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A subtle fallacy has been instilled into the minds of many Catholics: the venomous notion that a serious and profound spiritual life is difficult to reconcile, if not outright incompatible, with political commitment in defense of true principles and the right social order. This suggests, falsely, that individuals like Molle Lazo, the Venerable Luis de Trelles, Blessed José Manyanet and Francisco Palau, or Saint Joaquina de Vedruna, had compartmentalized their souls. It implies that they put their Carlist convictions in quarantine to avoid compromising their sanctity. In reality, the opposite is true. The Carlist saints knew that «the more universal the good, the more divine it is», and that the path to sanctity is closely aligned with the pursuit of the Common Good, not merely individual goods.
They were aware that the interior life is the soul of all apostolate. Yet they also understood, as Pius XI stated, that «the wider and more important the field in which one can work, the more imperative the duty». This includes «the domain of politics, which looks after the interests of society as a whole». Politics, therefore, is «the field of the most extensive charity, political charity, which we can say is surpassed only by religious charity».
Engagement with the City, however, must be driven by righteous intentions. Since it is possible to veer towards selfish purposes, political motives must be frequently examined and corrected. But this need for rectification is no different from what is required in other practical domains, even in dealing with objects that are not intrinsically good or evil. As Scripture teaches: «whether you eat or drink…». It is a basic and essential lesson that every human act (i.e., a deliberate act) is composed of the object, intention, and circumstances. Politics—being the practical science par excellence—does not escape this discernment.
The inane argument that we initially referred to, however, is often the result of a spiritualism that views the practice of faith as an intimate, non-transferable, and predominantly emotional «experience». Detached from the realities of the natural order, it ignores the fact that the Reign of Our Lord is not a vague eschatological notion. His Kingdom is a supernatural coronation of natural realities, both social and temporal, including political ones. His Reign extends not only over individual souls but over the entire universe, encompassing all men, who are by nature social and political beings.
These anti-political temptations can even be found in nominally traditionalist circles. Here, there is sometimes a failure to recognize that we are secondary causes in the restoration and establishment of all things in Christ. We possess all natural means, especially political ones, however modest our ability to apply them may be at present. In such circles, it is not uncommon to encounter a defeatist attitude that splits the liturgical tradition from the political tradition. This mindset often relies almost exclusively on divine intervention, the imminent or near Parousia, or the organization of purely devotional events. Such attitudes fall under the worn-out slogan «religion unites, politics divides» and sometimes lead to the construction of «tradi-ghettos». These so-called ghettos, by the way, have nothing traditional about them and a lot that is Americanized.
Another highly effective method of steering Catholics away from their political duties is the «testimonial» distortion of the lay mission. This reduces their role to mere testimony of life, with prior acceptance of the liberal and pluralistic assumptions of democracy. In this view, the believer’s task is to contribute the plus of solidarity, of Christian «proposals» and «values» to improve the existing regimes, which are considered accidental or even desirable. This is where we encounter familiar Catholic slogans: Catholics in public life, Catholics in democracy, Catholics for life, Catholics for freedom, and so on.
In this conceptual framework, we also find a tendency to dilute the Church’s social doctrine into economic terms. This approach strips the Church’s social doctrine of its core, which is deeply counter-revolutionary. It isolates moral-economic teachings from political teachings, reducing their demands, while sidelining «ancient» documents that unequivocally express the Christian response to the modern world, as Miguel Ayuso explains.
In this context, the aim to restore a Christian political order, with all its consequences, is abandoned. The belief that the era of Christendom has passed leads to an unwillingness to even challenge modern false principles. Instead, the focus shifts from rebuilding Catholic politics—dismissed as Constantinian—to ensuring the mere presence of «Catholics in politics». These individuals are expected to influence various political parties and ideological options offered to the citizen-individual. The individual, viewed as the material pole of man, is expected to safeguard the absolute freedom of conscience that allows them to relate to God in whatever manner they please. This freedom comes without mediation or hindrance, enabling individuals to choose any product from the religious supermarket.
In this marketplace of religious freedom, Catholic offerings must also be displayed—albeit with doctrinal and moral concessions imposed by marketing strategies or the State itself. In this religious supermarket, governed only by the ever-changing «public order», Catholics are expected to influence others equally, alongside other (pseudo-)religious or irreligious beliefs.
These are the demands of «positive secularism». Unlike the outdated, harsh secularism of the French Revolution, positive secularism reinforces modernity as it transitions into its weaker phase. It abandons the sacrality of political power and society. While the old secularism sharply separated Church and State—harassing the former but leaving it recognizable—the new secularism dissolves Catholic specificity into the pluralistic magma of freedom of thought. It shapes the forma mentis of Catholics themselves, starting with the hierarchy. Moreover, this presumed freedom is granted only to believers as individuals. As John Rao points out, «any attempt by the Church to exercise its own freedom to maintain a social authority is perceived as an attack» on the liberal freedom of Americanism. Americanism is radically individualistic and does not conceive of an authentically communal practice of faith that informs both public and private aspects of the social order.
On the other hand, this freedom of each individual believer allows factions to multiply within the Church and prevents it from exerting significant influence in the public sphere.
A Church that acts «pragmatically» in such a society is destined to become no more than the impotent Catholic branch of the pluralist American church. Despite appeals to the freedom that Christians supposedly share with other confessions, the problem lies in the fact that this (false) freedom is granted to us as citizens, not as practitioners of the One True Religion. As José Luis Widow points out, modern thinkers, along with personalists, Christian-democrats, and Americanists, fail to recognize that «the privatization of the Catholic religion completely distorts it. Therefore, it is not allowed to be practiced as it conceives itself».
Confined to individual consciences, the Catholic religion becomes «something else». Its practice is essentially and radically communal, meaning that it is, by nature, political.
Julián Oliaga, Círculo Cultural Alberto Ruiz de Galarreta
Translated by the Gremio San Jerónimo
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