Acton Institute Powerblog Archives

Post Tagged 'Catholic integralism'

Can the State Love God?

The 20th century was an outlier in the history of the human race. For the first time, secularizing movements spanned the globe. In many places, they succeeded by suppressing the political expression of religion. Continue Reading...

Don’t Divinize the State

One consequence of what Italian philosopher Augusto del Noce calls our present “age of secularization” is the paradoxical modern tendency of atheists to divinize politics and the state. What the Church once undid, ideology would rejoin. Continue Reading...

King Jesus and Political Discipleship

Our current political reshuffling has been dizzying, perhaps even more in the Christian community than among Americans in general. The conservative shift toward populism under Trump empowered both a push for real nationalism—blood, soil, industrial policy—as well as even more fringe movements such as the medieval romanticism of the Catholic integralists. Continue Reading...

Integralism’s biggest fallacy

Recently, conservative circles have seen a sharp uptick in support for “Integralism.” Integralism is the belief that “the state should officially endorse the Catholic faith and act as the secular arm of the Church by punishing heresy among the baptized and by restricting false religious practices if they threaten Catholicism,” according to Robert T. Continue Reading...

Lord Acton, Sohrab Ahmari, and the fragility of faith

People have been making some drastic changes to their lives to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. Some have taken this challenge as an opportunity to grow in wisdom. Others have been called to learn new skills, and still others are doing whatever they can to keep their bearings in a time of crisis. Continue Reading...

Sohrab Ahmari’s biggest mistake

The debate between Sohrab Ahmari and David French has sparked a useful conversation about the means and ends of liberty. In that discussion, both men make valid criticisms and both sometimes fall short, but a recent column by Ahmari reveals perhaps the most glaring error in his perspective. Continue Reading...

The ‘King of Israel’: The Caesar strategy or cultural renewal?

President Donald Trump ignited a national debate when he shared a comment referring to him by the messianic title of the “King of Israel.” Whatever this says about President Trump, it unintentionally revealed a great deal about Western Christians’ commitment to salvation by politics, and it brought to the surface a long-simmering question we must answer: Will we pursue cultural renewal through the sustained preaching and incarnation of the Gospel, or will we turn to a secular ruler for deliverance? Continue Reading...