Pelosi at Canossa?

John C. Médaille on Integralism's Problems & the Priority of Evangelization

Christians are often frustrated by the secularism of the modern world, a world that 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 that rule our lives, and that 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 when 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:

Catholic integralism . . . 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.

THIS ARTICLE ONLY AVAILABLE TO SUBSCRIBERS.
FOR QUICK ACCESS:

John C. Médaille is a retired businessman who has been teaching at the University of Dallas for the past 16 years. His primary course deals with Catholic social teaching and is a required course for the business degree. He is also the author of three books: The Vocation of Business: Social Justice in the Marketplace (Continuum, 2008); Toward a Truly Free Market: A Distributist Perspective (ISI Books, 2011); and, with Thomas Storck, Theology: Mythos or Logos; A Dialogue on Faith, Reason, and History (Angelico Press, 2020).

• Not a subscriber or wish to renew your subscription? Subscribe to Touchstone today for full online access. Over 30 years of publishing!

personal subscriptions

Purchase Print &
Online Subscription

Get six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for only $39.95. That's only $3.34 per month!

RENEW your print/online
subscription

Purchase
Online Subscription

Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives including pdf downloads for only $19.95. That's only $1.66 per month!

RENEW your online subscription

gift subscriptions

GIVE Print &
Online Subscription

Give six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for the reduced rate of $29.95. That's only $2.50 per month!

RENEW your gift subscription

Transactions will be processed on a secure server.

bulk subscriptions

Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.

kindle subscription

OR get a subscription to Touchstone to read on your Kindle for only $1.99 per month! (This option is KINDLE ONLY and does not include either print or online.)

Your subscription goes a long way to ensure that Touchstone is able to continue its mission of publishing quality Christian articles and commentary.

more on Culture from the online archives

22.3—April 2009

Wasted by Watching

Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by J. Daryl Charles

31.2—March/April 2018

Millennial Mission

The Transmission of Christianity Is Not a New Task by Nathanael Devlin

34.1—January/February 2021

Fighting for Love

What the World Needs Now It Hardly Knows by Anthony Esolen