I have written about Catholic Integralism, and I have argued that the evolution of religious pluralism refutes integralism and supports Lockean liberal Christianity.
Recently, Kevin Vallier has written about "The Rise and Fall of American Integralism" at The Dispatch. He says that in the few months after the publication of his book on integralism last year, the integralist movement has been in decline, as indicated by the fact that there has been very little published discussion (online and in print) of integralism over the past months.
Vallier suggests, however, that integralism could have an intellectual and political renewal if Senator J. D. Vance became Vice President in a second Trump Administration. (There are reports that Vance is on Trump's short list of people he's considering for his vice-presidential running mate.) One indication of Vance's association with Catholic integralism is that during his campaigning for the Senate in 2022, he spoke at a conference on "Restoring a Nation: The Common Good in the American Tradition" at Franciscan University of Steubenville (Ohio). This university is the academic headquarters of Catholic integralism in America.
The primary organizer for this conference was Sohrab Ahmari, who was a fellow at Franciscan University's Veritas Center for Ethics in Public Life. Although he does not use the term "integralism," Ahmari has been one of the leading proponents of a Catholic tradition of social thought that can sound like integralism.
I will show how Ahmari's memoir--From Fire By Water: My Journey to the Catholic Faith (2019)--explains his remarkable conversion to a conservative Catholicism that suggests integralism. Then, I will indicate how Vance could become the Trumpian leader of a similar revival of conservative Catholic social thought that sounds like integralism.
But I say "sounds like integralism" because while these people want to pose as radically illiberal integralists, it's only a deceptive masquerade that hides the fact that they are really liberals who affirm the fundamental liberal principles of religious liberty and toleration, which deny integralism. I have made a similar argument about people like Patrick Deneen, who pretend to be illiberal or post-liberal although they are really liberals.
What Vallier calls "The Fall of American Integralism" is what happens when the integralist poseurs cannot maintain their affectation of illiberalism and reveal their real identity as liberals. Even as they pretend to show "why liberalism failed," they actually show why liberalism succeeded by their accepting liberal principles.
To be continued in my next post . . .
1 comment:
1. Dr.Arnhart here writes: "But I say "sounds like integralism" because while these people want to pose as radically illiberal integralists, it's only a deceptive masquerade that hides the fact that they are really liberals who affirm the fundamental liberal principles of religious liberty and toleration, which deny integralism."
2. I agree 100%.
3. Doctrinal changes at the Second Vatican Council of the early 1960s made integralism impossible for those who are in full communion with the Pope (which is normally the qualifier for being a Catholic).
4. But, there are some Catholics who would like to overthrow those doctrinal changes of the Second Vatican Council, and who, in various covert ways, are working to achieve that goal.
5. One of those ways is when Catholic theologians make statements that give the impression that a Catholic today can be an integralist.
6. The whole matter is in flux.
7. Conservative Catholics (in both the USA and in Europe) see Pope Francis as a traitor, heretic, and socialist, even though they can't say this directly.
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