establishment of the civil order upheld by integralists is generally thought of as beginning with the conversion of Roman Emperor Constantine I in 312. While Constantine personally embraced Christianity, it was only in 380 that Theodosius I formally adopted Nicene Christianity as the religion of the empire by the Edict of Thessalonica. What R. W. Southern called the identification of the Church with the whole of organised society [10] was intensified by the legal reforms of Justinian in the 6th century. The climactic stage in the identification began in the Latin West with the papal transference of Translatio imperii to Charlemagne in 800. The Constantinian age began to decline with the Reformation and is generally treated as ending with the French Revolution. In 1950, Pius XII identified the Dominican friar and prophet Savonarola as an early pioneer of integralism in the face of the "neo-pagan" influences of the Renaissance: "Savonarola shows us the strong conscience of the ascetic and an apostle who has a lively sense of things divine and eternal, who takes a stand against rampant paganism, who remains faithful to the evangelical and Pauline ideal of integral Christianity, put into action in public life as well and animating all institutions. This is why he started preaching, prompted by an interior voice and inspired by God." [11]
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Catholic integralism is an interpretation of Catholic social teaching that argues for an authoritarian [12] and anti-pluralist Catholic state, [1] wherever the preponderance of Catholics within that society makes this possible; it was born in 19th-century Portugal, Spain, France, Italy and Romania was a movement that sought to assert a Catholic underpinning to all social and political action, and to minimize or eliminate any competing ideological actors, such as secular humanism and liberalism. [1] Integralism arose in opposition to liberalism, which some Catholics saw as a "relentless and destructive ideology". [13] : 1041 Catholic integralism does not support the creation of an autonomous "Catholic" State Church, or Erastianism (Gallicanism in French context). Rather, it supports subordinating the State to the moral principles of Catholicism. Thus it rejects separating morality from the State, and favours Catholicism as the proclaimed religion of the State. [7]
Catholic integralism appeals to the teaching on the necessity of the subordination of the State, and on the subordination of temporal to spiritual power, of medieval popes such as Pope Gregory VII and Pope Boniface VIII. However, Catholic integralism as a more consciously articulated doctrine came about as a reaction against the political and cultural changes that followed the Enlightenment and the French Revolution. [14] The 19th-century papacy challenged the growth of liberalism (with its doctrine of popular sovereignty) as well as new scientific and historical methods and theories (which were thought to threaten the special status of the Christian revelation). Pope Pius IX condemned a list of liberal and Enlightenment ideas in his Syllabus of Errors . The term integralism was applied to a Spanish political party founded about 1890, which based its programme on the Syllabus. Catholic integralism reached its "classical" form in the reaction against modernism. The term did not, however, become popular till the time of Pope Pius X, whose papacy lasted from 1903 to 1914. After the papal condemnation of modernism in 1907, those most active in promoting the papal teachings were sometimes referred to as "integral Catholics" (French : Catholiques intégraux), from which the words intégrisme (integrism) and intégralisme (integralism) were derived. [15] Encouraged by Pope Pius X, they sought out and exposed any co-religionist whom they suspected of modernism or liberalism. An important integralist organization was the Sodalitium Pianum, known in France as La Sapinière (fir plantation), which was founded in 1909 by Umberto Benigni. [16]
Another component of the anti-modernist programme of Pius X was its insistence on the importance of Thomas Aquinas, both in theology and philosophy. In his decree Postquam Sanctissimus of 1914, the pope published a list of 24 philosophical theses to summarise 'the principles and more important thoughts' of St Thomas. [17] Thus integralism is also understood to include a commitment to the teachings of the Angelic Doctor, understood especially as a bulwark against the subjectivist and sceptical philosophies emanating from Descartes and his successors.
The idea that temporal political authority should be subordinated to man’s ultimate, spiritual end is a common theme – if not the main theme – of contemporary Catholic integralism. [18] [19] [20]
In recent years, however, a "revived Catholic integralism" has been noted among the younger generation of Catholics writing for websites such as The Josias. [21] Integralism could be said to merely be the modern continuation of the traditional Catholic conception of Church–State relations elucidated by Pope Gelasius I and expounded upon throughout the centuries up to the Syllabus of Errors, which condemned the idea that the separation of Church and State is a moral good. [22] For example, some Catholics have praised the actions of Pius IX in the 1858 Mortara case, in which he ordered the abduction of a six-year-old Jewish boy who had been baptized without his parents' consent. [13] : 1039–1041 A systematic account of Catholic integralism as a coherent political philosophy has recently been attempted by Thomas Crean and Alan Fimister in their work, 'Integralism: a manual of political philosophy'. [23]
Scholars have drawn parallels between Catholic integralism and a view held by a minority in the Reformed churches, Christian reconstructionism. [24] [25] In the National Catholic Reporter , Joshua J. McElwee stated that both Catholic integralists and Reformed Christian reconstructionists have created a non-traditional ecumenical alliance to achieve the goal of establishing a "theocratic type of State". [26] [27]
Some integralists place themselves on the left wing of the political spectrum. Tradistae and Tradinista, both groups acknowledge what they see as the duty of the state towards the Catholic Church as well as supporting Liberation Theology and rejecting capitalism. [28] [29] [30] [31]
Integralism has been identified as a basis for modern legal conceptions that emphasize natural law, including Common Good Constitutionalism. Proposed and popularized by Adrian Vermeule, Common Good Constitutionalism was developed like integralism to "combat the legitimate societal threat of modern liberal individualism". [32]
Some Protestant figures, such as Brad Littlejohn, have expressed interest in integralism and contended it more closely resembles a traditionally Protestant account of politics rather than a Catholic one. [33]
There are a number of variants and localized permutations of integralist political theory, often named by their country of origin.
The term "intégrisme" is largely used generically and pejoratively in French philosophical and sociopolitical parlance, particularly to label any religious extremism. Integralism in the narrow sense is often but controversially applied to the integral nationalism and Action Française movement founded by Charles Maurras although Maurras was an atheist and his movement was condemned by Rome as 'political modernism' in 1926. [34] Jacques Maritain claimed that his own position of Integral humanism, which he adopted after rejecting Action Française, was the authentically integralist stance [35] (although it is generally viewed as its antithesis). [36]
Integralismo Lusitano (Lusitanian Integralism) was the integralist movement of Portugal, founded in 1914. Portuguese integralism was traditionalist, but not conservative. It was against parliamentarism and, instead, it favored decentralization, Catholicism and the monarchy. [37]
Somewhat rooted in the Portuguese integralist tradition, the Brazilian integralist movement led by Plínio Salgado – Ação Integralista Brasileira –was founded in Brazil in 7 of October 1932, it lasted less than six years as a legally recognized organization. Salgado's organization was, however, an integral nationalist movement only tangentially connected to Catholic integralism. [38]
The political implications of Catholic integralism are apparent in the Basque-Navarrese context of Spain, where that Integrism or Traditionalist Catholicism refers to a 19th- and 20th-century anti-Liberal movement advocating for the re-establishment of not only clerical but also native institutions lost in the context of the First Carlist War (1833, 1840). One of its branches evolved by the turn of the 20th century into Basque nationalism.
The term may also refer to the Spanish formation (1888-1932) led by Ramon Nocedal and Juan Olazábal.
The Southern Poverty Law Center uses the term "integrism" to refer to "radical traditional Catholics" who reject the Second Vatican Council. SPLC describes them as antisemitic and "extremely conservative" regarding women, and also notes that some claim recent popes are illegitimate. [39]
Critics and opponents of integralism, such as George Weigel, argue that the movement can be associated with fascism. [40] Supporters of integralism argue that it is a mistake to associate the movement with fascism, stating that it developed before fascism, and that collaboration between fascist and integralist groups is overstated. [41] John Zmirak criticizes contemporary Catholic integralists as enemies of "religious liberty" [42] while authors such as Thomas Pink insist integralism is compatible with Vatican II's account of religious freedom. [43]
Sedevacantism is a doctrinal position within traditionalist Catholicism, which holds that the present occupier of the Holy See is not a valid pope due to the "Pope's" espousal of one or more heresies and that, for lack of a valid pope, the See of Rome is vacant.
Dignitatis humanae is the Second Vatican Council's Declaration on Religious Freedom. In the context of the council's stated intention "to develop the doctrine of recent popes on the inviolable rights of the human person and the constitutional order of society", Dignitatis humanae spells out the church's support for the protection of religious liberty. It set the ground rules by which the church would relate to secular states.
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Traditionalist Catholicism is the set of beliefs, practices, customs, traditions, liturgical forms, devotions, and presentations of Catholic teaching that existed in the Catholic Church before the reforms of the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), in particular attachment to the Tridentine Mass, also known as the Traditional Latin Mass.
The Christian left is a range of Christian political and social movements that largely embrace social justice principles and uphold a social doctrine or social gospel. Given the inherent diversity in international political thought, the term Christian left can have different meanings and applications in different countries. While there is much overlap, the Christian left is distinct from liberal Christianity, meaning not all Christian leftists are liberal Christians and vice versa.
The relations between the Catholic Church and the state have been constantly evolving with various forms of government, some of them controversial in retrospect. In its history, the Church has had to deal with various concepts and systems of governance, from the Roman Empire to the medieval divine right of kings, from nineteenth- and twentieth-century concepts of democracy and pluralism to the appearance of left- and right-wing dictatorial regimes. The Second Vatican Council's decree Dignitatis humanae stated that religious freedom is a civil right that should be recognized in constitutional law.
Clerical fascism is an ideology that combines the political and economic doctrines of fascism with clericalism. The term has been used to describe organizations and movements that combine religious elements with fascism, receive support from religious organizations which espouse sympathy for fascism, or fascist regimes in which clergy play a leading role.
Modernism in the Catholic Church attempts to reconcile Catholicism with modern culture, specifically an understanding of the Bible and Catholic tradition in light of the historical-critical method and new philosophical and political developments of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Progressive Christianity represents a postmodern theological approach, and is not necessarily synonymous with progressive politics. It developed out of the liberal Christianity of the modern era, which was rooted in the Enlightenment's thinking. Progressive Christianity is a postliberal theological movement within Christianity that, in the words of Reverend Roger Wolsey, "seeks to reform the faith via the insights of post-modernism and a reclaiming of the truth beyond the verifiable historicity and factuality of the passages in the Bible by affirming the truths within the stories that may not have actually happened."
Dominion theology, also known as dominionism, is a group of Christian political ideologies that seek to institute a nation that is governed by Christians and based on their understandings of biblical law. Extents of rule and ways of acquiring governing authority are varied. For example, dominion theology can include theonomy but does not necessarily involve advocacy of adherence to the Mosaic Law as the basis of government. The label is primarily applied to groups of Christians in the United States.
Liberal Catholicism was a current of thought within the Roman Catholic Church influenced by classical liberalism and promoting the separation of church and state, freedom of religion in the civic arena, expanded suffrage, and broad-based education. It was influential in the 19th century and the first half of the 20th, especially in France. It is largely identified with French political theorists such as Felicité Robert de Lamennais, Henri Lacordaire, and Charles Forbes René de Montalembert influenced, in part, by a similar contemporaneous movement in Belgium.
Liberal Christianity, also known as Liberal Theology and historically as Christian Modernism, is a movement that interprets Christian teaching by taking into consideration modern knowledge, science and ethics. It emphasizes the importance of reason and experience over doctrinal authority. Liberal Christians view their theology as an alternative to both atheistic rationalism and theologies based on traditional interpretations of external authority, such as the Bible or sacred tradition.
The Catholic Church and politics concerns the interplay of Catholicism with religious, and later secular, politics. Historically, the Church opposed liberal ideas such as democracy, freedom of speech, and the separation of church and state under the grounds that "error has no rights". Eventually accommodated these ideas and began to view religious liberty as a positive value during and after the Second Vatican Council.
Conservative Christianity, also known as conservative theology, theological conservatism, traditional Christianity, or biblical orthodoxy is a grouping of overlapping and denominationally diverse theological movements within Christianity that seeks to retain the orthodox and long-standing traditions and beliefs of Christianity, it is contrasted with Liberal Christianity and Progressive Christianity which are seen as heterodoxies by theological conservatives. Conservative Christianity should not be mistaken as being synonymous with the political philosophy of conservatism nor the Christian right which is a political movement of Christians who support conservative political ideologies and policies within the realm of secular or non-sectarian politics. The two major subdivisions of Conservative Christianity within Protestantism are Evangelical Christianity and Christian Fundamentalism while the Confessing Movement, Confessionalism, and Neo-orthodoxy make up the remaining within Protestantism. Theological conservatism is also found in Roman Catholicism and is also found within Eastern Christianity although neither having a direct connection with the Fundamentalist–Modernist controversy.
Protestantism originated from the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. The term Protestant comes from the Protestation at Speyer in 1529, where the nobility protested against enforcement of the Edict of Worms which subjected advocates of Lutheranism to forfeit of all their property. However, the theological underpinnings go back much further, as Protestant theologians of the time cited both Church Fathers and the Apostles to justify their choices and formulations. The earliest origin of Protestantism is controversial; with some Protestants today claiming origin back to people in the early church deemed heretical such as Jovinian and Vigilantius.
Religious liberalism is a conception of religion which emphasizes personal and group liberty and rationality. It is an attitude towards one's own religion which contrasts with a traditionalist or orthodox approach, and it is directly opposed by trends of religious fundamentalism. It is related to religious liberty, which is the tolerance of different religious beliefs and practices, but not all promoters of religious liberty are in favor of religious liberalism, and vice versa.
This is a list of articles in philosophy of religion.
"Error has no rights" is a historical Catholic and traditionalist Catholic principle. It asserts that it is the responsibility of governments to suppress non-Catholic religions as they do not have a right to express publicly any religion outside of Catholicism which should be the only religion allowed by the State, but had the right to privately profess and practice any religion. Alternatively, it asserts that while non-Catholics had civil or political rights, there is no theological toleration for such religious beliefs. It was still the official position of the Catholic Church in the 1950s, and was repudiated or superseded in the Second Vatican Council of 1962–1965 by Dignitatis humanae. It is also argued, based on the interpretation that the moral right to error is distinct from the legal right, that this principle was not superseded by Dignitatis Humanae.
Patrick J. Ryan has suggested the term 'integralism' for the Iranian phenomena, by analogy with the Roman Catholic movement by that name and largely because of the role of the 'ulamã' ('Islamic Fundamentalism: a Questionable Category', America, December 29, 1984, pp . 437-440), and this suggestion has some merit.
Hackett drove to Washington D.C. on Thursday from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where he lives in a Catholic worker house part of the Catholic Worker Movement. This was his sixth year attending the March for Life. The Catholic Worker Movement was founded by Peter Maurin and Dorothy Day in 1933, amid the Great Depression. According to its website, there are 187 Catholic Worker Movement communities worldwide that "live a simple lifestyle in community, serve the poor, and resist war and social injustice." Hackett is also the co-founder of the Catholic worker organization Tradistae. "Something we're really interested in as Catholic workers and part of the mission of Tradistae is, as Peter Maurin said, sort of blow the dynamite of Catholic social teaching," Hackett said. "He really believed that Catholic social teaching has this dynamism, and it can influence society."