[This post is adapted from a panel discussion on Christian Nationalism at Freedom Fest in Memphis on July 14, 2023. The other panelists were Norman Horn, Kerry Baldwin, and Alex Bernardo of the Libertarian Christian Institute.]
The specter of Christian nationalism– otherwise specified– has actually become one of the existing bogeymen to the Left. “Christian nationalism growing,” reports National Public Radio, and The New Yorker asks “How Christian Is Christian Nationalism!.?.!?”Some churches are even hosting workshops with names like “The Risk of White Christian Nationalism.” Keep in mind the insertion of the term “white.” An op-ed at The Salt Lake Tribune takes it an action even more declaring at the US Supreme Court is now allied with “white male Christian nationalism” (emphasis added).
The lazy, inaccurate way that Christian nationalism is generally defined– or not specified– enables Christian nationalism to be more or less whatever its critics want it to be. Thus, Christian nationalism can be a bookish pursuit of a constant Christian political ideology on the one hand. Or it can be a half-baked populist motion with bit more elegance beyond flag waving and paeans to vague concepts of “American culture.” The diversity of Christian groups– with varying beliefs– makes it tough to nail down critics when we wish to know the exact information of who these Christian nationalists are, and what they think.
What Is Catholic Nationalism?
This absence of any specific definition of Christian nationalism becomes all the more troublesome when we try to get particular and search for a working definition of nationalism for any particular Christian group. This is certainly the case when we attempt to specify Catholic nationalism. Indeed, when trying to specify Catholic nationalism, we have a simpler time identifying what Catholic nationalism is not.
It can not be any sort of racial or ethnic nationalism, as Catholicism is hardly associated– traditionally or philosophically– with any specific nation-state, national language, or ethnic group. The global nature of the Church is a sizable obstacle to any Catholic declaring that “my nation” is objectively remarkable to– or perhaps basically different from– any other. Moreover, there are no “nationwide churches” in Catholicism, as we might discover with the Russian Orthodox Church or the Church of England. As noted by Benedict Anderson in his book on nationalism, Thought of Neighborhoods, the historical Catholic view is that membership within the spiritual neighborhood exceeds membership within any regional tribal, ethnic, or linguistic group. In this view, when it comes to the truly essential problems, a Catholic from New Mexico ought to concern himself as more closely connected to a Catholic in Nigeria than to an atheist in New York. Likewise, a Benedictine monk from Poland is more closely tied to “foreign” Benedictines than he is connected to his so-called “fellow citizens.”
Nor does Catholic political ideology determine any particulartype of program. Although numerous Catholic traditionalists might claim that monarchy is the only genuinely genuine choice for a Catholic routine, this has actually never ever been substantiated by historical truths. The republican federal governments of Venice, Genoa, and Florence (amongst numerous others) never ever made those societies in some way “un-Catholic.”
Nor can it be said that Catholic nationalism is almost getting Catholics into positions of political authority. After all, the reality that John F. Kennedy was a baptized Catholic barely made the United States federal government a “Catholic routine.” Something comparable may be said of the fact that numerous of the justices on the United States Supreme Court are Catholics.
If the concept of an explicitly Catholic American program strikes us as a quirk, there is excellent factor for this. Catholics have never ever been a majority in the United States, and few would venture to say that American culture is specifically Catholic by any step. Indeed, American traditionalists, at least until recent years, have been typically hostile to Catholicism. If a Catholic nationalist aspires to form a particularly Catholic-dominated culture or polity in the United States, this would be a departure from traditional American culture, not a conservation of it.
Catholic Quasi-Nationalism: Integralism
Given all this, how might we recognize a Catholic nationalist or Catholic nationalism? It appears the closest we can get to something we may call Catholic nationalism is the system known as integralism. We find a meaning of this at the integralist site The Josias. The editors write:
Catholic Integralism is a tradition of thought that, declining the liberal separation of politics from worry about completion of human life, holds that political guideline needs to order guy to his last objective. Considering that, nevertheless, guy has both a temporal and an eternal end, integralism holds that there are 2 powers that rule him: a temporal power and a spiritual power. And given that guy’s temporal end is subordinated to his eternal end, the temporal power needs to be subordinated to the spiritual power.
Integralism is not nationalist in the stringent sense in that it does not seek the protection or promotion of any specific nationwide culture, language or ethnic background. Integralism is nationalist, nevertheless, in the sense that it looks for to enhance the power of different national states in pursuit of a specific objective. (It is most likely not a coincidence that integralism has actually been especially popular in recent centuries in France where the state design has actually traditionally been especially strong and specifically old.)
The general idea of integralism is however older in the sense that, even in ancient times, numerous Catholics believed civil authorities should have an active role in safeguarding and enhancing the Church.
Lots of Church fathers, however, comprehended the danger that features a “collaboration” between Church and civil authorities. Even after Theodosius I stated Christianity to be the state church of the empire in 380 ADVERTISEMENT, this left unanswered the sticky problem of which Christians would be preferred at any given time. At first, it was the Nicene Catholics, however various emperors would ally themselves with different Christian factions spelling the doom of whoever happened to be on the losing side. For example, in the seventh century, St. Maximus the Confessor and Pope St. Martin I were banished for holding “incorrect” views, although their views were the orthodox ones by Church requirements. Such turnarounds of fortune are hardly restricted to the world of faith, naturally. They prevail in military and partisan affairs of all types throughout history. The point is that Christian groups are no more insulated from the capriciousness of civil federal government than is any other group.
Having gained from his own exhaustive review of ancient history in City of God, St. Augustine was exceptionally doubtful of worldly princes as trustworthy allies. Augustine had declared unjust princes to be no much better than pirates. He likewise concluded that even when worldly rulers can develop peace, such peace is absolutely nothing more than the naked “conquest of those who withstand us” and just lasts so long as petulant civil rulers discover the peace to their individual preference. In Augustine’s view, genuinely virtuous worldly rules are so unusual that there is little security or worth in connecting Church power to civil authorities. After all, the civil federal government merely oversees the “City of Male” which is completely separate from the City of God.” In reality, the very concept of using the state to accomplish Christian ends does not compute with Augustine. As John Milbank explains it: In Augustine, there is, disconcertingly, absolutely nothing recognizable as a “theory of Church and State”, no delineation of their particular natural spheres of operation. The civitas terrena is not concerned by him as a “state” in the modern sense of a sphere of sovereignty, preoccupied with the business of federal government. Rather this civitas, as Augustine finds it in today, is the vestigial remains of a whole pagan mode of practice, extending back to Babylon. There is no set of positive objectives that are its own strange company …
By the High Middle Ages, however, many Catholic theologians had actually ended up being much more positive about the potential customers for the presence of Christian polities– potentially ruled by virtuous princes– that serve the Church. This is perhaps why today we find that contemporary integralists are often disciples of St. Thomas Aquinas, relying on that natural reason can somehow be utilized to develop a simply and dependable civil federal government in the integralist model.
Why Integralism Fails
Experience, however, suggests that Augustine’s radical uncertainty of civil authorities is the more accurate view. Hardly ever do we discover civil federal governments that pursue the goals of Christian virtue beyond brief periods of time or throughout the reigns of unusually virtuous rulers. In practice, integralism has generally worked in reverse, rather than as intended. That is, the integralist perfect is that the civil federal government will be subject to spiritual authorities, however it is typically the civil governments that control spiritual organizations. (The Papal States are significant, incredibly unusual exceptions.) Therefore, efforts at integralism offer examples like the Spanish Inquisition which served mostly to strengthen the Spanish state and was under the monarch’s control. Or we may recall the Avignon popes who “ruled” under the thumbs of French emperors. Rather than lead to theocracy, as lots of critics of integralism claim is bound to take place, the usual result of the Church-state alliance is the reverse of theocracy: clerics end up being servants of the civil federal government.
Ultimately, we may conclude that while integralism is not nationalist in theory, it is nationalist in practice: integralism ends with a strong national state pushing a specific social vision. Rarely are such polities subject to spiritual authorities, but the integralist might be deceived into thinking it is. In reality, the integralist state is just a state in which civil rulers– for a time– regard the Church as a hassle-free ally. Once the Church stops to be so, nevertheless, the integralist state transforms into a state hostile to those it was once developed to protect.
Thus, integralism decreases the exact same road as Christian nationalists in basic: these motions favor the production of a strong state that will, quicker rather than later on, switch on its creators.
[This post is adjusted from a panel discussion on Christian Nationalism at Liberty Fest in Memphis on July 14, 2023. The other panelists were Norman Horn, Kerry Baldwin, and Alex Bernardo of the Libertarian Christian Institute.]