What Is Integralism? – by William Galston – Persuasion
In a longer document, The Good, the Highest Good, and the Common Good, Waldstein makes clear that political leaders should use their power to direct their citizens toward the highest good and the love of God, which is the foundation of the common good. In another detailed article, Integralism and Gelasian Dyarchy, Waldstein drives the point home: It is necessary that those who have charge of the common good [i.e., political authorities] order it explicitly to God. And he emphatically endorses the teaching of Pope Leo XIII: it should be a public crime to act as though there were no God or to worship God in any way other than what the one true religion Catholicism requires. We are bound absolutely to worship God in that way which He has shown to be His will, and the Church is the one true representative of His will.
Most Americans will find this stance incomprehensible and, if they come to understand it, deeply troubling. Religious liberty has been called the First Freedom, and permitting religious diversity within society is the grain of sand around which the pearl of political liberalism developed. Surely a government that can tell us what to believe about God and how to worship God is a tyranny.
More broadly, liberalism embodies a basic distinction between the public and private realms. Government may act, within limits, in the public realm, but it may not invade the private realm, the zone of protected individual liberty. Although liberals argue about precisely where the line between these two realms should be drawn, they agree that the distinction exists and is morally fundamental. Catholic integralists reject freedom of religion, and they are prepared to use government power in the name of public morality to control what liberals consider private and individual decisions.
This clash between neo-integralism and the American political tradition makes it all the more striking that this avowed anti-liberal doctrine has gained a following in America, especially among young Catholic intellectuals. In recent conversations with students, I have been surprised by how many of them have heard of this doctrine and are attracted to it. Political liberals must try to understand why.
Bill Galston. My current position on Integralism is that it’s not for the US, but they can try it in Mexico if they like. Honestly, Integralism is an embarrassment to us Catholics. Put uncharitably, it’s the idea that we ought to have a conspiracy to take over the state, infest it with like-thinking Catholic fanatics, and impose on all us citizens the one, true Church. In other words, exactly what anti-Catholic conspiracy theorists have long claimed falsely we Catholics wanted to do. So maybe we should throw all the Papists in jail. Well, I don’t want to do this and I only know Integralists via my twitter feed and I find them creepy as Hell, and I’m not sure that’s even a pun. I’d say, well, that will never happen, but if we’ve learned anything recently (Cook up a virus in a decrepit Chinese lab, release it on the population of the earth, kill millions — nah, that would never happen!), it’s that you have to take even these zany totalitarians seriously.