Integralism
Integralism (more rarely: integrism ) describes a worldview that focuses on a religiously motivated interpretation of the complex reality of life in contemporary civilization.
Word meaning
The term is derived from the Latin integratio (to create a whole). The ending ismus indicates a teaching. Some might want to give the meaning of the restoration of a previous wholeness to the future, based on regeneration or Renouveau catholique . In some languages, integralism denotes religious-political fundamentalism . Hence the political usage of the word in connection with fascism , especially for a Brazilian right-wing extremist movement (Ação Integralista Brasileira).
Integralism in the Roman Catholic Church
The German word Integralismus is derived from the French intégrisme . The term describes the mentality of those church forces who wanted to continue the defensive struggle of the papacy against modernism . It was particularly influenced by its critics in the first half of the 20th century. The introduction of the anti-modernist oath by Pope Pius X. in 1910 and its abolition by Pope Paul Vl. 1967 apply. Particularly zealous anti-modernists called themselves catholiques integraux (holistic Catholics). The movement was also fed by an unease against the “decadence” of the fin de siècle , against increasing consumerism and materialism , against rapid technical progress and against rapid social changes, which are collectively referred to as secularization .
The term integralism probably first appeared in an official church text in 1947, when Cardinal Emmanuel Suhard (Paris) warned in his circular Essor ou déclin de l'Église : “ L'essor exigeait d'exclure deux opinions unilaterales, antagonistes et contradictoires - le modernisme et l'integrisme - pour tracer une voie médiane, seul orthodoxe. »(Circular upswing or decline of the church , German:“ The upswing requires two one-sided, contradicting and contradicting opinions to be excluded, modernism and integralism, in order to choose a mediating, solely orthodox path. ”) Integralism thus became the counter-term to modernism understood and therefore remained unclear in its definition.
In 1980, during a trip to Paris and Lisieux , Pope John Paul II mentioned two tendencies in a speech to French bishops on June 1, 1980, which he viewed as misinterpretations of the Catholic faith: « Il s'agit ici de deux tendances bienconnues ; le progressisme et l'intégrisme. »(German:“ These are two well-known tendencies, progressism and integralism. ”) Also in an address to the Jesuits on February 27, 1982, John Paul II warned against progressism and integralism at the same time. Finally, the term appears in a brief papal statement on the European constitutional project of February 16, 2003, now in a political context. In it, John Paul II warns against ideological secularism and sectarian integralism. Already Oswald von Nell-Breuning had modernism and fundamentalism called two implementations of the same denial of the supernatural character of the Church.
Today the word integralism in ecclesiastical usage denotes, in a narrower sense, the mentality of particularly strict followers of the Catholic tradition. These reject that of Pope John XXIII. initiated the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) in whole or in part because the council replaced the defensive struggle against modernist tendencies with an indifferent stance. The "Council Church" (named after a quote from Archbishop Giovanni Benelli ) is in opposition to the true Catholic religion.
The advocates of integralism justify their position by emphasizing the continuity of certain expressions of the ecclesiastical magisterium , particularly of the 19th century, with the tradition of the “Church of all times”. In particular, sentences 15-18 and 77-80 of the papal syllabus errorum of 1864 and the anti-modern tendency of the encyclical Pascendi of 1907 serve them as the outline of a Catholic worldview , whose anti-liberal, anti-democratic and anti-ecumenical traits are interpreted as belonging to the unchangeable revealed truth.
Integralism in Politics
Main article: Integral nationalism
Charles Maurras in particular formulated the philosophical roots of political integralism . On the German side, Carl Schmitt conceived similar ideas. Integralism outlines a Catholicism in which the claim to spiritual leadership of the papacy and the church at the same time includes responsibility for the ultimate decision on all non-church affairs. In this totality, however, the papacy itself has never defined its claim. The modern reinterpretation of the papacy as a political principle of Romanité , undertaken primarily by the anti-republican Action Française (whose mastermind was Maurras), was condemned by Pius X as early as 1914, although the doctrinal condemnations by Pope Pius XI were not until 1926 . announced and supplemented.
literature
- Paul VI et la modernité dans l'Église . Volume 72. École française de Rome, 1984.
- Émile Poulat: L'Église c'est un monde . Paris 1986.
- Philippe Levillain (ed.): Dictionnaire historique de la papauté . Paris 1994.
- Achille Ratti - Pape Pie XI . Rome 1996.
- Jacques Maritain : The Farmer from the Garonne. An old layman worries. Kösel, Munich 1969 (Original: Le Paysan de la Garonne, 1966), p. 163 f. (Criticism)