the InteGralIst resPonse

to secularIzatIon*
Edmund Waldstein, O.Cist

In 1989 Imam Khomeini (1902-1989) sent a letter to President

Mikhail Gorbachev of the Soviet Union and wrote:
“Reality must be faced. The main problem confronting your
country is not one of private ownership, freedom, and economy;
your problem is the absence of true faith in God, the very prob-
lem that has dragged, or will drag, the West to vulgarism and an
impasse. Your main problem is the prolonged and futile war you
have waged against God, the source of existence and creation.”1
I think that Imam Khomeini was right that the true problem
at the heart of Soviet Communism is the same problem that is
dragging the West down: the problem of a lack of faith in God.
I want to look at the form this problem has taken in the west,
which I will call the “secularization” of the West. I will make use
of Charles Taylor’s sophisticated analysis of secularization but
will look at it from my own Catholic perspective. In the Catholic
Church old debates that might seem to have been left behind are
constantly returning. Thus, the debate in the nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries between “liberal” Catholics and their oppo-
nents, sometimes called “integralists,” has recently given signs
of revival. One such sign is a seminar offered in 2018 at Har-
* An earlier version of this paper appeared as: What Is Integralism Today?,
in: Church Life Journal, October 31, 2018: https://churchlifejournal.nd.edu/
articles/what-is-integralism-today/, accessed October 24, 2020.
1 A Call To Divine Unity: Letter of Imam Khomeini, The Great Leader of the
Islamic Revolution and Founder of Islamic Republic of Iran to President
Mikhail Gorbachev, Leader of the Soviet Union (The Institute for the Com-
pilation and Publication of the Works of Imam Khomeini, 1993), p. 10.
158 Edmund Waldstein

vard Law School entitled “Law and Catholic Thought: Liberal-

ism and Integralism.” The seminar’s co-teachers can be seen as
representing liberalism (Princeton University’s Professor Robert
P. George) and integralism (Harvard’s own Professor Adrian Ver-
meule) respectively. George is certainly not a “liberal” Catholic in
the sense in which that term is opposed to “conservative” – he is
indeed one of the standard bearers of conservatism in the Ameri-
can Catholic Church. But he is a liberal as opposed to an integral-
ist, because he thinks that political authority exists for the sake of
the protection of individual rights, that one of the most important
among those rights is the right of religious liberty, and that politi-
cal authority should not officially favor one religious confession
over others. Vermeule, on the other hand, is an integralist in the
sense that he sees political authority as ordered to the common
good of human life, that rendering God true worship is essential
to that common good, and that political authority therefore has
the duty of recognizing and promoting the true religion. Indeed,
Vermeule has even contributed to thejosias.com, a website that I
edit along with Joel Augustine, which is devoted to the elabora-
tion and defense of a revived Catholic integralism. The debate
between Catholic liberalism and integralism can be seen as a dis-
agreement about the proper response of the Church to the secular-
ization of the modern West.

What is Secularization?
Let me now turn to Charles Taylor’s sophisticated account of
how the modern West was secularized and what exactly is meant
by secularization. Taylor distinguishes three main meanings that
people give to secularization. The first comes out of the secular-
ization theory of nineteenth and early twentieth century sociolo-
gists such as Max Weber and Émile Durkheim (1858-1917). They
argued that modernization involves a differentiation of various
spheres of social life and – more particularly – their separation
from religion. Thus, political life was once ordered toward and by
 the InteGralIst resPonse to secularIzatIon 159

God, but now it supposedly follows its “own inherent rationality”

without reference to the divine. And a similar point can be made
about the economic and artistic spheres – they too are differenti-
ated into autonomous spheres with their own internal rational-
ity, separate from religion. This very process of differentiation of
various public spheres was what Weber, Durkheim, and classical
sociology primarily meant by “secularization.” From their view,
this differentiation led to a banishing of religion into the private
realm. And this in turn led inevitably, they argued, to a decline in
religious practice and belief. Such decline is the second meaning
of “secularization.” To those two meanings, Taylor adds a third,
in which he is primarily interested: secularization can also mean
that the conditions of belief have changed in the modern world.
Whereas in pre-modern Europe it was nearly impossible not to
believe in God, in the modern West belief in God is one among
several options, and perhaps an embattled option. 2
Taylor disagrees with classical secularization theory on several
points. Firstly (following the work of José Casanova), he denies
that differentiation of various social spheres necessarily involves
a privatization of religion. Rather, he argues, religion can develop
into one of several “public” spheres alongside politics, econom-
ics, culture, sports etc. But, more importantly, he disagrees that
secularization in the sense of differentiation is strongly correlated
with secularization in the sense of decline of belief and practice.
He points to a number of examples where (on the contrary) the
differentiation occurred simultaneously with an increase in reli-
gious practice – such as in the United States during the Second
Great Awakening, or Poland in the twentieth century.3
Nevertheless, Taylor does agree with his predecessors in see-
ing some connection between the different kinds of seculariza-
tion. He argues that in fact differentiation of social spheres in the
West allowed the conditions of belief to change, opening up al-
ternatives to religious belief. And that opening up of options was
a condition for the decline of religious belief and practice that
2 Charles Taylor: A Secular Age (2007), Introduction.
3 Taylor, A Secular Age: pp. 2, 458.
160 Edmund Waldstein

did take place in some societies. So, there is an indirect connec-

tion between the first meaning of secularization (differentiation
of social spheres) and second (decline religious faith and prac-
tice) mediated by the third (change in the conditions of belief).
Still, Taylor thinks that the first and third kinds of secularization
are irreversible, but the second (decline of religious belief) need
not be. He even thinks that attempts at reversing developments
of the first kind are counter-productive and actually facilitate the
second. That is, attempts to roll back societal differentiation, will
discredit religion.4
Taylor sees attempts at reversing the differentiation of social
spheres as taking two different forms, depending on how far so-
cial differentiation is to be overcome. There are two basic forms,
because there are three basic constellations of social spheres. The
first is what Taylor terms the “paleo-Durkheimian” arrangement
of “baroque” Catholic states, in which the Catholic faith is sup-
posed to form all of social life. (The term “paleo-Durkheimian” is
somewhat confusing, since Durkheim of course lived after such
arrangements had passed away, but Taylor is referring to Durk-
heim’s analysis of the function of religion in the ancien regime,
which he knew only as history). The second constellation, which
Taylor calls “neo-Durkheimian,” is one in which there is no of-
ficial religion, but the political action of the citizens is informed
by a broad religious consensus across various denominations –
this was the case in the United States when a broad Protestant
consensus informed politics. Finally, the third constellation is
when politics have become fully unhooked from religion. Taylor
sees this as already holding in much of the West, as its inevitable
future. In this final arrangement the differentiation of different
social spheres leads to an unbundling of different areas of life
within individual persons: public religious worship, private devo-
tion, sexual ethics, works of mercy for others, and political action
are no-longer linked together, but become separate.5 Thus, a con-
temporary Catholic lady in Western Europe might attend church
4 Taylor, A Secular Age: ch. 14.
5 Taylor, A Secular Age: ch. 12.
 the InteGralIst resPonse to secularIzatIon 161

for Christmas services, baptisms, weddings, and funerals; for her

private meditation she might follow a Westernized form of Bud-
dhist practice; in her sexual ethics she might be a post-Freudian;
in her charitable work she might support some secular society for
aiding refugees; and in politics she might support a (tradition-
ally anti-clerical) left-liberal party. Taylor admits that something
is lost in such unbundling, but he also thinks that certain valuable
freedoms are gained. As a soft-Hegelian neo-modernist, Taylor
thinks that it is not our task to cry over spilled milk, but rather to
make the best of what the development of human consciousness
has given us.6
But Catholics who wish to adhere without reservation to the
teachings of the Church on faith and morals cannot fully accept
such an unbundling. And here Taylor’s two forms of reaction to
differentiation come in. There are those who wish to return to a
neo-Durkheimian settlement of partial differentiation, and there
are those who wish instead to establish something more like a
new (and doubtless somewhat different) paleo-Durkheimian an-
cien régime. Robert George and Catholic proponents of classi-
cal liberalism in general fall into the first group: they desire a
restoration of a “moderate” liberal society in which a broad con-
sensus exists among believers of various denominations and re-
ligions on the dignity of the human person, and in which politi-
cal institutions are understood as being for the sake of defending
that dignity and the rights that follow from it. On the other hand,
Adrian Vermeule, and Catholic integralists more generally, wish
for something more like the paleo-Durkheimian arrangement
of the baroque confessional state. Or, perhaps even more radi-
cally, they wish to work towards something like the integration
of High Medieval Christendom. In that arrangement, as Andrew
Willard Jones has shown, it makes no sense to distinguish Church
and state as separate spheres at all; rather there was one single

6 Charles Taylor: The Life of the Church in a Secular Age, Lectio Magistralis,
Pontifical Gregorian University on March 5, 2015: https://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=152Ng0qYRIM (accessed October 24, 2020).
162 Edmund Waldstein

kingdom in which spiritual and temporal authorities cooperated.7

Thinkers who promote such an integration do not necessarily
want to emulate the Middle Ages in other respects. Vermeule, for
instance, argues for further development of a robust administra-
tive state, of a sort that St. Louis IX (1226-1270) could never have
imagined. But the crucial point is that integralists want an ordered
relation of temporal and spiritual power in the deliberate pursuit
of the good for human beings.
Catholic liberals argue that their view of things was accepted
by the Church in the Second Vatican Council’s declaration Digni-
tatis Humanae, which accepted the ideal of religious liberty, argu-
ing that it was entailed by the nature of truth itself which “cannot
impose itself except by virtue of its own truth.” But integralists
can counter with the work of the philosopher Thomas Pink, who
has argued that the traditional teaching of the Church, requiring
temporal powers to recognize and promote the true Faith is ir-
reformable, and that (properly understood) Dignitatis Humanae
did not deny that teaching (the claim of Dignitatis having to do
with the state in isolation from the Church, not the state acting as
brachium saeculare).8
Moreover, we integralists argue that the nature of human ac-
tion demands integralism. All political agents, whether they admit
it or not, imply some definite conception of the good for man in
their action. As Leo Strauss used to tell his students, all politi-
cal action is concerned with change or preservation. When it is
concerned with change it is concerned with change for the bet-
ter. When it is concerned with preservation it is concerned with
preventing change for the worse. But the concepts of better and
worse imply a concept of the good. Therefore, all political action

7 Andrew Willard Jones, Before Church and State: A Study of Social Order in
the Sacramental Kingdom of St. Louis IX (2017).
8 Thomas Pink: What is the Catholic doctrine of religious liberty? https://
www.academia.edu/639061/What_is_the_Catholic_doctrine_of_religious_
liberty (accessed October 24, 2020).
 the InteGralIst resPonse to secularIzatIon 163

is concerned with the good.9 The Weberian account of separate

spheres of social activity, each acting according to its own inher-
ent rationality, conceals more than it reveals of modern social life.
There is not and cannot be a neutral “political rationality” that
reduces politics to a technique of achieving certain penultimate
objectives. For, such penultimate objectives can only become ob-
jectives pursued by human beings when they are ordered (at least
implicitly) to an ultimate objective. And if the ultimate objective
is not the true end of man, the City of God, then it will be a false
end, the diabolical city.
Catholic liberals might argue that this stark alternative can be
dissolved by recalling the distinction between nature and grace.
Human beings are ordered by nature toward the temporal good of
a virtuous common life. This natural good can be understood in
abstraction from their further order toward supernatural participa-
tion in God’s life, which they receive through grace. Through the
natural law, written in their hearts, human beings can understand
what conduces to the natural good, and what contradicts it. Thus,
the Catholic liberal can argue, it is possible to have political insti-
tutions which are founded on the natural law, which are respectful
of supernatural revelation, as one among many religious confes-
sions, without confessing a religion. But this defense of moder-
ate liberalism neglects a crucial truth: nature (including human
nature) was created good, but it was wounded by the original sin
and made subject to the devil. Only through Christ can human
nature be healed of its wounds, liberated from the devil, and freed
to achieve even its natural end. As Tom Pink argues such libera-
tion takes place through conversion and Baptism. Every part of
the world has to be converted and exorcised in order to liber-
ate it from demonic power. This includes political institutions. As
long as political institutions attempt to remain “neutral” towards
the Church of Christ, they will in fact be under the power of the

9 Leo Strauss: Introduction to Political Philosophy: Plato’s Meno,lecture

course given at the University of Chicago, Spring 1966 https://leostrauss-
center.uchicago.edu/plato-meno-spring-1966/ (accessed October 24, 2020).
164 Edmund Waldstein

Prince of this World. As the Second Vatican Council put it in the

Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World:
“When the structure of [social] affairs is flawed by the conse-
quences of sin, man, already born with a bent toward evil, finds
their new inducements to sin, which cannot be overcome without
strenuous efforts and the assistance of grace.”

After Secularization
In a way this is the truth confusedly indicated by the classical
secularization theory of Weber and Durkheim. Secularization in
the sense of the separation of social spheres from religion acts
against the practice of the true religion. By doing so it acts not
only against supernatural virtue, but against natural virtue as well.
If one looks at the West today it is not difficult to see the in-
fluence of the Evil One: in the unjust distribution of wealth, in
the exploitation of the poor, in the dominance of usurers, in the
reckless pollution of the natural environment, in the slaughter of
millions of innocents in abortion clinics, in unspeakable sexual
perversions, in the lying propaganda of progress, and in so much
more. To fight the spiritual battle in which we are engaged neces-
sarily includes fighting against the separation of social spheres
from religion, which hands those spheres over to such influence.
Taylor would claim that such a struggle is useless; the historical
process is irreversible. But Taylor’s opinion rests on an unreason-
able reification of history. Human social life is formed by the ends
that we pursue in common. Which ends we pursue are certainly
formed by our common habits, traditions, technologies, and expe-
riences, but they are also formed by example, witness, persuasion,
and decision. If our social life today is ordered to the wrong ends,
it is not too late to correct it. Today, as at any time, the Gospel of
Christ has the power to transform every part of human life.
I think that Imam Khomeini saw something analogous from
his Islamic perspective: namely that any political regime which
brackets faith in the one God is a dead-end. Obviously, my own
account gives a centrality to Christ, and the Christian doctrines of
 the InteGralIst resPonse to secularIzatIon 165

original sin and supernatural grace, that Muslims would not share.
Nevertheless, I think that facing, as we do, the same problem of
secularization, it is worthwhile discussing our differing perspec-
tives on this problem together.