Looming Catholic Civil War?

If you haven’t heard of “post-liberalism” or “integralism” you’re possibly missing out on the spiciest intellectual battle among conservatives since WWII.

Roman Catholics are particularly vexed; on one side post-liberals sound an alarm that unless aggressive, preferably revolutionary action isn’t taken soon the remnants of Western Civilization will dissolve. The other side could be described as “normal”: Catholics who believe in the American project of liberal constitutional democracy and divided powers. They have the unenviable position of being assailed by progressives to their left, sometimes with charges of “theocracy,” while resisting actual theocrats to their right.

While the ideological struggles following WWII were between liberalism and communism, after the fall of the Berlin Wall some speculated that we had arrived at the “end of history.” The liberal democratic project had seemingly overcome its sole competitor in the form of Marxist-Lenninist ideology; the rest of history would be simply the hegemony of liberalism gradually covering the Earth.

This confidence turned out to be entirely misplaced. Now integralists argue the power structures liberalism supplanted, particularly those of the church, must be restored. I’ve written several pieces dealing with integralism and post-liberalism, which have different connotations for different people.

Critics of the liberal democratic capitalist regime can seem to hold novel views upon first impression; they attack both social progressivism and unregulated markets as threats to the family and church, defying the usual left-right American political boundaries. Of course, while perhaps unusual today, these arguments were much more popular in the 19th century when political Catholicism was not yet so clearly beaten.

Though mostly confined to more academic climates, these shifts indicate a tangible change in the intellectual tenor of a new generation of Christians. Philosopher theologians Alisdair MacIntyre, Stanley Hauerwas or Charles Taylor opposed secular progressivism, but are too communitarian for American conservatism’s usual emphasis on individual liberty. They are also postmodern, being much more amenable to Marxism and other critical theories than average Republicans. Ironically, despite Karl Marx’s anti-religious views, his analysis of how capitalism displaces traditional religion has proved invaluable to the post-liberals.

What are the “normal” Catholics to do? Why does so much of the conservative intellectual energy seem to be held by radicals? In response Robert P. George, an esteemed Princeton professor, and Ryan T. Anderson, President of the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC) are leading the defense of the American project.

In the Fall 2019 essay The Baby and the Bathwater George and Anderson met the critics of liberalism head-on by changing the terms of the debate. In it, they conceded that there certainly are conceptions of liberalism that are undesirable; those of John Stuart Mill, John Locke and John Rawls that are grounded in “anti-perfectionism,” or the belief that the state should not take an active role in intractable moral disputes across different groups. Instead of looking to the last few hundred years for the underpinnings of liberalism, they look to the legacy of Classical and Medieval Christianity, from Plato and Aristotle to the patristics to Aquinas.

Anderson and George hosted a large reception in Washington, DC on September 22 to discuss the essay and reiterate its core doctrines. They continued to clarify the particular middle-ground position they hold; without naming names, they accused the integralists of choosing to “give up” the fight for the American project, which George called “fundamentally true.” In an apparent dig at David French, a conservative-libertarian writer, Anderson challenged Americans to differentiate between positive “blessings of liberty” and negative “abuses of liberty”; French became a great antagonist for the integralists when he referred to public spaces being indiscriminately used by both Christian and LGBT groups as a “blessing of liberty.”

Anderson also took aim at libertarian-minded conservatives who are reluctant to utilize the state to support any conception of the common good. In response, he argued that the left will promote their own substantive view of human flourishing no matter what — and conservatives should be willing to do the same. Anderson also pushed back against the idea that offering first amendment protections for a variety of groups entails a tacit assertion that all, whether Satanists or Baptists, are morally equal. Many activities are clearly immoral, but the state is not called upon to enforce every moral precept.